The following is an excerpt from Warren Sharp's 2025 Football Preview book. In addition to Warren's deep, detailed write-up on all 32 NFL teams, each chapter features page after page of full-color charts, stats, and heatmaps as well as penalty analysis from Joe Gibbs. Click here for a full FREE chapter from the 2025 Football Preview.
Penalties are an under-discussed aspect of NFL success and failure. Average teams can become playoff contenders with good discipline, and good teams can become great simply by winning the penalty battle.
Let's look at how the Dallas Cowboys performed from a penalty perspective in 2024 and where they can improve in 2025.
How Did Penalties Impact the Dallas Cowboys?
The Good
- The Cowboys offense ranked as a top-five beneficiary of automatic first downs via penalty. The addition of George Pickens strengthens the team's ability in this area of the game. Pickens has been one of the premier wide receivers at generating defensive pass interference calls in his brief NFL career.
- The offense generated 68% of their beneficial defensive pass interference and defensive holding penalties playing at home.
- The Cowboys surrendered an average of 7.2 yards per penalty, below the NFL average of 8.1 yards per penalty conceded in 2024.
- The Cowboys defense was a top-five unit at generating offensive holding penalties on opposing offenses.
The Bad
- The Cowboys ranked third overall in penalties per game. They were the No. 1 penalized road team in 2024, averaging 9.25 penalties per game away from AT&T Stadium.
- The Cowboys ranked in the top five for pre-snap penalties.
- Based off penalty numbers from the 2024 season, the Cowboys' new wide receiver trio of CeeDee Lamb, George Pickens, and Jalen Tolbert will enter the 2025 season as the highest penalized group at the position.
Grade: C
New Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer was a questionable hire to begin with. He has his work cut out for him, taking over a top-heavy roster with discipline issues.
Dak Prescott isn't getting any younger and is playing behind an offensive line that isn't the dominant unit it once was.
Finally, the rise of the Commanders as NFC East heavyweights presents a major issue for a Cowboys team that consistently feasted on wins against Washington over the past decade.
If things align early, maybe Dallas can be in the Wild Card race, but that is asking a lot with a schedule that poses a considerable challenge and a coach who may be in over his head.
The Dallas Cowboys are the highest valued franchise in all of sports, but as it pertains to on field achievement, they are a team on the decline.
The 2025 season will further cement that reality with the Cowboys on the outside looking in come playoff time.
This analysis continues in the 2025 Football Preview
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