If they’re not culture-changing players, they won’t get the call.
That’s the vibe the Cowboys are putting out as the 2026 NFL Draft edges closer—and it’s not just a feel-good slogan. Executive vice president and director of player personnel Stephen Jones basically made the case that Dallas isn’t looking for “pretty good,” it’s looking for the kind of recruits who reshape how the team operates day to day.
“Yeah, I think it all factors in, at the end of the day,” Jones said in an interview with 105.3 FM the Fan. “Certainly, we’re trying to create an identity and a culture of being all for this football team.” The wording is polished, sure, but the meaning isn’t vague. The team wants players who buy in fast—who bring something infectious, not just a roster spot.
Jones also didn’t dress up last season’s defensive issues. He pointed to 2025 as the worst production in the history of the franchise on that side of the ball, in a year where Matt Eberflus struggled to get consistent buy-in and positive continuity of play. It’s one thing to say defense was “down.” It’s another to call out how deep the problem ran, and Jones did exactly that.
“We feel like we lacked that last year, on defense, in particular,” he explained. “We feel like we had an identity and culture that we needed and that the players were buying into, or playing with an edge. That’s the goal and, ultimately, the goal is to have a culture and an identity for the entire football team that Schotty is trying to develop in terms of the kind of men that we bring in here to compete day in, day out.
“And, when they’re working out, that they’re being a positive influence on what we’re ultimately trying to be as an organization and as a football team.”
The language around “edge” and “men” is old-school in a way—but it also lines up with what the team has reportedly tried to fix. With the hopes of repairing the culture issue within the defensive coaching staff, Eberflus was given his walking papers to make room for the hiring of Christian Parker as coordinator. That move ushers in a new, youthful and charged era, with a revamped staff full of assistants and position coaches aimed at getting players fully bought in, and also modernizing play-calling and in-game adaptations.
Now, there’s a lot going on here, and not all of it lands on rookies. Still, the message to incoming first-round prospects sounds pretty direct: you’re not just coming in to contribute—if you don’t fit the standard, you won’t be treated like “part of the plan,” even if you’re talented. When Schottenheimer says the standard is the standard—well, the Cowboys seem to mean it. Wholeheartedly.
There’s also something oddly specific about the way teams talk when they’ve been burned. Even just hearing these comments back-to-back, you can almost imagine the room: the quiet after a sentence that admits failure. Then the focus comes back—culture, identity, buy-in—like they’re trying to engineer certainty out of a season that wouldn’t cooperate. And the draft is the cleanest place to start, because that’s where expectations get locked in early, while the rest of the building still has time to reset. The only question is whether the “culture-changing” players Dallas believes it’s seeking will actually be available when the Cowboys are on the clock.
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