[ad_1]
The Dallas Cowboys lost to the Denver Broncos 44-24 on Sunday at Empower Field at Mile High in Denver.
Here’s everything Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer said to the media after the loss:
On what he felt the biggest issue was today
“When you look at it, I’m not just going to start with the defense. I don’t think any of us coached or played well enough. We knew we’d have to come in and own the line of scrimmage. They started up front. You’ve got to give Denver a lot of credit. I think they moved us around pretty good, had some big, explosive runs, and that’s hard. I told the guys, I said, ‘Look, it’s one game. We did not play well, we did not coach well, we’re going to get right back to work tonight, and if you let it bleed over into two and three games, then that means you’re not a competitor because this happens in this league.’”
On the missed opportunities for points
“[There was] a chance for sudden change. We had the turnover right away. We’re down there on the half-yard line. I didn’t see the penalty, but the discipline has to be better. I felt like there was four or five presnap penalties in the first half that definitely hurt us. You come into a tough place to play like this, you have to do a great job of having the discipline, and you’ve got to score touchdowns in the red zone because there’s big momentum gains that happens when you do that. Unfortunately, we did not do that. I thought the guys fought, I thought they battled, but at the end of the day, we did not coach or play well enough today to beat a good football team.”
On if QB Dak Prescott’s felt pressure to score points before halftime when he threw an interception
“I think we all felt it. It was one of those deals when it was hard to get into rhythm a little bit. They played us two-man, and he had a chance to go down the middle on ‘Fergie’ [tight end Jake Ferguson] and it was, I think, the rookie [Broncos cornerback Jahdae] Barron kind of looked back and got it, but I don’t think so. At the end of the day, Dak’s done a great job of trying to say each play is its own. I don’t think that. We have to win the takeover battle. We didn’t do that. We’ve been doing that really, really well. You have the one right before the half, and you have the other one down there late when we’re fighting our butts off trying to get back in it. That’s not who we are, but no, I don’t think they had him pressing or anything like that.”
On the matchups
“We feel like we can play with anybody, no matter how the game goes. We really do. Again, unfortunately, today we did not capitalize. I really do think the first drive that we had, I think we need to come away with seven there. That was disappointing that we didn’t. But again, this is a good football team, I’m talking about us, that did not play very well today. We didn’t coach very well today. I wasn’t very good today. I don’t think ‘Flus’ [Cowboys defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus] thinks he was very good today. [Cowboys offensive coordinator] Klayton [Adams] doesn’t think he was very good today. We’ll look at it. We’re going to look at it on the plane, and we’ve got the extra day this week to get ready for Arizona, and that’s what we’re going to do. That’s what good teams do. I told the guys that. I said, ‘Good teams, they look at it, they look in the mirror.’ Adversity is a good thing, and no one likes to lose. It’s a humbling league when you come in here, and you play a good football team and you kind of get beat the way we did, but get back to work.”
On being a 3-4-1 team
“I see us every day. I do see us every day, I see what we’re capable of. Here’s the word that’s coming back again, consistency. We’re not very consistent, and we have to be more consistent. Last week, we did a great job stopping the run. Tonight, we didn’t. Therein lies a problem. [The] last couple of games, we’ve been protecting the football, which has given us a chance. Tonight, we didn’t. I think we’re a talented football team. I know we have things to get better at and improve on, but I do think we’re a good football team, and we played a good football team tonight and didn’t play well. So again, I’m going to give them credit, and they deserve it.”
On how to create consistency
“There’s no magic pill. You work, you emphasize practice, you emphasize the things that you need to work on and improve. There’s going to be quite a few of those things. I think penalties. We’ve been actually too consistent having penalties over the last couple games. We need to tighten that up. That’s a discipline thing we need to do a better job of as coaching staff. Again, we’re sitting in this position at 3-4-1, we’ve got one more game before the bye [week], and again, I think that we’ll make a lot of progress over this week and bounce back because if you don’t bounce back in this league, then it goes the other way. You want to have streaks of wins, but you also don’t want to have streaks of losses. We’ll have a hell of a week of practice, and we’ll clean up the things we’ve got to clean up.”
On how to keep the team positive
“Be honest. I said to them, ‘If anybody feels like you coached or played well today, raise your hand,’ and there was not a single hand that went up. I said, ‘OK, I agree with that.’ I said, ‘We have to learn from it. We have to fix it.’ We got beat up a little bit today, and there’s a bunch of moving parts. We’re throwing guys in there on defense a little bit late, and they were attacking a few guys. The biggest thing you do is you be honest. I’m never going to lie to these guys. I’m not. That’s not who I am as a man. I’m going to always hold myself accountable. I’m always going to look at myself first. Like I said, adversity in this league is not a bad thing. The adversity is bad if it affects you and if you begin to point fingers and what about this and that. Our guys won’t do that. Again, we go back to the culture. The culture of this team is great. Those guys played hard. I’m proud of [QB] Joe Milton. Joe Milton went in there, mop-up duty, played well. [Wide receiver] Jalen Tolbert, a guy that’s fighting his butt off for more playing time, makes a great catch. That’s who we are as a football team from a culture standpoint, but we have to play better, we have to execute better, we have to coach better, we have to call better plays. We’ll get started on here in about an hour on the plane.”
On the presnap penalties
“We need to look at it. I want to see the play. I want to see the first one. I don’t know, I think that it’s a lot of places, it’s a tough environment. They’ve got a very good home record here, and we know that. That’s not surprising, but no excuses. We’ve got to look at it and figure it out, but we’re better than five presnap penalties in the first half and very costly penalties in a couple of those areas.”
On if he would consider taking away playing time for committing penalties
“Absolutely. Penalties happen in this league. This crew that did our game today they have a history of calling a lot of penalties. Like I said last week, I was upset about some of the penalties last week, and I went back and I looked at them and they were penalties. We’re off the field on defense on third down and we’re offside. That’s a discipline thing. That’s something that needs to be looked at. Again, when you play on the edge, that’s going to happen from a combative standpoint, but not lining up offside, not false starting on the half-yard line, you can’t do that. You have to be more disciplined now. Again, everything will be evaluated. I can promise you that. Everything will be evaluated, from the penalties to the calls that we made, to players, everything. That’s what we do, and we do that after we win. It’s no different. The process stays the same.”
On if he considered going for it on fourth down on the second drive of the third quarter
“I did. We moved the ball down the opening drive. Ran down, got the touchdown, and we thought about it. That drive was a little bit junkie, if I’m being honest with you. I felt like, OK, let’s try to pin them back. We thought maybe momentum could switch a little bit, but it was discussed. We decided to punt it, and you’ve got to live with those decisions.”
On putting cornerback Trevon Diggs on injured reserve
“After visiting with the medical staff, we felt that the best interest of the team and Trevon was to get him back healthy. He missed last game; he was going to miss this game. He’s not through phase one yet of concussion protocol. The knee has been problematic throughout the season, and there’s been games where it’s been like, hey, can he play, can he not? He’s a really good player, and we just want to get him back and get him healthy and be able to help us finish strong, because we feel like this thing’s going to come down to the end of the season because it’s a very competitive league.”
On owner Jerry Jones saying that Diggs needs to get in shape
“You’re limited. There’s certain things you can’t do when you’re limited with that. Trevon’s going to work his butt off to get back. He loves playing the game, and I have no question in my mind that he’ll do everything to get back. Part of the deal is it’s not just us, it’s him, it’s the training staff. There’s a lot of players like that right now, because I haven’t gotten all the injury reports. I’ll get that on the plane, and when I get back in the locker room, but we got pretty beat up today.”
On if a trade will improve the defense
“I think at the end of the day, we have good enough players. I think we did not play well tonight. I know we didn’t get enough pressure on the quarterback. That’s very evident from watching, but we did a good job in some pass protection things offensively. Again, it comes down to owning the line of scrimmage, and we wanted to establish the run, which we struggled a little bit. They certainly owned the line of scrimmage in the run game against our defense and same thing from a pass protection standpoint. When we talk about keys to victory, those are the things we have to do. We have to execute in those areas, and unfortunately, it was not to the standard that we need it to be.”
On if the lack of consistency frustrates him
“I think it frustrates all of us. Again, I said it, and [a reporter] asked the question, ‘Why do you think you’re a good football team?’ I think we have talent. We have weapons. We can score against anybody in the league. We’ve showed people we can play good run defense and we can do those things. You’d be crazy, I’d be lying, if I said you don’t get frustrated. We’re better than that, but we didn’t play good today. You don’t get on the plane and not turn on your iPad and you don’t start pointing fingers at everybody else. And you don’t say, oh, that’s Klayton Adams’ fault. That’s [expletive]. It starts with me, and coordinators and players have to do their part, and we will do that.”
On what the issue is with the defensive performance
“There’s been a lot of moving parts. We’re playing a lot of different pieces. All of a sudden, you got guys in there. We’re shuffling people around and the green dot changes and all that stuff. Again, we’ve taken a couple big steps in different weeks about stopping the run and stopping the pass and not giving up big plays, and obviously on offense, we’ve got tremendous amount of weapons. [Running back] Javonte [Williams] is talented. Dak is who he is and is an incredible player that gives us a chance to win, and he is always out to get the most out of those guys and continue to put them in the right spots to play.”
On why he didn’t target certain players on the Broncos’ defense when players were out
“No, we didn’t. Yeah, we went after 21 [Broncos cornerback Riley Moss] a bunch tonight, and [wide receivers] CeeDee [Lamb] and George [Pickens] had 19 and eight targets, or something like that. We got a lot of defensive pass interference penalties, but believe me, we went after him. The one guy that we didn’t really get a chance to get after was the nickel, 29 [Broncos cornerback Ja’Quan McMillian], that was the one guy, but I do feel like we tried to go after corners pretty good and the yardage won’t show as much because there were some PI [pass interference] penalty stuff.”
On why they didn’t throw to Pickens on their first trip to the red zone
“I don’t remember this specific play. Did he throw it to CeeDee? There’s progressions. It sounds easy and simple, and I understand that, but there was a certain route combination, now I remember the play. There’s a route combination that thought was a better look on the front side, and I’m never going to doubt that he’s going to make those decisions. When you’re blessed to have two guys like that, it’s easy to second-guess and say, ‘Well, throw it to GP. So what, are we going to take CeeDee out of the offense now? That’s not a good idea either, so the ball is going to get spread around, and they did a good job, give them credit. They made the plays they had to make, and we did not. That’s what this league does to you.”
On if the Broncos defended the bootlegs differently
“They play a real wide, contained defense. They don’t line up wider than the widest. That’s how they call it in this defense. Man, [defensive coordinator Vance] Joseph’s a hell of a coach, and they had a great plan. Yes, they do. They play some of the boots and move a little bit different than most people, and boots going to Ferguson is a big part of what we want to do, and sometimes the ball doesn’t find those guys.”
This story was originally published October 26, 2025 at 11:30 PM.
[ad_2]
Jim Barnes
Source link