Protect the Football, Then Go To The Playoffs

Before we begin, I would love to remind you of our August Training Camp special subscription offer to new annuals. This month, our best price of the year is available where you can lock in a year of Sturmstack for $5.33 a month ($64 annually). It ends when August ends. Jump on it!

This will be one of the last Mondays for a long time where we can chat about an important factor facing the 2026 Dallas Cowboys without a game getting in the way. Of course, we want games to get in the way, but we also want to have everything fully prepared for the season.

I get asked all the time about the Cowboys and what I think about the team and I try to elaborate here several times a week on that front. But, when people hear things like “the defense has to be better,” those things sound vague and general. Don’t we need some specifics?

Of course. That is what we do. We make a complex game very simple. And I can think of no better way to make this game easy to understand than our annual discussion of turnovers.

This year, I thought our annual turnover talk should feature the words of Brian Schottenheimer, who happens to be the head coach of your favorite football team:

“You know, you’ll see a big emphasis on ball security for us, you know, again, I say it, I think every time I’m up here, and it’s because it disgusts me, -9, it’s awful.

And, you know, just, we got to protect the football better on offense. We got to take it away on defense, but, that’s an area where we need to make a big jump.

So last year we really didn’t spend a lot of time doing ball security circuits. So, are you going to repeat history? No, you’re gonna do something about it….

I’m gonna start with, if you don’t give it up Then you’re not going to lose the turnover battle, right? So if we don’t turn the ball over, it’s going to be zeros, right? So I would say that.

And again, I just, you know, we proved it last year, Brad, that, you know, we could go 4 straight games without a turnover and there was too many multiple turnover games on offense. We were sloppy, we were careless with the ball. Mostly as, as ball carriers, a couple of them were on really 3rd and long, like situation where we’re checking the ball down, we’re going to probably punt and, you know, we end up losing possession of the ball.

So since you won’t let me say what I want to say, I’m gonna say, you know, securing the ball.”

“Minus-9 disgusts me” is what the head coach needs to say because it should. And he is right, you cannot lose the turnover battle if you never give it away. That is good offensive coaching. It certainly lets the defense off the hook, but he isn’t wrong.