FRISCO, Texas — Eight games into the 2026 season, the Dallas Cowboys have failed to register a two-game win streak. It has been the definition of a roller coaster ride for the team to the midseason point, suffering a fourth-quarter collapse against the Arizona Cardinals at home only six days after manhandling the Philadelphia Eagles on the road.
It was an 'indictment of the whole show," as owner, president and general manger Jerry Jones viewed it.
They fell 33-30 in overtime in Week 8, another gut-wrenching loss that adds to the question of if the Cowboys will ever establish, and keep, any sort of momentum with the amount of opportunities to get things turned around rapidly diminishing.
"We look at every opponent, every game we play, and we try to find the same thing: the good, better and the how," said head coach Brian Schottenheimer. "That's what we identified, were the things we did good. I thought this game was a tale of two halves. … We had the lead coming out of halftime, but we weren't able to finish the game.
"I always have real conversations with those guys, and the word I keep coming up with as I look at is 'consistency.'"
It was a defensive master class in the first half, sacking Jacoby Brissett multiple times, forcing a fumble in the defensive backfield and grabbing an interception as well, but things changed wildly when Brissett was benched for Gardner Minshew.
Minshew was pressured only one-third of the time (versus > 50% pressure rate on Brissett) en route to tossing three passing touchdowns while running back Tyler Allgeier aided with an explosive 147-yard showing once Jeremiyah Love exited due to injury. When Minshew entered the game, the Cardinals had a four percent chance of winning, per NextGen Stats.
And the only lead they held was when they kicked the game-winning field goal in overtime.
"We've got good players, and we have to play more consistently," said Schottenheimer. "That's a word that I believe in, and how do you do that? Well, you gotta go back to work. You gotta do little things right. You gotta focus on the details.
"I thought yesterday's game is a great example of how you can play really well for three quarters, but if you don't find a way to put the game away in the fourth quarter, in this league, it will come up and bite you."
The defensive collapse aside, Schottenheimer's offense has also found themselves in a rut in three of the past four games.
Though the final ticker read 30 points for the Cowboys, it was rough sledding to get to that point due to a myriad of issues that included a poor showing by the offensive line and an inability to move the chains when they needed it most (such as on the offensive possession in overtime that actually went backwards in yardage).
There were also critical situations in which neither CeeDee Lamb nor George Pickens were on the field, both watching from the sideline at the same time, removing the Cowboys' top two offensive threats from the Cardinals' concerns.
On Monday, Schottenheimer explained that decision.
"There's certain personnel packages that they don't play in, and there's a reason for that," he said. "One of those was a touchdown to [Flournoy] early. Those guys are involved in different things, and that's why."
He then refocused the concentration on the fact that whoever is on the field has to deliver when their number is called, but also in how the coaching staff must take accountability as well for the 3-5 record heading into Week 9 — now 1-2 at AT&T Stadium this season with losses to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Arizona Cardinals.
"Yeah, you have to go out and make plays," he said. "You have to execute as a group, as a unit, as a coaching staff. You saw the momentum swing in their favor in the fourth quarter, and we went into overtime, the defense went out and did a great job getting the stop and, unfortunately, we weren't able to sustain a drive, and we expect to be able to do that."
