Cowboys legend Emmit Smith is not available on franchise Brian Schottenheimer's head coaching rental.
The Hall of Fame Hall of Fame was pessimistic about the future of his former team as he transitioned from Mike McCarthy to the Schottenheimer era.
“The next subject,” Smith said earlier this week when asked about new recruiting for ESPN Radio's Sportsmanlike. “I have no response. I don't know what to say. We know we have to give a guy a chance, and I want to give him an opportunity, an opportunity to turn things around. But if we don't align that vision and commitment, we're going to get a lot of what we've seen in the past. And that doesn't feel good.”
The 18,355-yard NFL's greatest rusher ever, Smith spent all but two of his 15 seasons in the Dallas league.
He tore a team's pass-rich approach in recent years.
“We need more [Boise State running back] Ashton Janti. Everything we're talking about having a running game with a running back is that if you have a commitment to the running game, then there's no problem with the running game,” he said. “I think we're far from what we all know as a great team of the Cowboys. You're not looking at that balance anymore. You see one way, it's It's a shame.”
Smith's comments come days after former Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman, who won three Super Bowls in Dallas in the 1990s, expressed disappointment in his team's condition.
“We thought we were going to come back because we thought we were going to be more among us. Obviously, we weren't,” Eikman said in a 2025 Pediatric Cancer Fund. He spoke at the gala. “But not only did we not come back, but here we were almost 30 years later and no one came back.
“I think I'm faithfully talking for the Cowboys saying it's been a long time. This is the Dallas Cowboys, an organization with a great history, and this team has a lot of experience over the years. They've won many games with different players, but for some reason they couldn't do that in the postseason. It was part of the Cowboys legacy, and it was a long-standing supporter. I don't think anyone is happy about that.”
The Cowboys have not yet made an NFC Championship since the 1995 season, let alone a Super Bowl.
In 2024, Dallas missed the playoffs for the first time in four years, making it 7-10, leading to a farewell of roads with McCarthy in January.
