FRISCO, Texas – For the love of me, it's time. It's past time.
Time for this Cowboys defense to be defensive. Time to let its hair down. Be aggressive. Quit trying to play catch-up out there. Attack.
And no time better than Sunday night against the 3-2 Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field, where the Packers have dominated the Cowboys on the iconic turf, though not to be frozen this time around. Green Bay has beaten the Cowboys 10 of 12 times in Lambeau, from the franchise's very start in 1960 through 2022, which was a 31-28 Packers victory in overtime, the Cowboys squandering a 28-14 lead after three quarters, another chapter in the strange history up there.
Why not come out with aggression? What does this defense have to lose? The numbers, the rankings, are atrocious five games into the 2026 season.
The Cowboys rank 31st in total defense, giving up 395.4 yards a game.
Rank 32nd in opponent yards per play at 6.4.
Rank 32nd in rushing yards per game, 168.4.
Rank 29th in rushing yards per play, 5.1
Rank 30th in passing yards per play, 8.1.
Dead last with no interceptions, and a carryover from last year, now just one in the past 12 games.
Dead last in third-down efficiency, 52.6 percent.
Rank 30th in first downs against, 116, dead even with their first downs gained.
Rank 25th in points against, 136, so a 27.2 average, two points fewer than the offense has totaled.
And when it comes to the Cowboys' five sacks, with no one on the team having more than one, the defense ranks 30th, only the Dolphins and Chiefs owning fewer at four sacks apiece.
Wait, one more. When it comes to opponent time of possession, the Cowboys rank 30th at 32 minutes, 41 seconds, and much of that thanks to this past game against the Buccaneers when they hogged the ball for 39:21.
See what I mean?
Maybe worse, and this is no secret around the NFL, the Cowboys defense has been the albatross to the 2-3 start. For example, read this NFL.com analysis of the Packers for the upcoming game with the Cowboys:
"That means taking care of business against a Cowboys team that relies on its high-powered offense and hopes its defense can get a stop or two."
A stop or two? Opponents in 50 total possessions have scored on 24 of them, 16 touchdowns and eight field goals. And that percentage seems even worse if we subtract seven end-of-half-or-game possessions, coming to now scoring points 56 percent of the time.
Even a so-called projected GOTI can't overcome opponents scoring on one of every two full possessions. And it's not as if the Cowboys have been playing Lombardi's gifts to offenses. Only Baltimore ranks in the top 10 after five weeks (5th), and just Houston (13th) and Washington (18th) are in the top 20.
So now what?
Well, the Cowboys' defensive leaders had a players-only meeting on Monday. OK, great. But not sure about putting any credence into those types of things. Can be productive if pointing out preparation responsibility reminders instead of becoming a "bitching" session, as head coach Brian Schottenheimer warned against.
Now, at the behest of defensive coordinator Christian Parker, who reached out once again to former mentor Mike Pettine to come in as a senior defensive assistant, the Cowboys did bring him in this week to tap into his front-seven expertise and 32 years of defensive coaching history, 25 in the NFL and eight of those coordinating defenses. Can't hurt.
But not sure the Cowboys are looking at Pettine's role as becoming, in former Cowboys head coach Wade Phillips' self-anointed title, Mr. Fix-It, but more of an experienced sounding board with an eye in the sky on game day.
"It's always good when you have a clean set of eyes," is how Parker described Pettine's addition, something the Cowboys wanted to do way back in February. At the time, Pettine figured he was retired, and by the way, vacationing in Italy will certainly reinforce such thoughts unless the wife, after like seven months of retirement, sends you back to work.
Thought Pettine outlined the job ahead of him mighty well during his first interview session with the media on Friday.
"Football is a game of a million little things," he said. "There is no magic play to run. It's a lot of the detail stuff. … It's not like it's something that, hey, we're going to do these 30 things different today. It's things that need to get addressed, and I think I have a pretty good feel now for the roster.
"The plan needs to be, hey, let's highlight what we do well and make sure we gear that toward, you know typical game-plan stuff, take away what the opponent does well. A lot of little things."
See there, not exactly proclaiming himself the next Mr. Fix-It.
Then there is this:
The addition to an injury-depleted secondary with a full-time Joey Porter Jr. should help the secondary, still without veteran safety Jalen Thompson (hamstring), veteran cornerback Cobie Durant (hamstring) and veteran safety P.J. Locke (plantar fascia). And while in his first game Porter played just 25 snaps against Houston with two days of prep and missed the Tampa Bay game with a "brutal" stomach virus, the fourth-year corner is ready to go.
"Blessed to have him in a full capacity," Parker said.
And from listening to things, after having moved rookie "football player" Caleb Downs (he should never have a position designation) to safety because of the injuries and inexperience on the back end, seems he's going back to nickel back where he belongs in my humble opinion. Want my best player closest to the line of scrimmage as possible. His instincts are what make him Caleb Downs.
And Parker knows this, having said this week, "The more you can get him in the action that's not dictated by calls is better."
Downs reminds me of former Cowboys head coach Bill Parcells, who used to say he hated playing against the Steelers' Troy Polamalu, the Hall of Famer, because "he was always doing what he wasn't supposed to be doing." Meaning, he couldn't game plan against Polamalu because all the eight-time Pro Bowler did was instinctively play football.
To me, that's Downs. Let him cover. Let him play the run that close to the line of scrimmage. Let him blitz. Let him let his hair down. Turn him loose.
And up front, turn those guys loose, too. Let Quinnen Williams and Kenny Clark play more aggressively. Somehow get first-round draft choice Malachi Lawrence more than his 35 percent of snaps. And while the Cowboys are at it, with Jaishawn Barham at middle linebacker, do some of what was taking place in training camp, motioning him up to the line of scrimmage to capitalize on his pass-rush ability on the outside.
As Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said of Lawrence, "When you look at it, you see a lot of what you want to see, and you see improvement."
Because without using the man upstairs' name in vain, goodness knows the Cowboys need to become more productive, not only by putting pressure on opposing quarterbacks, but putting them on the ground. Look, there is a correlation between pressure/sacks and interceptions and time of possession. The Cowboys have far too few of the former two and are spending way too much time on the field with the latter.
Not conducive to playing winning defensive football.
Thought Parker's analysis of what has been taking place is spot on.
"Overall, just some uncharacteristic things going from the spring to training camp that we didn't really do relative to whether it's execution, whether it's the fundamental detail, me in terms of getting a call in on time, things like that," Parker said. "Some things were not just as buttoned up, and you didn't really see that coming just based off the performance previously.
"So I think that's when you've got to step back and figure out, 'OK, how can we get back to what we were doing in that mode?'"
And the Cowboys must start doing so now, Sunday night at Lambeau Field. Cut down on Lambeau Leaps. Cut down time of possession. Cut down on so many scoring possessions. Cut down on mistakes.
But maybe most importantly, just play football. Smart football. Schottenheimer brought this up at his Friday media session when asked about improving their third-and-long defense, and specifically the third-and-21 the Buccaneers converted with a 21-yard pass to Emeka Egbuka underneath the Cowboys' seven defensive backs who were lined up at the first-down sticks.
"A couple of things: A little stickier coverage needed, call for stickier coverages," he said.
And allow me to interpret. Stickier can be a reference to "more adhesive," but also likely, in this reference, playing to the first-down sticks or markers and not giving ground, as the Cowboys defenders oddly were doing so on that particular play, not protecting the line to gain.
Few will remember this late 1950's Rin-Tin-Tin TV series about the life of a little boy named Rusty, whose trustworthy German Shepherd was named Rinty, and the two of them doing good deeds. And when Rusty needed his dog to spring into action, he would yell, "Yo, Rinty!" and the dog came running.
Well, Sunday night, when this defense runs onto the field, by gosh, "Yo, Cowboys!" It's time.
