OXNARD, Calif. 鈥 With little sleep thanks to going back with his staff and watching film of Tuesday's joint practice against the Rams, Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer sees a lot that his team can improve on.
"Great learning experience. I'm excited about the work we got, it was great clips, there was a lot of good as well鈥" Schottenheimer said. "The three main things that I took away from it: Carry our pads a little bit better, all about the ball, and then just overall attention to details."
As far as maintaining good pad level, Schottenheimer isn't too worried about that being a long term for his team, and sees it more as just knocking off the rust of playing against another team.
"I'm not overly concerned by it; it's just the reminder鈥 it won't change what we're doing," Schottenheimer said. "When we work in pads, it's usually pretty physical, bit I think it's more just first time they're amped up, they're excited about competing against somebody else. Easy correction."
Admittedly, Schottenheimer said going into the practice and his first preseason as a head coach that they'd keep the playbook fairly vanilla as to not reveal too much of their cards, aside from a deep shot to Jalen Brooks from Joe Milton that Schottenheimer called because he was frustrated with how his offense played at times.
How does he critique himself as the playcaller?
"I'd give myself a C, maybe a C-minus," Schottenheimer said. "We didn't have as much success, but I also had a lot of bullets I didn't use鈥 I was like the squad, just okay."
Establishing the rushing attack has been one of the staples of what Schottenheimer wants to do offensively. On Tuesday, he feels his team fell short of where they want to be at.
"It wasn't a great day for us running the football. I talked a little bit yesterday about we didn't play with great eyes鈥e had too many unaccounted for hats in the hole for the backs to deal with鈥"
"Everything's got to be tied together, and it wasn't tied very well together yesterday."
On the offensive line, the Cowboys' left tackle Nate Thomas and right guard Tyler Booker got some of their first major NFL reps against a talented Rams defensive front. The headliner was last year's defensive rookie of the year Jared Verse, who certainly gave Thomas a challenge.
"He had the tough matchup against [Jared] Verse," Schottenheimer said of Thomas. "We showed a clip this morning of him doing a really great job, he kind of jumps and him at got his hands on him. He's so big and long, and he's really strong, but I thought he did a nice job."
The interior of the Rams' defensive line wasn't much easier when dealing with another second-year player who had a great rookie season in Braden Fiske. There, Schottenheimer saw his first round pick this past year continuing to put the pieces together.
"I see Book making steps every day to get better," Schottenheimer said. "The power is there for sure. The big thing with him that he's working on is sometimes when he's setting out on a wide three-technique, he sets, he gets into good position relative to the defensive tackle, but he keeps moving, and so we just got to get him to be a little stronger with his inside foot."
While at times it seemed like the practice was lopsided in favor of the Rams, Schottenheimer is confident in his team. Now, it's just about continuing to follow his mantra of competing every day and getting better.
"We're a good team, we're talented, we've got good coaches. It's not like they dominated the scrimmage, it was a scrimmage. We had good plays, we had bad plays鈥" Schottenheimer said. "It was more of when you watch the film it's just like, 'Okay, we're in the process of still improving and we're in the process of teaching these guys, okay, why do these details matter?'"
As the Cowboys continue to hone in on the details, they'll also continue to stay fairly vanilla in terms of what they show on offense and defense in the preseason.
"Don't read too much into it, guys. We literally played two coverages," Schottenheimer said. "We kept all of our clubs in the bag. It's like we were out there playing with a 7 iron. We're going to be playing with a 7 iron most of the preseason."
As far as which starters will play over the course of the preseason, there's no finalized plan in place. There are however certain players that Schottenheimer and his staff are trying to see a certain amount of in the next three weeks.
"There'll be a handful of guys that don't play, but I would say there'll be some guys that play throughout the preseason," Schottenheimer said. "Don't just look at it with the Rams. We have a number of snaps we're trying to get for certain guys throughout the entire preseason."
The Cowboys will make the two hour drive southeast to Sofi Stadium on Saturday for their preseason opener against the Rams, kicking off at 6 p.m. CT.
