Blogging The Boys
The Dallas Cowboys visiting the New York Jets this Sunday afternoon is a homecoming of sorts for head coach Brian Schottenheimer. Although Schottenheimer started his coaching career nine years prior to joining the Jets as offensive coordinator in 2006,his stop with New York became his longest to that point, and was his first NFL coordinator position.
When Cowboys ownership, and in particular Jerry Jones, talked about their pride in being the first team to make a coaching lifer like Schottenheimer a first-time head coach, his more recent history already being on Mike McCarthy’s staff, and before that his time with Pete Carroll and the Seahawks is often what comes up. Going way back in the archives to his days with the Jets feels less relevant, and even with the Jets being this week’s opponent, the time for Schottenheimer to reminisce on this past with his current team sitting at 1-2-1 feels short.
For the most part, the Cowboys have done a good job looking like an overall focused and prepared team under Schottenheimer’s guidance so far, and will need to do exactly that to avoid a potentially season-breaking letdown game against the currently winless Jets. The Cowboys already had one such game in a “homecoming” scenario for defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus against the Bears, who will call plays against another one of his former quarterbacks Justin Fields making his fourth start for the Jets (missing week three) versus the Cowboys on Sunday.
While this will be one storyline to watch for a Cowboys defense that would welcome signs of progress against any opponent right now, the bigger key to coming out on top for their first of two possible wins at MetLife Stadium in 2025 rests in the hands of Schottenheimer. This brings us to our weekly look at what the Cowboys must do to get their first win at the Jets since 2003, and what would cost them their third road loss of the season.
Fully appreciating what the Cowboys offense did last Sunday night against the Packers was made unfortunately difficult by their defense allowing 40 points, making it the first time in over a decade the Cowboys didn’t win a game by scoring 40 themselves. Even with another letdown defensively, there were things to read between the lines as slight signs of progress on defense, but the progress on offense, even without CeeDee Lamb was much, much more tangible. The Cowboys’ offensive approach bodes well for their matchup against this Jets defense which has lost to Aaron Rodgers, Josh Allen, Baker Mayfield, and Tua Tagovailoa.
The Cowboys finding out that George Pickens is capable of stepping up as a WR1 against the Packers was one of the best things they did in the tie, but it was the offensive line that was even more depleted. Dallas had backups starting again at...
