Dallas Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones said Sunday that Brian Schottenheimer’s job is not in jeopardy despite a collapse that dropped the team to 3-5, dismissing any talk of Schottenheimer job security concerns after a 33-30 overtime loss to the Arizona Cardinals. “That’s not in my mind at this time,” Jones said when asked about a potential coaching change.
The comment came minutes after Dallas blew a 14-point fourth-quarter lead at home, a collapse that matched the largest in franchise history. Jones made clear he viewed the meltdown as a team failure, not a coaching one.
The Main Development
Jones placed the blame for the loss on the roster as a whole rather than on his third-year head coach. “A lot of people let Brian down today and so for whatever criticism we want to have of Brian, we can all get in line,” Jones said.
He went further when asked whether Schottenheimer was personally responsible for the defeat. “It’s all of us. Don’t put the blame on one person.
Simple as that. I think that’s weak. I think that’s cowardly,” Jones said.
“The game is about all 11 that touch the field and every person that has a part in it, coaches and support staff. And so it’s never just one person’s fault.”
Jones added that the Cowboys need to show support for Schottenheimer going forward. “This is about us and it’s about us backing him up and backing one another up and we’ll have to show it,” he said.
What It Means For Schottenheimer Job Security
Jones’ remarks carry extra weight given his history. In his 37 years owning the Cowboys, he has made only one in-season head coaching change, firing Wade Phillips during a 1-7 start in 2010 and replacing him with Jason Garrett, who went on to coach the team full time from 2011 through 2019.
“I made a change and I don’t want to mention it because I’m not proud of it,” Jones said. “But I made a change with Wade Phillips there in the middle of the season and I don’t see that here.”
Schottenheimer is now 10-14-1 since taking over as Cowboys head coach. Jones’ decision to back him publicly, paired with his reluctance to repeat the 2010 move, suggests the owner is not weighing an in-season switch regardless of how Sunday’s loss looked on the field.
Context: A Historic Collapse
Dallas led 24-10 with 14:20 remaining in the fourth quarter after a 5-yard touchdown run by Dak Prescott. The Cowboys’ win probability peaked at 98.3% with 3:24 left while still holding a 10-point lead.
Before Sunday, Dallas was 202-0-1 at home when leading by 14 or more points in the fourth quarter, including playoff games, and 342-3-1 across franchise history in that situation overall. The only other comparable blown leads came against the New York Jets in 2011 and the Green Bay Packers in 2022.
The loss also made the Cowboys the first team in the NFL this season to lose after leading by at least 14 points in the fourth quarter. Every team in that spot had gone a combined 44-0-1 entering Sunday, according to ESPN.
Arizona’s win extended a lopsided recent stretch between the two teams. The Cowboys have lost eight of their last nine meetings with the Cardinals and have never beaten Arizona at AT&T Stadium, a drought that dates to 2017.
Team Impact
Schottenheimer framed the response as his job to deliver, not to deflect. “I only know how to do it one way and that’s the work. I’m a worker, I’m a problem solver,” he said.
“I think we got guys in there in that locker room that are problem solvers. We have guys in there that want to be great. We got guys that believe in what we’re doing as a football team in all three phases and they’re hurting.
They’re hurting right now too. And so as a leader, I’m going to stand in front and hit them with the truth.”
One unidentified voice inside the organization called the collapse “an indictment of the whole show,” according to ESPN, a description that lines up with Jones’ insistence that the failure belongs to the entire roster rather than the coaching staff alone.
What’s Next
At 3-5, Dallas sits behind the 4-2-1 New York Giants in the NFC East race. The Cowboys have already made in-season changes on the defensive side, hiring Mike Pettine to help a struggling unit, and Jones has said he remains open to trade deadline moves as the team looks to stop the slide. No further public comments on Schottenheimer’s status have followed Sunday’s news conference.
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