FRISCO — First-year head coaches always have something new to address.
Brian Schottenheimer, the rookie head coach of the Cowboys, had to handle his first loss.
Do you take 24 hours before forgetting about it?
Do you yell and scream at the team?
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Get grumpy with the media?
Schottenheimer invoked a rule set by his father, an NFL coach, for 21 years.
“The rule I abide by is the midnight rule,” Schottenheimer said Monday as the Cowboys began preparations for their Week 2 opponents, the Giants. “That’s a Marty Schottenheimer rule. Midnight. And we didn’t get done playing until after midnight. His thing was always, ‘Hey, you play the game, you have until midnight to feel sorry for yourself or be excited. And then once midnight hits 12:01, you move on to the next opponent because there’s another great team coming in.’ ’’
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The Cowboys finished their season opener late Thursday night in Philadelphia and didn’t get back to Texas until after 4 a.m. early Friday morning. Schottenheimer didn’t get a chance to speak with his team, based on the NFL rules of giving players off days following a Thursday contest. So the players and coaches and anyone affiliated with the Cowboys had to stew on the loss a little longer than usual.
“I’d say it was a little bit tougher just because they did win the Super Bowl last year, and I feel like we were right there and we had them,” running back Javonte Williams said when asked about the difficulty of moving on. “That means we’ll see them again down the road.”
On Monday, after a review of the Eagles game, discussions about what went right and wrong, discussions about the game were over. It was time to focus on the Giants, who lost to the Commanders on Sunday in their season opener.
It took only one week for the Giants to have a controversy, as coach Brian Daboll had to reaffirm Russell Wilson as the starting quarterback on Monday.
Schottenheimer, a self-described football fan, watched the Giants-Commanders game, in addition to other games. (Yes, he watched the Packers-Lions contest.) It was part of the process of keeping it moving to the next game.
“[I was] sitting around watching football yesterday, the league is exactly where they want to be, you know,” he said. “Very good football teams, very close games and the parity is real. I really do believe that’s important. This one carries over a little bit just because of the fact that the league mandates you give the guys a couple of days off, so we had a touch-up today. We don’t shy away from having hard conversations or celebrating big wins. Yeah, like I said, the process is always the same.”
The Cowboys believe they could have stolen a game in Philly. With one of the Eagles’ better defensive players, Jalen Carter, ejected for spitting into the chest of quarterback Dak Prescott, and the defense shutting down top receiver AJ Brown, the possibility of a season-opening win was real.
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After a strong first half, where the Cowboys trailed 21-20 at halftime, they were shut out in the second half.
The Cowboys were their own worst enemy by dropping five passes, including one by tight end Jake Ferguson in the end zone, which drew a penalty. On the next play, running back Miles Sanders turned the ball over on a fumble at the Eagles’ 10.
Schottenheimer pointed out the good, bad and ugly of the loss. And that was met with a positive influence from his team.
“It was huge, obviously we didn’t get the outcome we wanted,” center Cooper Beebe said of Schottenheimer’s chat. “We knew we left a lot of stuff out there and I think that was the biggest disappointment of it all. You go out and you score on every drive in the first half and then don’t put up any points on the board. When the defense gives you opportunities and obviously, it stings, it’s Week 1, to take a loss like that. It’s a long season and they always say you can never let a game beat you twice, and I think that was really the message.”
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