All meetings are not created equally. Certainly, when former Steelers coach Mike Tomlin weighed in this week on the Jason and Travis Kelce podcast, and suggested that the Cowboys‘ holding of a players’ only defensive meeting following the drubbing the team took at the hands of the Buccaneers on Thursday night meant that Dallas was “dead,” he had in mind a certain type of meeting. That would be one rooted in finger-pointing and scapegoating, one in which players came in angry and left angry.
We’ve heard tales of those types of NFL meetings in the past. But at every level–whether it was owner Jerry Jones or defensive lineman Quinnen Williams, who orchestrated the meeting–the Cowboys insist it was not that type of get-together. Rather, it was about accountability and solutions, rather than mud-slinging over problems.
Cowboys Meeting ‘Shows Owbnership’
On Friday, in an appearance on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas, Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer registered his polite but stern disagreement with Tomlin’s view of the team meeting and how it relates to Dallas.
Said Schottenheimer: “I think they’re very, very different. I’ve been around the league a long time. I have great respect for Mike. It depends on the type of meeting. If you go into a meeting and the players-only meeting is a bitch-session, I don’t think that that’s a good thing. Matter of fact, I know it’s not a good thing.
“But when you’ve got leaders like Quinnen Williams and Kenny Clark and guys like that that are driving the meeting with a purpose and they’re talking about the things they talked about in that meeting, I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I think it shows ownership on their part.
“Their pride is real. They want to be great. They want to win. There’s a couple different types of meetings that I’ve been around. I certainly wasn’t in the meeting, but I’ve talked to the guys that kind of led it, and it sounds like it was a very, very productive meeting with solution-oriented conversations.”
Cowboys Coach Claps Back at Mike Tomlin Criticism