Mac Engel: The Cowboys hit their lowest low point in the 21st century

Mac Engel, Fort Worth Star-Telegram on Jan 5, 2026

Published in Football

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FORT WORTH, Texas — The Dallas Cowboys played a season where their starting quarterback not only started all 17 games but enjoyed one of the best statistical years of his career, and it finished with a losing record with no playoffs.

Even if you are not the president, or member, of the Dak Prescott Fan Club, and believe some of his numbers are not a true indicator of how both he and his offense played this season, for their starting quarterback to do this much, and the team achieve so little, in 2025 is depressing.

Try as they may, the Cowboys can’t expect to build an entire team around a kicker.

Following a loss in New Jersey on Sunday against the New York Giants, another Cowboys season is mercifully over, and this is the worst this franchise has been this century. Year 1 of Brian Schottenheimer netted a losing record, the second consecutive for the Cowboys. Unlike the last time this team finished with a losing record in consecutive years — 2001 and 2002 — at least at the end of that ‘02 season there was the hope with the arrival of head coach Bill Parcells.

Today the only expectation sold as “hope” is that defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus will be fired after an evaluation that should require 10 minutes rather than 10 days. When your defense is one of the worst in the history of professional football, like the Cowboys here in 2025, that normally gets you canned.

Year 2 of ShoddyBall should be better than Year 1, but the 2025 team revealed so many weaknesses, needs and holes that axing a defensive coordinator is only going to get you so far. One offseason can’t do much more than maybe resulting in this team making the playoffs in 2026. That’s if everything goes right.

“I can promise you this. We’re going to get to the bottom of it. We’re going to work our asses off to figure it out,” Schottenheimer said in a press conference after the season-ending loss on Sunday in New York. “We’re going to adjust and make changes that we need to do to help.”

The 2026 Dallas Cowboys: We’re going to get to the bottom of it.

Let’s make it easy for you: The defense is horrific. The offense is overrated. The special teams isn’t good, either. They were damn lucky to finish 7-9-1.

Stop the nonsense that “If they hadn’t tied Green Bay, they would have won the NFC East!”

The Cowboys lost to the Giants and Cardinals, two of the worst teams in the NFL. The Cardinals’ win against the Cowboys on Nov. 3 in Arlington was Arizona’s last win of the season.

As feared, the trade of defensive end Micah Parsons days before the start of the season effectively destroyed what was already a weak defense that the arrival of defensive tackle Quinnen Williams two months later in a deal with the Jets could not adequately fix.

The Cowboys allowed an average of 30.1 points per game, worst in the league. There is one offense that could have kept pace with that defense; the L.A. Rams led the league in points per game, 30.5.

The Cowboys offense had the seventh-highest scoring offense in the NFL, and it wasn’t nearly enough. A sub-average defense would have pushed the Cowboys to a few more wins, and maybe the playoffs where they would not have advanced beyond the divisional round.

Which is the depressing part. The Cowboys are not that far from making the playoffs, because in this version of the NFL most teams are close; even if the Cowboys successfully address some of their issues on defense this offseason, they’re still not that close to contending for a spot in the NFC title game.

The Cowboys are now defined by their inability to reach not the Super Bowl, but the game before the Super Bowl. For the kids in the audience, the last time the Cowboys played in an NFC title game was Sunday, January 14, 1996; a 38-27 win against the Packers at Texas Stadium.

The Cowboys’ starting fullback that day was Daryl “Moose” Johnston. On Sunday, Moose celebrated his 25th season of calling NFL games for Fox Sports. Moose was in the Fox booth for the Cowboys’ season finale on Sunday, and he is like so many former players who are no longer mystified but saddened by the continued state of the team.

Because whether you’re a former player, a fan, or even a member of the media that covers the Dallas Cowboys, it’s just depressing.

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