Inglewood, California – The first cowboys pre-season match against Los Angeles Rams was a dream come true for Brian Schottenheimer, who waited for more than 30 years for his chance to be a head coach of the NFL.
Before the match, he and the managing owner Jerry Jones shared for a moment at the Sofi stadium who made Schottenheimer are tearful.
“I muffled myself a little when I came to the stadium, then when Jerry and I spoke a little, I will be honest, I became a little emotional,” said Schotenheimer. “It was one of my dreams of being on this chair.”
That said, the defeat of 31-21 against the Rams was not what Brian Schottenheimer wanted to see while living his dream. Nevertheless, it was one day that he will never forget.
“I appreciate very [Jerry] And the Jones family for having had me on this chair, “said Schottenheimer.” I told you guys from the start, nobody will work harder than me. And we’re going to go watch this film and try to clean it … but at the end of the day, I will remember this day for a long time. This is not the result we wanted, but for the first time as a chief coach, it was pretty cool. “”
What Schottenheimer does not want to remember is how the cowboys began the game. In the first quarter, Dallas had only a total meter of offend on six games, all passing, and allowed the Rams to walk on the field with 160 infraction yards and mark two affected.
“It is certainly not a stories book, that’s for sure,” said Schottenheimer. “We just fought. I think it was 25 games at a given time, and it is obviously not a great way to start. They converted some fourth stockings and they checked the ball.”
From there, Schottenheimer has the impression that his team settled in the game more than they did compensation, but still had too many penalties to his taste and could not overcome the advance of the Rams in the second period.
“I liked the way we fought in the second half …” Schottenheimer said. “I thought Phil Mafah was running very hard, I thought it was good. I loved the defense first half in terms of racing stop, we were just able to get out of the field in fourth position …”
“I said to the guys:” Hey, they competed hard, but it is not a question of competition, it is execution. “”
Of the 11 cowboys penalties at night, the most bizarre came from Ceedee Lamb. Lamb, who did not play, stood too far on the sidelines during a pass downstairs to Jonathan Mingo, and an official went into a hard collision with him, which made them both fall. The lamb was evaluated a driving penalty in the form of a housing of 15 yards, which canceled a position on the ground that the Dallas offensive would have obtained with an interference penalty against the RAMs on the same game.
“We must be better with discipline. I hope the [official] Is it okay … “said Schottenheimer.” We have to be better than that. Ceedee knows better, we know better, but the discipline on our part, we agree with combative penalties. But we are not lining up, they have warned us several times, we have to do a better work of coaching and play. “
Perhaps the most important player entering the match was a second year quarter Joe Milton, who should serve as a replacement for Dak Prescott and made his debut with the Cowboys on Saturday evening.
It was a roller coaster of an evening, which ended with Milton finishing 17 of his 29 passes for 143 yards to accompany a touch and an interception. On the ground, he added five races for 22 yards. The interception came on a deep bullet intended for Ryan Flournoy, but has been launched in double coverage and will serve as a learning moment for the young quarter.
“Second and four, he has a control in front of him, ultra-competitive, he moves to the left and threw him up there,” said Schottenheimer. “Now he trusts [Ryan Flournoy] In this situation to try to play, but I think it is one of the things that when Joe looks, he will be like ‘Yes, I should probably have made a check.’ “”
Although this is not the best day of Milton, these are the types of situations and moments that are so vital for him that he accelerates for his first year in Dallas.
“That’s why he needs to play,” said Schottenheimer. “I think he has set up, I think he found his rhythm late, started using his legs a little better. Again, a great talent that each representative he gets will help him become a big pro.”
Milton was initially ready to play the whole match for the cowboys, but left early after a ram player struck his elbow. At the time, it was not an injury that the team thought it was serious.
“It has been struck on the elbow. It seems that the initial tests are that it will be fine, a bit of a bruise. We are going to receive other tests … But I think Joe will be fine.” Schottenheimer said.
From an operational point of view, Schottenheimer said leading to the game that they would play rather vanilla in terms of game calls and diagram. This was the case, and he managed different scenarios in order to practice communication with his staff, as when he decided to take a goal on the field before the end of the first half instead of leaving his offense.
“I thought the communication was good,” said Schottenheimer. “We played some of these situations as a real game because I needed to work on these situations with my staff and my decision-making and things like that, and there were others that we played like pre-season. There were sometimes when we kicks and things like that.”
A match is broken and the cowboys had a number of players who did not play, including the choice of first round Tyler Booker. Although it is a little surprising for the recruit not to see the field, Schottenheimer and its staff have a plan in place and will suit more bodies when the team returns to the AT&T stadium to welcome Ravens next week.
“There are three games for us. We had a specific plan in this game of who we wanted to play,” said Schottenheimer. “There will be other guys who will play next week, will not tell you who. It was more than it was the rotation we wanted to get this week.”
