The 3-5-1 Dallas Cowboys won’t be back on the field until November 17th, yet another Monday Night Football game at the Las Vegas Raiders, but after this Monday’s loss at home to the Arizona Cardinals, the sense of positive anticipation for this game, or any of the much tougher ones that follow it, is woefully low. By dropping back-to-back games with hardly much competitiveness in either loss at the Broncos or versus the Cardinals, there’s no doubt the entire tenor of this 2025 Cowboys season has shifted quite dramatically over the last two weeks.
The organization was active on Tuesday’s trade deadline to try and change this down outlook on the remainder of this year, addressing the defense that’s struggled in every single loss – and even some of the wins – this season. The Cowboys loss to the Cardinals also revealed work to be done on offense too. It put a team under a first-year head coach in Brian Schottenheimer who’s prioritized culture in a spotlight where their best players made unforced errors and the overall accountability in a lackluster 27-17 loss felt subpar. The Cowboys looked lost, and the Cardinals looked better than they had all season, snapping a five-game losing streak in emphatic fashion. This tough scene all around for a Cowboys team well behind the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFC East has caused a more long-term view in the reactions to the Cowboys defense adding LB Logan Wilson and DT Quinnen Williams.
When it comes to the latter, a move that consisted of trading Mazi Smith, a 2026 second-round pick, and one of their two 2017 first-round picks to the Jets for Williams, the Cowboys finally landed a player they’ve had interest in for a long time to shake up the defensive tackle depth chart yet again. A position group where Dallas would notoriously scrape the bottom of the barrel in free agency and maybe spend a day three pick on, also swinging and missing on multiple ill-advised first-round picks over the years, will now feature this offseason’s FA addition Solomon Thomas, Kenny Clark who came over in the Micah Parsons trade, the homegrown Osa Odighizuwa, Williams, and rookie Jay Toia. It is as drastic of a change in philosophy and talent acquisition towards one position group that the Cowboys have been through in many years, which on the surface is a good thing in and of itself. However, it also shows the Cowboys are still throwing darts at establishing an identity they’ve talked about wanting for some time now, and even with Williams in the fold have work to do elsewhere.
Whether or not the Cowboys took a big enough step away from the tendencies under Mike McCarthy by hiring the offensive coordinator that worked under him in Schottenheimer, and if doing so would even be a good thing or not, is one of the things this 2025 season that’s been unable to get off the ground is answering. McCarthy talked ad nauseum about wanting a physical team that could stand up to playoff caliber teams that previously dominated the Cowboys in the trenches on both sides of the ball. During his entire tenure, the Cowboys fell well short on this goal. Schottenheimer has picked up where McCarthy left off in this same desire, but to some degree it took the Cowboys getting pushed around and bullied by the Cardinals both on offense and defense to do something about it – potentially after the season has already been lost.
Make no mistake, it is still encouraging to see the Cowboys using all avenues of roster building to try and get closer and closer to supporting this ongoing goal for Schottenheimer. The long-term outlook for the Cowboys to finally turn a corner on dominating the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball is looking a whole lot better with the 27-year old, three-time Pro Bowler Williams added to the defensive line. The Cowboys still have first-round picks on an ascending trajectory on the offensive line with Tyler Guyton at left tackle, Tyler Smith at left guard, and this year’s top pick Tyler Booker at right guard. Center Cooper Beebe was back in the starting lineup against the Cardinals. The Cowboys are committed to a vision of seeing this through, and the very real threat of consecutive seasons on the outside looking in for the playoffs is not deterring them from thinking this is the right approach.
The Cowboys adding Williams also gives them another defensive lineman that played under former Jets and current Cowboys defensive line coach Aaron Whitecotton. Predicting the long-term future of any position coach on Schottenheimer’s defensive staff is very hard right now, but having both Solomon Thomas and Williams paired with Whitecotton is a good thing for the moment. Dallas sticking with Matt Eberflus as defensive coordinator to establish any of this continuity further would not be well received by the fanbase, but it may be the road they go down compared to yet another scheme change for the fourth year in a row. Dallas’ other trade deadline pickup in Logan Wilson is an Eberflus style linebacker with his ability to play zone coverage and read plays downhill.
The fact these positive trades for the Cowboys don’t feel like enough to lift a team in turmoil on their bye week is frustrating. The bare minimum impact they’ll have for the remainder of the 2025 season is helping the Cowboys defense be viable enough to get a real evaluation of a roster that’s been a long and ongoing work in progress. The offense could not stick with the run game in either of their recent losses due to how effortlessly their opponents were scoring on this defense. The route tree available to either CeeDee Lamb or George Pickens has been limited when the Cowboys feel boxed into needing big chunk plays every drop back. Rookie edge rusher Donovan Ezeiruaku has gotten better with each rep this season, and further rookie help is on the way in the secondary with CB Shavon Revel Jr. The overall environment these young defenders will play in is hopefully more stable now with Williams and Wilson getting on the field, as well as Demarvion Overshown. Veteran Jadeveon Clowney has also proved midseason pickups can make an immediate impact, having his best game as a Cowboy against the Cardinals.
Going through a culture and identity change is no easy task in the NFL, and having it be conducive to immediate success when sharing a division with the reigning Super Bowl champions as well as the NFC runner up Washington Commanders is even harder. The Commanders have regressed due to injuries and other factors under former Cowboys DC Dan Quinn, with the Cowboys having their best home performance of the season against them, but the Cowboys division standing ahead of them is still tenuous at best. They only lead the last place New York Giants in the win column by one game.
The trend of the Cowboys being loyal to coaches much longer than the rapidly declining NFL average is not going anywhere anytime soon, it certainly appears. This leaves changing how the Cowboys churn their roster to bring in the types of players these coaches can work with as the only stone left to turn for improvement, and in desperation mode after a primetime embarrassment, the Cowboys did just that. They now have a defensive tackle group that can go a very long way in helping any of their defensive ends get consistent one-on-one matchups, not necessarily needing a Parsons-level pass rusher to get production on the edge because of this.
Both Williams and Wilson are players the Cowboys can factor in 2026 plans, and both were acquired while keeping future assets to build up for ‘26 and beyond in hand. The Cowboys can’t simply be praised anymore for just wheeling and dealing, as they were this offseason. Many of those moves have contributed to putting them in the hole they are now.
The time for moves like this to become even more common, but also actually hit and give the team players that can be put in the best position to win, is approaching fast as the weeks tick down on this roller coaster season. We may be seeing the Cowboys become a less draft-dependent team right in front of our eyes, while also still holding very valuable draft capital in the immediate future.
The Cowboys defense will look quite a bit different when they play again in Week 11 at a Raiders team that has been dreadful on offense. With all of the “soap opera” type reasons to keep tuning into this team exhausted, good on the Cowboys to get players that add intrigue to watching a defense that was one of the most unwatchable in the league prior to this.
If a best case scenario plays out and the Cowboys aren’t actually forced into thinking about the future with each passing game week, they will be able to fan some of the flames around the big contracts they’ve handed out by seeing those players help produce wins. If this time does predictably come though, the identity and culture the Cowboys are aiming to have in this future is crystal clear, and they used this year’s trade deadline to hopefully start building a better foundation for it – both in the front seven with Logan Wilson and Quinnen Williams.