“The Super Bowl next year is Feb. 14, 2027, in SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, and we plan on being there.” Brian Schottenheimer knew he was setting the bar high. With a rebuilt defense to back up Dak Prescott, the head coach believed in the team’s ambitions. But eight weeks into the season, plenty of fans are ready to hit the panic button.
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After the ugly 33-30 overtime loss to the Cardinals, calls to fire Schottenheimer are at an all-time high. Jerry and Stephen Jones’ decision to keep him has been debated, and now Troy Aikman has joined the conversation, surprisingly siding with the Joneses!
Appearing on Dallas sports radio station 96.7 The Ticket, Aikman cut through the noise surrounding Schottenheimer’s job security. Rather than feed the public panic, the three-time Super Bowl champion acknowledged the pressure around Schottenheimer.
“Obviously this is not where anyone envisioned they would be, so they’re talking about a lot of things they didn’t anticipate they would be talking about, but that’s kind of life in the NFL. I know these last couple of weeks have been tough on everybody and certainly tough on Brian Schottenheimer as well with a lot of questions he’s had to answer,” Aikman said, per Joseph Hoyt’s post on X.
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has held firm on keeping Schottenheimer, and Stephen Jones doubled down on that approach during his Monday appearance on 105.3 The Fan’s “K&C Masterpiece.” He rejected knee-jerk decisions, explaining, “I don’t think you just say, hey, you fire somebody just to send a message. The only way to fix all that and cure it is to go win a football game and hopefully put it behind you.”
We weren’t surprised that Aikman isn’t keen on seeing Schottenheimer fired. He hasn’t been happy with how the Cowboys have handled past coaching changes. Whether it was Jason Garrett’s exit or Mike McCarthy’s, Aikman has held the same stance, as he once explained:
“It hasn’t always mattered who the head coach has been. So to me, if you’re asking me, I’d say there has to be a complete overhaul of the entire organization. You can’t just simply replace head coaches and say, ‘Now it’s going to be better.’ No, it’s been shown that it’s not better.”
This time, with the Joneses backing Schottenheimer, Aikman believes a single win could change the team’s fortunes. “The only way to fix all that and cure it is to go win a football game and hopefully put it behind you,” he said on The Ticket.
On paper, that sounds too simple. But Aikman’s point goes beyond improving the record, and he knows that from experience.
At the start of the 1990 season, Aikman was coming off a tough rookie year. The former No. 1 overall pick was leading a team that had gone 1-15 the season before. And they were in the exact same position the Cowboys are in now: 3-5 after Week 8. But it took just one win to get the team back into contention. That came in Week 11 against the Rams in Anaheim.
That win sparked a four-game winning streak, and the Cowboys finished 7-9. Aikman had felt like he’d hit rock bottom until then, but the streak changed something, as he admitted back in August.
“Fortunately, shortly thereafter, we got on a four-game winning streak that put us in position to potentially make the playoffs, and we ended up losing the last two games. I separated my shoulder in the second-to-last game of the year.”
In the years that followed, the Cowboys won three Super Bowls under two different coaches, and it all started with that streak.
Schottenheimer isn’t Jimmy Johnson, and Prescott isn’t Aikman, but there’s a deeper point here. All it takes is one win for a team to turn its fortunes around, one where everyone works together and gets across the finish line.
Right now, the Cowboys look sloppy at times, making costly mistakes that add up over the course of a game. Schottenheimer knows it and has taken responsibility. “I’m responsible for everything that happens here. Our execution has to be cleaner. We have to be able to put some of these close games away that we’ve unfortunately let slip away from us. And that comes down to execution.”
A clean game could be the start of a turnaround. We’re not talking about a miracle run, just clean games the team can win comfortably. And Dallas has a chance to do that this weekend.
The Cowboys head to Lucas Oil Stadium to face the 2-6 Indianapolis Colts on Sunday. The Week 9 matchup arrives right before the NFL trade deadline, and if Dallas wants to keep its playoff hopes alive, it needs a bounce-back road win.