{"id":995749,"date":"2026-09-09T04:06:26","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T04:06:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/995749\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T04:06:26","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T04:06:26","slug":"can-cowboys-win-end-of-season-awards-in-2026-nfl-execs-share-thoughts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/995749\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Cowboys win end-of-season awards in 2026? NFL execs share thoughts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/sports\/cowboys\/\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Dallas Cowboys<\/a> have high expectations heading into the 2026 regular season.<\/p>\n<p>Fowler had two Cowboys winning awards by the end of the campaign. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/sports\/cowboys\/article\/caleb-downs-smarts-cowboys-nfl-rookie-impact-22416383.php\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Caleb Downs<\/a> was his prediction for Defensive Rookie of the Year, while <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dallasnews.com\/topic\/brian-schottenheimer\/\" data-link=\"native\" class=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Brian Schottenheimer<\/a> was the pick for Coach of the Year.<\/p>\n<p>Fowler touted Downs&#8217; ability to be a versatile weapon in the Cowboys&#8217; revamped defense. According to an AFC executive, Downs could have a direct impact on the defense&#8217;s performance after a tough 2025.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He will play in the middle of the defense, so he will probably have some ball production and high tackle numbers,&#8221; the AFC executive told Fowler. &#8220;And if he helps turn around Dallas&#8217; defense, he&#8217;ll be looked at as a catalyst.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>What about Schottenheimer&#8217;s award chances? Fowler said there was no runaway favorite for the Coach of the Year award, and he admitted Schottenheimer would be a &#8220;wild card&#8221; to win it.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think Dak [Prescott] will have a big year; we know they can score; and the defense should be much improved,&#8221; an NFC scout told Fowler. &#8220;If they stay healthy, they have a good chance to win the\u00a0NFC East.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The\u00a0Dallas Cowboys have high expectations heading into the 2026 regular season. Fowler had two Cowboys winning awards by&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":910440,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1101,7,6,126603,115985,115810,115811],"class_list":["post-995749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-article","tag-football","tag-nfl","tag-tp-caleb-downs","tag-tp-dallas-cowboys","tag-tp-brian-schottenheimer","tag-tp-nfl"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117239112271944519","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/995749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=995749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/995749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/910440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=995749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=995749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=995749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}