Brian Schottenheimer’s first year at the helm of the Cowboys was a very mixed bag of results. On its face, the season was a failure. A 7-9-1 finish.
It also was the backend of the Cowboys’ first time with consecutive losing seasons since the Dave Campo era. Of course, Campo was an early comparison after Schottenheimer was first promoted to head coach. Both had been with the team under the previous coach and worked their way up from a mere assistant to a coordinator that still largely deferred to their head coach.
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The initial feeling with Schottenheimer was that, much like how Campo was a familiar face that had seen success in Dallas, Jerry Jones knew what he was getting with Schottenheimer. It was the safe hire, not the smart hire. And many others insisted that Schottenheimer calling plays would be a major downgrade.
A year later, things have changed. Schottenheimer’s offense was electric, one of the best in the league, but they were completely let down by a miserable defense that led to a house cleaning on that side of the coaching staff and a very thorough roster overhaul.
Christian Parker comes in with youth, inexperience, but a background that suggests he’ll be an upgrade over Matt Eberflus. He also has the personnel to do it, with Caleb Downs being a tailor-made fit for the most crucial piece of Parker’s defense. All the new coordinator needs to do now is create a unit that sits around the league average. Anything better would obviously be welcome, but the bar sits very low.
At least in theory, that is.
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An average defense last year would have surely put the Cowboys in the playoffs. An average defense likely nets wins over the Packers, Panthers, and Vikings. Arguably the Lions and Cardinals as well. That’s three to five more wins, which gives the Cowboys double digits in the first column, in a year where Green Bay clinched the final playoff seed at 9-7-1.
The Cowboys offense was more than good enough to get the team to the postseason. The problem is the defense was more than bad enough to mitigate all of that. But while defensive improvement seems guaranteed – how could it be any worse? – there is certainly no guarantee that the offense remains as dominant.
In fact, there’s one glaring factor that threatens to derail the whole operation: the offensive line.
Let’s check the numbers. Last year, Dak Prescott had the third-most dropbacks under pressure in the league. Part of that was due to the high volume of dropbacks, due to the defense rarely preserving leads, but Prescott was still pressured on 36.2% of his dropbacks. And while many quarterbacks are responsible for a decent share of pressures and sacks, Pro Football Focus charted the Cowboys offensive line as being responsible for 85.1% of all pressures allowed, second-most in the league.
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Dallas also finished 20th in pass block win rate, which measures the rate of dropbacks where the entire line holds their blocks for at least 2.5 seconds, the average ideal time to throw. For context, Prescott averaged 2.82 seconds per throw, 15th out of 33 qualified passers.
The bulk of the problems stem from the tackles. Terence Steele led the league in pressures allowed with 52. Tyler Guyton clocked in at 33rd among tackles with 31 pressures, though he missed seven games on the year with an injury. The duo was one of just two tackle tandems to both finish in the top 15 of the league in pressure percentage; the other one was Cleveland, who finished 5-12 and fired their head coach.
The interior of the line was strong. Tyler Smith took another step forward and earned his third straight Pro Bowl; Tyler Booker was one of the most impressive rookie offensive linemen; and Cooper Beebe blossomed into a borderline top 10 center in the league.
The problem heading into 2026 is that this offensive line is one bad day away from calamity. And, by extension, so is the entire offense.
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Steele and Guyton were, at best, inconsistent in 2025. For far too often, their play was best described as egregious. Prescott is seasoned enough now to be able to mitigate some of it, between his quick trigger and scramble ability, but as the years pile up, his escapability withers away slowly but surely.
At 28 years old, Steele is pretty much a known commodity. There exists room for him to grow, but it seems unlikely that Steele is going to drastically improve from what he’s been for several years now. Guyton is very much still growing, but he’s also coming off an injury. It’s reasonable to expect continued instability on the edges of the offensive line this year.
That’s two fifths of the line to be worried about. Then there’s the existential threat of regression on the inside. What if Booker has a sophomore slump, or Beebe’s ascension last year was more dependent on the players around and across from him than his own individual development?
And what happens if there’s an injury?
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Depth has been an issue in the Cowboys’ trenches for several years now, and 2026 is no different. If the season started today, Nate Thomas is probably the swing tackle. T.J. Bass would be the top guard reserve. Beyond that, though?
Brock Hoffman is out, replaced by journeyman Matt Hennessy. Drew Shelton is a high-upside rookie out of Penn State, but likely too raw to be counted on for meaningful snaps early this year. Trevor Keegan and Ajani Cornelius had their moments in the preseason last year, but counting on them for reliable depth this year is scraping the bottom of the barrel.
If Schottenheimer and offensive coordinator Klayton Adams – himself an offensive line coach by trade – are smart coaches, they already know all this. And they’ll likely have spent much of the offseason figuring out ways to better mask the deficiencies of their offensive line than they did last year, when tricky game situations forced them to rely on Prescott wearing a cape.
Having said that, there’s only so much that can be done with X’s and O’s before it rests in the hands of the Jimmy’s and the Joe’s. And if there’s one glaring Achilles heel for this offense heading into 2026, it lies squarely in the trenches.
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