The Dallas Cowboys are 2-4 through six games, adding reasons for failure and areas of blame faster than they can add wins to the dub column. Losing 23-13 at Lambeau Field on Sunday night to the Green Bay Packers, the Cowboys lost back-to-back games while failing to score at least 20 points in either of them (when both games were started by Dak Prescott) for the first time since 2019.
The loss puts the Cowboys at risk of potentially going a full calendar year without consecutive wins, last doing so in 2025 on November 17th and 23rd. Right now, this is the defining trend of the Brian Schottenheimer era, and the start of figuring out why this team is falling so short on lofty expectations yet again.
Every single team that made the playoffs a year ago had a winning streak of at least three games during their regular season, something Schottenheimer’s done exactly once. Twelve of the 14 teams had a streak of four games or longer. Both Super Bowl participants had the longest streaks in their respective conferences. The last three Cowboys teams to make the playoffs from 2021-23 had streaks of six games, four, and five. As obvious as it may be, there is evidence that measurable consistency is a tangible trait of teams that are contenders not pretenders.
All of us likely got ahead of ourselves wanting this team to end the two year playoff drought in 2026, but just showing any consistency would be keeping the horse in front of the cart.
Coach Schottenheimer got a bit of a pass on this metric at large from his debut season because Matt Eberflus’ defense was only consistently terrible, and never competitive. This does not excuse the Cowboys from not properly accounting for if Schotty could keep the offense consistently performing while they went “all in” on a defensive makeover, and now the organization is paying the cost of having more holes in the boat than patches - seeing the defense, offense, and special teams all have a hand in ugly losses.
More simply put, the Cowboys “run it back” approach to hyping up all 11 starters returning on offense as a huge positive is not working, and this is another thing we’ve seen before as fans. Whenever proper attention isn’t given to any one position group or facet of the game at large in the offseason, they regress to the point of being a problem.
To bring in another team for comparison on the “run it back” model, the Denver Broncos under Sean Payton are exhibiting that at a master-class level this season. Jaylen Waddle was literally their only significant offseason acquisition to add to the starting lineup on either side of the ball. The Broncos offense has struggled mightily, but have already made a play-caller change to go back to HC Sean Payton after OC Davis Webb started the year. The Cowboys have only given more and more votes of confidence towards the entire job Schottenheimer is doing, which has included calling the offense since day one even though he never did so as Mike McCarthy’s OC.
The Broncos also have a win against a really good Jaguars team on their record, a big comeback win against the Rams, and most recently beat the defending Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks. They’ve overcome obstacles and showed a fight to win the Cowboys just flat out don’t have right now.
The scope of just how much Brian Schottenheimer’s scheming, play-calling, and overall managing of the offense this season mattered in the big picture for this team does not feel like something that was handled well in the offseason. The low hanging fruit of a take on the job he did in these areas in 2025 was that everything offensively was under too much fire because of the horrid defense, so all things considered because of that he did alright.
Last time out, the Cowboys defense held the Packers to six points in the second half, and the Cowboys still abandoned the run game and didn’t make much noise in a comeback attempt.
The Cowboys offense banked on experience to be dominant in 2026, but they’re paying an ultimate cost right now for an underperforming head coach and play-caller dragging the entire ceiling this team has down in a division that’s never, ever been more winnable.
See More:
* [Dallas Cowboys coaching staff](/dallas-cowboys-coaching-staff)
* [Dallas Cowboys Roster](/dallas-cowboys-roster)