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"That Starts With Me": What a Tough Cowboys Loss Taught Me About Owning It
Full disclosure: I’m a Dallas Cowboys fan. If you’re one too, you already understand why I’m writing this with a sigh. This season has tested the faithful. Being a Cowboys fan right now feels a lot like a holiday weekend on nights: you knew what you signed up for, you show up anyway, and you keep telling yourself it’s going to get better.
But after the loss to the Green Bay Packers, I read head coach Brian Schottenheimer’s postgame comments, reported by DallasCowboys.com, and something in them stayed with me. It wasn’t the football. It was how he took ownership.
“The effort is right, the fight is right, but mistakes are killing us,” he said. “Repeating mistakes is not what we’re about.” He listed what needed fixing, then added: “That starts with myself and the offensive staff.” Later: “Lost two games in a row, haven’t played well, got to take a hard look at it, and that starts with me.”
No finger-pointing at players. He pointed at himself. Here are three things that made me think about.
1. Repeated mistakes are a leadership problem first
Schottenheimer made a point that these weren’t new mistakes. “This is something that we’ve addressed and talked about,” he said. The team was called for eleven penalties and, by his count, had five turnovers in two games.
In policing, we see the same pattern. One officer missing a step on a report is a coaching moment. Half a shift missing the same step is a system telling you something. Maybe the expectation wasn’t clear. Maybe the training didn’t stick. Maybe we mentioned it once at roll call and assumed it landed.
Before discipline, it’s worth asking: what have I built, or failed to build, that keeps producing this result? Accountability still matters. But when a mistake repeats across people, the first place to look is the leadership that shaped the conditions.
2. Credit the effort, and still name the problem
Notice how Schottenheimer balanced it. He credited the effort and the fight, and in the same breath said the execution “wasn’t clean enough.” He didn’t sugarcoat it, and he didn’t tear anyone down.
That balance is harder than it looks. Some supervisors are great at encouragement and avoid hard conversations. Others go straight to the problem and forget that people are genuinely trying. Officers can handle the truth. What wears them down is feeling like their effort doesn’t count.
You can say “I see how hard you’re working” and “this still has to be fixed,” and mean both. People usually hear the second part better when the first part is sincere. Accountability and engagement aren’t competing goals. Handled well, each one strengthens the other.
3. “It starts with me” needs a plan behind it
The phrase is powerful, but only if something follows it. Schottenheimer didn’t stop at owning the result. He named priorities: protecting the football, finding a running game, getting off the field on third down. “We’re in a hole, we put ourselves there,” he said. “There’s one way out of it… We’ve got to work, we’ve got to find solutions, can’t repeat mistakes.”
Leaders can say “that’s on me” as often as they want. It sounds humble. But if nothing changes afterward, people notice, and the phrase starts to sound like a reflex rather than a commitment. Real accountability sounds like: “That’s on me, and here’s what I’m going to do differently.” Then you explain your reasoning, follow through, and let your team see the change.
A simple check
The next time something goes sideways on your team, before you look for who messed up, ask three questions:
- Have we seen this before?
- Did I name the problem while still honoring the effort?
- If I’m owning it, what’s my plan?
As for my Cowboys, I’ll be watching the next game like always. Hope springs eternal.
Source: Brian Schottenheimer says ‘execution wasn’t clean enough’ in loss to Packers, DallasCowboys.com.