Cowboys are far from glory as defense reigns supreme in Super Bowl again
The Seattle Seahawks are Super Bowl LX champions, defeating the New England Patriots 29-13 to cap off a dominating playoff run that ended with them hoisting the Lombardi trophy for the second time in franchise history – and in familiar fashion. It was the Seahawks “Legion of Boom” defense that won Super Bowl XLVIII with a 43-8 rout of the Denver Broncos, and while the 2025 Seahawks defense doesn’t have quite as cool of a nickname, they were equally impressive.
In that Super Bowl blowout of the Broncos, the Seahawks had enough points in hand to win the game by the second quarter after a one yard Marshawn Lynch rushing touchdown. Going ahead 15-0 behind a safety on the game’s first play from scrimmage, two field goals, and that touchdown was game over from MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. It technically took until the fourth quarter in Santa Clara for the Seahawks to have the 19 points they needed to win after the game’s first touchdown was scored by A.J. Barner on a pass from Sam Darnold. What will be remembered from those that viewed this game though is how it felt nearly over after the Seahawks led just 9-0 on three first half field goals. That is the impact Mike Macdonald’s defense made.
The Seahawks zone coverage on the backend gave the Patriots no answers in the passing game, but their dominance of this game started from an even more familiar point. Just like the Vic Fangio Philadelphia Eagles defense dominated the Kansas City Chiefs offensive line to win that game up front in last year’s Super Bowl, the Seahawks beat up on the Patriots offensive line to speed Drake Maye up. They hit him 11 times, got home for six sacks including one for a fumble recovery, and force two interceptions, the second of which went for the dagger touchdown.
Seattle relied on more than just their front to generate this game-wrecking amount of pressure on the second-year starter Maye, going deep into their bag of exotic pressures to get free rushes for linebackers, cornerbacks, and safeties as well. For the most part though, the tale of this game was the Seahawks winning with their big guys against the Patriots big guys in the trenches, leaving them with plenty of numbers in coverage, and using this formula that worked so well for the Super Bowl champion before them to win with style points.
Elsewhere in the NFL prior to this Super Bowl, ten teams fired and replaced their head coaches. Six out of the ten coaches hired into these vacancies would be considered “offensive minded”, some directly promoted from the “head coach in waiting” position that offensive coordinator on most staffs has become. The Cowboys were not part of this cycle this year, but were last year, and went the offensive coordinator promotion route with Brian Schottenheimer. Coach Schotty did a lot of great things with the Cowboys offense in his first season as both HC and play-caller, but was doomed by an all-time bad defense that kept the team from making any real noise at all.
The Cowboys may not know any better than the ten teams with new coaches going into 2026 if their offensive mind is enough to be the next Super Bowl champion, considering how those stories have been written with mostly defense. The Seahawks making light work of Kyle Shanahan, Sean McVay, and Josh McDaniels as opposing offensive play-callers on their playoff run was nothing short of seismic, and absolutely should have general managers still over-obsessed with just the offensive side of the ball rethinking their strategies.
The Cowboys do know their head coach has things to build off from year one that new coaches won’t though, and he has already gotten to work in his first full offseason addressing the terminal problem from year one which was Matt Eberflus’ defense. Christian Parker, a disciple of Fangio and Super Bowl LIX champion, is now in place as defensive coordinator, and so too is an impressive staff of assistants.
The work the Cowboys did to try and improve their defense from last offseason until now carries over as well. Not only is Kenny Clark in place as the return player from the Micah Parsons trade, but he’s in line to play alongside Quinnen Williams for a full season for the first time in 2026. Dallas has both first round picks in April’s draft as well.
Even through all of this, the eye test difference between not only the Seahawks defense (led in a big way by former Cowboys defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence) but others around the league to the Cowboys defenses of much more than just last season continues to feel staggering. When it comes to which Super Bowl team the Cowboys are currently closest to, the answer has to be the Patriots – ironically introduced by Jon Bon Jovi during their runout in pregame. The famous line mostly anyone on the street can recite from Bon Jovi?
“…We’re halfway there, WOOOOOOOAAAAAAHHH, living on a prayer”
Perhaps Jerry Jones is feeling the Patriots big game loss as a personal win after stating his goal to surpass their owner Robert Kraft in Super Bowl wins, but for the better part of three decades his team’s approach to “living on a prayer” hasn’t been good enough to even sniff a Super Bowl appearance.
Assuming something of a best case scenario for how the Schottenheimer/Parker coaching duo tries to turn this fortune in Dallas and deliver a team that can truly win on both sides of the ball for the first time in too long of a time, the Cowboys can also currently relate to the “we’re halfway there” part of the Patriots’ super fan lyric.
Coach Schottenheimer’s desire to have a team that heavily emphasizes winning the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball is nothing new, and has been evident from the very start of his tenure. The opportunity to blend this philosophy with a defensive mind that comes from past schemes that operate out of winning with four up front regularly is an exciting one. In this way, the Cowboys are inching closer to the teams that can make it to February.
Then comes the all-important personnel side of things. It’s unfortunate that talks of past missed chances to win with talented teams that have all gone by the wayside have become lasting, memorable quotes from the likes of both Jerry as well as starting QB Dak Prescott. While the Cowboys desire to win with Prescott aligns with their other desire to have their stars shine the brightest, supporting Prescott with other stars in the most marketable positions like wide receiver has made the most sense. Going into an offseason in which Sam Darnold is the reigning Super Bowl champion and the Seahawks defense just won Seattle a Super Bowl though, it’s flat out hard to picture the Cowboys taking on anything close to a similar identity.
The Cowboys have always been about keeping score. Their five Super Bowls from the past. Their value as a franchise. The size of their video board inside AT&T Stadium. Their attendance. Their viewership numbers. Year after year in recent memory as well, they haven’t had much of a problem fielding teams that can score with ease between the lines. With the lasting, burning image of the 2025 season being the Seahawks proving that it’s not about how much you can flat out score on offense, it’s about how well you can make any points you do score hold up, this Cowboys approach that yet again left a talented offense at home for the playoffs as a whole feels off.
As a fan of America’s Team that wasn’t around for the era of the Doomsday defense, the feeling post-Super Bowl is one of more actual doom. Somewhere within that sinking feeling though, there is hope that the Cowboys will figure out their defensive woes in time to still have their core players on offense in place, see the benefits of all the work they’ve done on the offensive and defensive lines pay off with postseason success, and have their own “sixth string ring in hock”.
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