Time For Teaching Change In Dallas; Lions QB Jared Goff Silenced The Noise

The Dallas Cowboys are too talented to be doing this once, let alone multiple times in a season (and seemingly every season). Idiotic mistakes. Stupid losses. It’s all synonymous with the Cowboys organization.

Even as the Arizona Cardinals fumbled and stumbled their way into contention in the fourth quarter, they simultaneously gave the Cowboys multiple chances to avoid the upset. And Dallas missed every opportunity, letting Arizona pull off a victory in a game the Cowboys had a 98% chance of winning, per Next Gen Stats. It should be enough for the Cowboys to make some changes, particularly in their coaching staff. 

It should be.

Meanwhile, the Lions and Broncos produced quality wins and shored up some of the concerns around their contender status. Detroit QB Jared Goff, in particular, put an exclamation mark on what has been an outstanding season. The Chiefs, meanwhile, are in a tough spot after losing two straight.

Let’s dive into all of that — and more.

Welcome to Sound Smart, where I take you beyond what’s obvious. Let’s go below the surface. Let’s spin it forward, dive deeper, think outside the box and read between the lines. If I do my job, you’ll be fluent in the NFL’s Week 8 action.

Up in the owners box, Jerry Jones muttered: “Gotta be kidding me.” Down on the field, the Dallas defense allowed a last-minute touchdown that sent the game into overtime, where the Cardinals would end up winning it, 33-30.

It’s getting easier for Jones to justify the removal of coach Brian Schottenheimer. It’s just that Jones is in no hurry to make a change.

“That’s not in my mind at this time,” Jones told reporters after the game.

It should be. It really should be.

It would’ve been bad enough to lose to Arizona. But the Cowboys lost it to Cardinals backup quarterback Gardner Minshew, who went in for a benched Jacoby Brissett in the second half. The Cowboys also had a real chance at winning in overtime; they had a possession where all they needed was a field goal to win it. They couldn’t move the ball. 

On their only overtime drive, they ran three plays — and moved backward five yards.

The offense — Schottenheimer’s specialty — couldn’t get it done when it mattered most. You have to ask yourself: What does he do well? Jones has to ask himself the same question.

The Cowboys owner has only once fired a coach during the season, parting ways with Wade Phillips after a 1-7 start to the 2010 season to make way for Jason Garrett as interim coach. After the loss on Sunday, Jones was asked about that situation — and whether this situation might be similar.

“I made a change and I don’t want to mention it because I’m not proud of it,” Jones said. “But I made a change with Wade Phillips there in the middle of the season and I don’t see that here.”

I don’t know what Jones sees here. How could he see anything other than incompetence?

Obviously, the passing offense is awesome. But that’s the expectation for a unit with a top-10 QB (Dak Prescott) and a top-five wide receiver tandem (CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens). The Cowboys are paying huge sums for those three guys.

Even if the run game has been inefficient, Schottenheimer can point to the offense as a success. And he could fire first-year defensive coordinator Christian Parker to buy himself some time. But that ignores the simple premise of being a head coach.

You need to be more than a coordinator.

Mike McDaniel failed in Miami for a lot of reasons — but mostly because he couldn’t hold together anything except offense. Brandon Staley failed with the Chargers because he couldn’t get it done with his defense. Head coaches need to elevate all three units. And head coaches need to manage the in-game situations.

Which brings us to the next strike against Schottenheimer: He’s not particularly good at managing late-game situations. We saw him make four or five different mistakes in the team’s loss to the Ravens earlier this year.

The Cowboys still have a 33% shot at making the playoffs, per Next Gen Stats. I don’t think they can trust Schottenheimer to make it happen when facing those odds. Maybe offensive coordinator Klayton Adams is the next guy in line. But it feels like madness to carry on with Schottenheimer.

The irony, of course, is that Jones is the one to blame. He should never have hired Schottenheimer to begin with. He was a solid offensive coordinator back in 2024 when Jones promoted him. That’s really all Schottenheimer is now. It was clear to see that there were better candidates on the market back in 2024. And it’s easy to imagine that Schottenheimer’s budget-friendly contract had something to do with it.

Because, remember, the Chicago Bears paid big to hire Ben Johnson that same offseason.

Even last offseason, Jones could’ve and probably should’ve hired Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores. It won’t be too late in 2027 — if the Cowboys are lucky enough for Flores to accept the interview. Then again, I wouldn’t blame Flores if he respectfully declined.

Say what you want about the Detroit Lions. But let’s hold off on the discussion — the relentless criticism — around Jared Goff. Particularly the storylines about how he folds against pressure.

I’m guilty myself. I wrote about it in September. In 2025, it was empirically true: Goff was the NFL quarterback most impacted by pressure. He swung from playing like one of the best QBs in the league in a clean pocket to being one of the worst when facing pressure. (I also noted his steady improvement — with some hesitation.)

But those statistics are dated. That storyline is tired.

Because this season, Goff has improved massively against pressure, now the sixth-best QB in the NFL with a minus .19 expected points added per dropback, per Next Gen Stats. (For context, every QB in the NFL has a negative EPA against pressure.) And this puts Goff just above Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow, another pocket QB who gets way more love than Goff.

Lions quarterback Jared Goff has vastly improved his performance against pressure this season, as he showed in Detroit’s win over the Vikings in Week 8. (Photo by Steven King/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Before giving Goff his flowers, I wanted to see how he fared against the Vikings, the absolute champions of blitzes and pressures. Because Detroit has actually done a nice job protecting Goff this year, with the QB ranking 21st in pressures this season. He is also 26th in QB pressure rate (30.1%), down with Josh Allen (31%) and Matthew Stafford (29.7%). 

Now, the Lions’ schedule up until Week 8 had been nothing special. But this win over the previously undefeated Vikings changes that.

The Minnesota defense was able to pressure Goff on only three of his 25 dropbacks. That was despite the fact that the Vikings blitzed on almost 90% of the Lions’ passing plays. In Goff’s three dropbacks against pressure, he was 2-of-3 for 14 yards. Nothing special. Nothing catastrophic. Against the blitz, he was 17-of-23 for 130 yards, one touchdown and one interception. And the interception — Goff’s first of the season — looked more like the result of a stumble and/or a miscommunication with receiver Jameson Williams and not a case of the defense outsmarting or pressuring the QB into a mistake.

You can’t pressure Goff as easily as you could last year. So to me, that means two things.

1. Detroit’s offensive line has been absolutely excellent. And it was especially good against the Vikings.
2. Goff is processing better and quicker than he ever has.

I’m not saying pressure won’t come up as an issue for Goff. This is for every QB. But it’s been an impressive season from Goff, who has quietly improved in the area that was his biggest weakness. And now we’ve seen it for real, with the QB holding up against the Vikings’ front — even if some of it is thanks to the offensive line.

This Minnesota defense rendered Bears star QB Caleb Williams useless. This defense rotated veteran Buccaneers QB Baker Mayfield. But not Goff.

He looks like he doesn’t care.

Goff looks as good – if not better – than he ever has.

The Kansas City Chiefs drove down to the 1-yard line with 32 seconds left in Denver. It’s second down. They had a timeout. And they proceeded to run three plays — none resulting in a touchdown. And so the Chiefs lost, 28-24, to the Broncos.

None of those plays were QB sneaks, because, of course, none of them were QB sneaks. As far as we can tell, it hasn’t been in the Chiefs playbook since 2019.

That was when Patrick Mahomes suffered a dislocated patellar tendon on a QB sneak. And I understand that it’s scary to see the best quarterback of his generation suffer an injury on a play that’s more dangerous than your average dropback or carry. But avoiding the game entirely for the past seven years seems overcompensatory.

Especially when it’s going to be a pretty darn helpful play on Sunday.

Patrick Mahomes left the field after the Chiefs blew an 11-point fourth quarter lead to the Broncos in Denver. (Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)

Not everyone runs Tush Push. Not everyone can. The Eagles invented it and didn’t run it much this year, even before quarterback Jalen Hurts went on injured reserve with a blood clot diagnosis. The Bills have a bullpen at quarterback in Josh Allen. It makes sense to sneak up on him. The Seahawks are using tight end AJ Barner for their acquisition here. The Chiefs can do that — with backup tight end Noah Gray.

But you don’t have to run Tush Push. You can just run … a QB sneak. Mahomes can run it. But if the Chiefs are really worried, backup QB Justin Fields can run it. O Gray. Anyone really. It was a useful play that the Chiefs inexplicably ignored.

It’s a clear signal: Put it back in the playbook.

I’m actually picking the Cowboys this week, but my goodness, there were some embarrassing moments for Caleb Downs when the team lost to the Cardinals.

The worst? It’s hard to say for sure. But let’s start with the moment Cardinals star tight end Trey McBride burst down the sideline and beat Downs for an easy third-down conversion. That’s not the bad part. McBride threw the ball in Downs’ direction and asked him.

“You’re a first-round pick? First-round pick? What for?” McBride asked.

That’s cold.

The Cowboys’ rookie safety eventually met Jeremiah Love, the No. 3 overall pick, in a hole to prevent the Cardinals rookie from scoring a touchdown. Which was a great answer from Downs to show why he’s a first-rounder.

But the glory did not last long. The next time we see Downs in a prominent play, it’s a devastating lowlight. As the Cardinals returned on Tyler Allgeier’s 52-yard carry in the fourth quarter, Downs was bowled not once but twice by Cardinals guard Hjalte Froholdt, who hauled it 20-yards down the field.

I fully believe that Downs will be a great pro. He has the works of it. But it was a day to forget.

Atlanta Falcons QB Michael Penix Jr. has thrown more passes to Buccaneers players than Baker Mayfield. In fact, Penix had more interceptions (4) than Mayfield had in passing attempts (3).

When the clock hit zero in Tampa’s 16-0 win over the Falcons, Mayfield was 0-of-3 with a sack — and a QBR of 2.6 (of 100). He also fumbled three times — (somehow) none of them were lost.

According to FOX Sports research, the 2026 Buccaneers are the first team to win by double digits without completing a pass since the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Chicago Cardinals 23-0 in Week 8 — in 1945. That same year, World War II had just ended. The trampoline is patented. The movie “Anchors Aweigh” hits theaters, starring Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly.

To win on Sunday, the Buccaneers did everything on the ground.

Running backs Bucky Irving and Kenneth Gainwell both set career-high rushing totals. There was Irving, who had 27 carries for 170 yards. And then there’s Gainwell, who had 25 carries for 140 yards. Their success was, in part, thanks to a torrential downpour in Tampa that made conditions nearly impossible for the defense (which often suffers from bad weather when it comes to punting and changing direction).

But this isn’t the first time Tampa’s ground game has taken over. The Buccaneers have rushed for 925 yards in their past four games, breaking the franchise record for any four-game stretch in team history (previously 768 yards from Nov. 24 to Dec. 15, 2024), according to FOX Sports research.

Mayfield’s biggest — or most surprising — contribution may be a lead block.

“If I’m not going to throw the ball, I have to be active somehow. So I and [Falcons safety] Jessie [Bates] was out there playing in the mud,” Mayfield said.

The Buccaneers (3-5) are still in the hunt for the NFC South division title — behind the Carolina Panthers (3-4). Before they see the Panthers in four weeks, the Bucs have tough matchups against the Bears and Lions (with a bye in between).

“When things hit the fan, guys come together — and don’t scatter, pointing fingers at each other,” Mayfield said.

Bo Nix is ​​getting a lot of credit for a fourth quarter performance fueled largely by his new RB1, Jonah Coleman.

Don’t misunderstand me. Nix played better than he played. He doesn’t take the quarterback position for granted, as former NFL QB Ryan Fitzpatrick once accused. But Nix continued to check the ball, even with a full-strength roster of pass-catchers, from Jaylen Waddle to Courtland Sutton to Marvin Mims.

But you know who is probably the best of them all? It could legitimately be Coleman, the fourth round rookie. He made the biggest play of the game: a 51-yard reception. He also scored on the next play, with a 5-yard touchdown run.

Coleman led the team in rushing yards (41) and receiving yards (63) with two touchdowns. After weeks of watching JK Dobbins and RJ Harvey struggle to get things done out of the backfield with consistency, Coleman could change the complexion of this offense – create a drive-to-drive efficiency that the Broncos have sorely lacked.

I don’t know if Nix can find the downfield passing that made him so impressive last year. I don’t know if Nix will get back to rushing the football to make big plays. I just know the Broncos will need Nix less than they need him. If Coleman can keep up, he and the defense can win games on their own.