Dak Prescott and Brian Schottenheimer directly disagree with each other following Dallas Cowboys’ overtime loss to Cardinals
The Dallas Cowboys needed one first down to put away the Arizona Cardinals. Instead, a three-play sequence late in regulation is now at the center of the postgame conversation.
The Dallas Cowboys suffered a 33-30 overtime loss to the Arizona Cardinals, and the postgame message from the two most important voices on the offense didn’t line up. Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott and head coach Brian Schottenheimer saw the team’s late-game aggressiveness, or lack of it, in different ways.
It all comes back to one sequence in the fourth quarter.
Cowboys played it safe with the game on the line
Dallas led 27-24 with 2:11 left in regulation when it recovered Arizona’s onside kick. An illegal touch penalty on the Cardinals moved the ball to the Arizona 20. From there, the math was simple. Arizona had one timeout left. One first down, and the Cowboys could run out the clock.
Instead, Dallas went into conservative mode, to a fault.
On first-and-10, the Cowboys didn’t have George Pickens or CeeDee Lamb on the field. James Mitchell, Broderick Jones, and Brevyn Spann-Ford lined up at tight end, with Ryan Flournoy at receiver and Javonte Williams in the backfield. Prescott took the snap under center, and Dallas didn’t even try to hide the run. It went for no gain, and Arizona burned its last timeout.
On second-and-10, the Cowboys rolled out nearly the same look. Spann-Ford and Mitchell stayed in at tight end, Hunter Luepke replaced the sixth offensive lineman, and the lone receiver on the field was neither Lamb nor Pickens. Dallas called a play-action pass without its best playmakers on the field, and it ended in a sack for a six-yard loss.
On third-and-16, Lamb finally checked in. The Cowboys ran the ball anyway.
Dallas settled for a field goal to go up 30-24. Arizona responded with an eight-play, 80-yard touchdown drive to tie it at 30. The Cardinals should have won the game in regulation, but they missed the extra point. The Cowboys got new life in overtime and still couldn’t close it out.
Schottenheimer and Prescott see it differently
After the game, Schottenheimer was asked whether he was too conservative at times in the second half.
“I want to look at that,” the Cowboys head coach said. “I don’t necessarily think so. I mean, we wanted to try to get the running game going, and I thought they did some nice things, but I want to look at that. I didn’t feel that way out there. No.”
Prescott was asked specifically about the endgame sequence and whether he wanted more aggressiveness. The Cowboys quarterback disagreed with his coach.
“Yep, I wish we were a little bit more aggressive in that moment,” Prescott said.
To be fair, Prescott made it clear the blame for the loss doesn’t fall on Schottenheimer alone. He said it’s shared by the entire team.
Why Prescott has the better argument
If you ask me, Prescott’s stance makes a lot of sense, and I think most of the fan base will side with the quarterback. The offense slowed down as the game went on, and it struggled in the red zone and on third down. Still, it was producing. Dallas scored 30 points for a reason.
Meanwhile, the defense had just given up three consecutive touchdown drives. The first was a two-play drive capped by Tyler Allgeier breaking free for a 62-yard touchdown run. Then came a seven-play, 80-yard drive, followed by a six-play, 58-yard drive. All for touchdowns.
At that point, you put the game on your offense. You go get that first down with your $60 million quarterback and his elite wide receivers.
Leaning on the ground game made even less sense given how the day went. Dallas averaged 2.3 yards per attempt. Williams carried it 24 times and Tyler Goodson seven times, and both finished well below 2.5 yards per carry. The Cowboys ran it 39 times in total, though seven of those were Prescott scrambles.
And yet, how did Dallas open overtime? With a Williams run up the middle that went nowhere, the same place most of the previous runs went.
The endgame sequence wasn’t the only example of a lack of aggression, either. Backed up near their own end zone, the Cowboys ran a quarterback sneak on first down and then ran the ball again on third down. That’s about as conservative as it gets on a football field, and it ended in a three-and-out. On a third-and-6, Dallas called a screen pass and needed a roughing the passer penalty to bail it out.
This Cowboys team needs to be more aggressive. More importantly, it needs to be consistently aggressive.
Dallas is 3-5, and its playoff hopes are fading. The New York Giants are the favorites to win the division at 4-2-1.
The Cowboys better figure it out quickly.
