Cowboys’ biggest mistake on 53-man roster cutdown day ahead of 2026 NFL season

The Dallas Cowboys planted their backup quarterback room flag with Sam Howell. And they’ve already made a potentially significant trade. But here is the Cowboys’ biggest mistake on roster cutdown day ahead of the 2026 NFL season.

Overall, the Cowboys have an extraordinarily strong roster. So naturally, head coach Brian Schottenheimer and company had very tough decisions to make. And the biggest one came at the running back position.

Cowboys turned RB Jaydon Blue loose

First, let’s look at this from the hype train. If you paid attention to the preseason chatter coming out of Dallas, you would have thought Blue could be more than a viable backup. Even further, it sounded like Javonte Williams’ RB1 could be in jeopardy.

The Cowboys, and the Cowboys-focused writers, sang Blue’s praises. And Schottenheimer seemed to be riding the Blue train after a disappointing rookie campaign, according to Sports Illustrated.

“I think he came back, and I’ve said this before, I think he came back with a different mentality, which is great,” Schottenheimer said. “He’s always been extremely bright and picked up the scheme very, very well. It’s been good for us to see him take the next step in certain areas, whether it’s pass protection, whether it’s some of the stuff in the return game.

“But I noticed it early on that there was a little bit different intentionality about him. But he’s got to continue to compete because that’s a deep room as well. And we’ll see how we figure out the rotation. But it was early on for sure.”

Not a ringing endorsement, but certainly the kind of speech that makes one thing the light bulb had gone on for Blue.

And Blue himself seemed to believe he had found the key to the NFL door that was locked last year, according to the team’s website.

“I’ve just been more intentional,” Blue said in early August. “Like I said, this offseason, my main priority was making sure that I stayed in the playbook and was doing things that the coach was asking me to do.

“I took [those lessons] to heart. And like you said, I’m having a great camp so far.  I didn’t want to come in here and start slow like I did last year. I wanted to make sure I came in here, started fast, and proved myself. The game has slowed down a lot to me. It’s kind of coming easy to me now. I probably know the playbook like the back of my hand now. Once I know the playbook like that, I can play fast.”

And Blue seemed to be a nice fit, according to The Athletic.

“The second-year running back entered training camp in the driver’s seat for the No. 2 job behind Javonte Williams,” Jon Machota wrote. “Blue had some highlight runs early in camp, showcasing his speed in space. He looked like the perfect fit to open up Dallas’ screen game. Blue and Williams seemed like they could be ideal complements to each other.”

The Cowboys were selling Blue as a key piece to the backfield. But then they cut him. But let’s look at the other side of the coin.

Cowboys added a new player at RB

After releasing Blue, the Cowboys added Emari Demercado to the running back room. He’s a three-year NFL veteran. His career high in yards is 312. He has scored three touchdowns in three years.

Although Demercado has a ridiculously high 6.5 yards per attempt average in his career, he has never had more than 58 attempts in a season.

It’s not that Demercado is bad. It’s just that the Cowboys went from Blue to him. That doesn’t sound like an upgrade. But the Cowboys believe it is.

It’s possible the Cowboys will be hurt by this decision. On Monday, Blue landed with the Eagles.

Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer acknowledged the difficulty of making tough roster choices, according to dallassportsjournal.com.

“Really emotional last 48 hours or so,” Schottenheimer said. “The human element is real. The conversations are real. We’re trying to build a roster that can handle the strain of 17 regular season games, the grind of the playoffs into the Super Bowl.

“And the roster is always fluid, but I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about that we let some really incredible young men and really good football players out the door. And I am indebted to them for how hard they’ve worked and how much they bought into our culture and what we are building.”

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