Dallas improved to 3-4 with its best offensive showing of the season, yet Brian Schottenheimer stayed curt and edgy afterward.
The Cowboys beat the Eagles 38-21 on Monday night at Lincoln Financial Field, turning in their best offensive performance of the season and pulling their record to 3-4. It was the kind of win that should buy a struggling team some relief, but head coach Brian Schottenheimer did not act like a man enjoying a reprieve.
His postgame answers were short, his mood tense. Quarterback Dak Prescott described it as a "hungry, pissed-off version of Shotty," adding that Schottenheimer is not naive about where things stand.
That stands to reason. Jerry Jones has spent heavily building this roster, and the Cowboys are still under .500 nearly halfway through the season, sitting 1.5 games back in their division. A blowout win over a division rival is a step in the right direction, but it does not erase the bigger picture: the pressure on Schottenheimer to save his own job has not gone away just because Dallas looked sharp for one night.
The expectation now is that Dallas treats this win as a floor, not a ceiling, given how much work remains to turn the season around.