Everything coach Brian Schottenheimer said after Dallas Cowboys’ loss to Bears
The Dallas Cowboys got blown out by the Chicago Bears on Sunday, losing 31-14 on the road.
To add injury to insult, the Cowboys also lost star wide receiver CeeDee Lamb to an ankle injury that forced him from the game.
Here’s everything head coach Brian Schottenheimer said after he dropped to 1-2 leading the team:
On the offense after Lamb was out
“I thought the bigger thing for us was we were running the ball really well early in the game and the score kind of got away from us a little bit. Shoot, we come out after halftime, we’re only down 10, and we get the start of a drive and I think that was the bigger issue. Certainly, you lose a player like CeeDee, it affects you, but, again, we just didn’t play well, we really didn’t, and told the guys that. This can be a humbling business. If you don’t take care of business, you don’t play well, then you’re not going to win, and what I pointed out to the guys very clearly was, we got to stop giving up big plays on defense and we got to stop turning the ball over on offense. It’s a bad formula. But, you know, we have played three out of 17. Did not play well tonight. Certainly, didn’t play well enough to win. Give them credit. They did a good job, and they were better than us tonight.”
On communication
“Same thing. [Cornerback Trevon] Diggs slips down on the one, and he just stumbles. The flea flicker we’re right there. And it’s like, whatever. But we did have a guy jumped up one time on a low route, let the guy get behind him on something. That can’t happen. So, again, just can’t happen. There’s just too many big plays, and we know that. We addressed it. I told the guys this; I said, ‘Hey, here’s the deal. I don’t just talk to you guys after a game and just throw a bunch of coach speak at you.’ I’m going to be honest with them, and I was. I told them like I just said. I said, ‘Hey, we’ve got to stop giving up big plays, explosives, and we got to protect the football.’”
On Diggs and defensive tackle Kenny Clark’s injuries
“Diggs I think is OK. Had to come in and get some X-rays, but I think he’s OK. Came back in the game. Clark’s got a little bit of an ankle [injury], and, again, I think he’s going to be OK. A few bit more tests to be done, but, again, he’s tough. We got beat up a little bit today. It’s a all part of it. But hopefully we’ll get these guys back healthy and be ready to roll.”
On Lamb
“He’s got an ankle sprain. More imaging to come. We’ll see.”
On if he knows if it’s high or low ankle sprain
“No, just have to have more tests done. He wanted to try to come back in and play and thought he could, but those are the injuries that just kind of get sore.”
On fixing communication
“Yeah, it wasn’t, and that’s coaching. That starts with us, and we got to do a better job, simplify some things maybe. And the one thing we knew going into this game is they would challenge us with some of their motions and shifts, and they did that. I thought [Bears quarterback] Caleb [Williams] played very, very well. Threw the ball really well, made some plays off point. But, again, got to tighten the coverage down for sure. We’ll take a hard look at it and maybe to simplify things, and we’re going to do what we do well. I can promise you that.”
On getting pressure on Williams
“I thought we got pressure on him, we just couldn’t finish it. We were around, we just couldn’t get him on the ground, and it’s been something — he’s an athletic quarterback, has a chance to hurt you with his arms and with his legs and he did that. Same thing, I thought we forced some really third-and-longs and they converted third-and-longs because he moved off the spot and made us pay for it. We’ve got to take a look at it. Like I said, we’re three games into this 17-round fight and have a good opponent coming this week. It’s what we get paid to do, make corrections and get these guys playing better and with more confidence.”
On getting home against mobile quarterbacks
“It’s all rush discipline. It’s staying in your rush lane. I’m going to give Caleb a lot of credit. I saw him find rush lanes and step in up and out on some things and stuff like that. But line games help because it kind of muddies it up, and that’s a big part of it. We do some line games, but I think at the end of the day, it goes hand in hand. The pressures and the quarterback pressure and the coverage, they go hand in hand. When the quarterback goes to break, you got a decision to make. And you got to make a decision, do you want to come up and let him throw it behind you? That’s the game you play. He did a nice job. Give him credit.”
On defensive end Sam Williams
“We rotate guys through. Look, our guys care. Our guys want to play well. We need to be better. We’ve got to maintain our composure and cool, but like we talked about, the discipline and the self-inflicted wounds. We don’t want to beat ourselves. I think we did that a few times too many today, and teams in this league will make you pay for it.”
On how wide receiver George Pickens was covered after Lamb went out
“They did, but not all the time. I thought they did a nice job of keeping the ball in front of them. We had a number of shot plays, and they did a good job staying on top of us and they made us check it down. I think it got a little bit easier when CeeDee is out but, look, no excuses. We got plenty of weapons. [Wide receiver KaVontae Turpin] Turp’s a good player. [Wide receiver Jalen Tolbert] JT’s a good player. I think [tight end Jake Ferguson] Ferg — I don’t know how many catches he had, he had a ton. If you want to take those guys away, it was good to see Ferg step up, but, yeah, I do think they paid a little more attention to GP.”
On if the game was “demoralizing”
“I wouldn’t say that. We didn’t play well, and we didn’t play well enough to win. That’s why we’re sitting here with a loss. They converted third downs, we didn’t. They protected the ball, we didn’t. They hit explosives, we didn’t. This game is one of those games you look at and, yeah, it’s humbling, it sucks, but we didn’t play very good. Got to play better to win in this league.”
On safety Juanyeh Thomas coming in:
“We were rolling guys in, we were just trying to get guys certain reps, and based on special teams, we were trying — we have the belief that you have to do more than just one thing, and obviously Juanyeh is a huge part of what we do on special teams. We just roll guys through, and it’s one of those games, same thing with the receivers. The receivers were gassed because we played up-tempo for so long, and that’s never a fortunate, a good thing for the offense when you’re having to play basically the whole fourth quarter in tempo, especially when you’re down a receiver.”
On defensive end Jadeveon Clowney not playing
“At the end of the day, you just feel like still needs a little bit of time to ramp up. He hasn’t played football. He wanted to go, but the concern would be if he had to play a lot of snaps, would he be able to do that? He’s doing everything in his power to be ready to go. He wanted to go, but he understands as well and, again, really good conversation before the game.”
On “consistency” from defensive tackle Mazi Smith, and defensive tackle Jay Toia being inactive
“Mazi’s done that. Again, I don’t know how Mazi played today. I’ve got to see the film, but Mazi has had really the last three weeks, because he’s been motivated and Jay understands and really it’s nothing that Jay did. It’s more that Mazi has been really consistent and showed us some flashes we expect from him in practice.”
This story was originally published September 21, 2025 at 10:33 PM.
