The Dallas Cowboys suffered one of their most damaging defeats of the 2026 season on Sunday, blowing a 14-3 halftime lead before falling 33-30 to the Arizona Cardinals in overtime. The loss dropped Dallas to 3-5 and intensified the scrutiny surrounding head coach Brian Schottenheimer, whose team has struggled to find consistency in his second season at the helm.
Jerry Jones has publicly backed his head coach and indicated that he has no immediate plans to make a change. However, former Cowboys wide receiver Dez Bryant already has someone in mind should the franchise eventually decide to move on: his former teammate Jason Witten.
In a post on X, Bryant proposed that the Cowboys hire former tight end Witten as the team's next head coach.
"I'm just saying… if anything were to happen in Dallas…Jason Witten should be the next head coach of the Dallas Cowboys. I can see it..and I'd love that," Bryant wrote .
Witten was selected 69th overall by the Cowboys in the third round of the 2003 NFL Draft and went on to become one of the greatest tight ends in franchise history.
Across 17 NFL seasons, he earned 11 Pro Bowl selections, two first-team All-Pro honors and two second-team All-Pro selections. He initially retired after the 2017 season and spent a year in the Monday Night Football broadcast booth before returning to Dallas in 2019.
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He played his final NFL season with the Las Vegas Raiders in 2020 before announcing his retirement in January 2021 and arranging to retire as a Cowboy through a one-day contract.
However, Witten's career away from the field has also started to take shape.
In 2021, he became the head coach at Liberty Christian School in Argyle, Texas, where he spent five seasons. He guided the Warriors to consecutive Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools state championships in 2023 and 2024, building a coaching résumé before returning to the college game.
Witten joined the Oklahoma Sooners as their tight ends coach in January 2026. He received another opportunity this week when head coach Brent Venables dismissed offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle and appointed Witten as the interim offensive coordinator and play-caller for the remainder of the season.
The appointment is a significant step in Witten's coaching career, although he has yet to lead an NFL team or serve as an NFL coordinator.
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Schottenheimer made unwanted history when his team, leading 24-10 with 14:20 left in the fourth quarter, lost to the Cardinals. Before Sunday, the Cowboys held a commanding 202-0-1 record when leading by 14 or more points in the fourth quarter at home.
The loss to the Cardinals also matched the largest blown fourth-quarter lead in franchise history.
In his 37-year tenure as owner and general manager, Jones, who has faced criticism for his approach to coaching salaries, has rarely made in-season head-coaching changes.
The polarizing Dallas owner did so once in 2010, when he replaced Wade Phillips with Jason Garrett after the Cowboys were 1-7. While speaking to reporters after the Cardinals game, Jones admitted that he is unlikely to repeat that action.
"I made a change and I don't want to mention it because I'm not proud of it," Jones said. "But I made a change with Wade Phillips there in the middle of the season and I don't see that here."
Schottenheimer has faced increased criticism amid Dallas' 3-5 start. The Cowboys also overhauled their defense during the offseason, firing coordinator Matt Eberflus in January and replacing him with Christian Parker, whose unit currently ranks last in PFN Defense Impact Score with a 60.6 grade.
This article originally appeared on Pro Football Network .
