New season, same old Dallas Cowboys. Last season, Dallas had the potential to be a playoff team… if their defense could make stops consistently. After making a few trades in the middle of last season and some big acquisitions in the offseason, fans were hoping to see something different from this team in 2026.

Instead, it looked like more of the same thing for the Cowboys. Against the New York Giants, the Dallas defense gave up 394 yards and allowed the young team to run wild over them. Jaxson Dart had his best game of his career, Cam Skattebo looked electric in his first game back, and the rest of the offense was heating up. It was the same script that Dallas followed last season, just with some new cast members.

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones isn't too worried about this, though. Jones cited the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots' slow starts last season, saying that the thinks the Cowboys could still improve.

“The first game unquestionably was important: don’t get me wrong,” Jones said on 105.3 The Fan, per Joseph Hoyt. “I saw nothing on review that tells me we should depart away from the plan we have to get better on defense.”

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Jones had more to say about this new-look Cowboys defense and his hand in building it this offseason.

“Last time I was involved in as much change as we made this year … was the first year I bought the Dallas Cowboys and we won one game,” Jones said. “You should expect more than what we did back then. We’re very optimistic that we can play better, right now, than what we played on Sunday night.”

Jones also talked about the defense's execution of the game plan, saying that they need to be better.

“We don’t need to look at the tape to say overall we have to bring to the table a lot more of what we worked hard to change out during the offseason. We have to execute on what we were trying to change out.”