FRISCO, Texas – After the Cowboys' loss to the Giants in Week 1, defensive tackle Quinnen Williams said in the locker that Dallas' defense needs to "be critical in our approach" when they prepared for their home opener against the Commanders in Week 2.

As one of the four captains of the 2026 Cowboys it falls on Williams to be one of the main voices in the defensive room when it comes to being accountable for their performance to open the season. That starts with him being critical of himself.

"I think I did decent, man, but the player that I am, man, I can do more," Williams said. "The group that we have, we can do more. The player I am, I can do more. I could be more disruptive in the backfield; I can be more disruptive when it comes down to gap and a half and making plays and different things like that.  I just watch the film, learn and grow from it."

Does Williams feel pressure to be dominant every week because of the player he is?

"No, not at all man," Williams said. "Can't nobody in this world hold me accountable more than I hold myself. Can't nobody in this world critique me more than myself. So I expect to be dominant every single week, I expect to be a playmaker or a game changer every single week. I wasn't that, and I got to do better."

One area Williams feels he can change the game more? Punching the football out, which he did on Sunday night and was one of four forced fumble Dallas caused. It was the only one of the four that lead to a turnover after the Giants recovered the other three.

"Just being intentional," Williams said of how he was able to make the play. "Intentional on it, knowing that the runner wasn't going to see me, and knowing that every single time I get a chance to punch out the ball, eventually one's going to come out."

After calling for accountability and self-reflection following the game, Williams has seen his defensive counterparts take the right approach in the week leading up Washington, where they hope to remedy some of their execution and communication miscues.

"I think it's unbelievable man," Williams said. "When it comes down to holding each other accountable, when it comes down to leaning on each other for what we can do better, how we can do it better, what we need to do better, and like I said, just moving on."

One of the areas that the Cowboys struggled in Week 1 was against the quarterback run game, with Jaxson Dart rushing for 54 yards on 11 carries. On Sunday, they'll take on Jayden Daniels, who has been dynamic with his legs early in his NFL career.

"He's extremely dangerous," Williams said of Daniels. "They've got two receivers over there that're really good, and they've got a run game that's good also. I just think especially learning from what we did last week and growing and executing and communicating is a big thing for this week also."

In a way, defending against Dart and some of the zone reads the Giants ran last Sunday could end up helping Dallas defend against Daniels and Ravens QB Lamar Jackson next week, according to Williams.

"Having that in Week 1 where we, let's say, we didn't execute the zone read correctly on  Sunday, it's a big learning [moment] for this week, because the next two weeks are going to be zone read also," Williams said. "So like I said, a lot of stuff that we did during Week 1, we can fix. We can grow from it, we can learn from it, and just keep going throughout the season and just keep getting better."