Brian Schottenheimer has a lot of things to remedy in his first year as Dallas Cowboys head coach, but the ship will ultimately sink or swim based on the play of Dak Prescott.

Schottenheimer has worked with quarterbacks throughout his coaching career and already has a strong relationship with Prescott.

It is open for interpretation where Prescott belongs in the QB hierarchy, but he is a really good quarterback whom many teams would be lucky to have. Of course, Prescott is not without flaws and it seems as though Schottenheimer is already working to remedy one of them.

Brian Schotteneheimer says Cowboys will change Dak Prescott’s cadence this year

In his media availability on Thursday before the Cowboys hit the field for practice, Schottenheimer revealed the team is making changes to Dak Prescott’s renowned “Here we go” cadence. Prescott debuted the cadence last summer and it immediately caught on with Cowboys fans.

Dallas’ offensive line welcomed multiple new starters in 2024, including left tackle Tyler Guyton and center Cooper Beebe. The “Here we go” after Prescott diagnosed potential blitzers and audibled helped get everyone in lockstep before the ball was snapped.

While it benefitted Dallas’ offensive line, and ultimately Prescott, odds are it made things easier for opposing defenses as well.

After a while, it felt very obvious when Dallas was about to hike the ball. That, in turn, made it incredible easy for pass-rushers to time their get-off.

Despite starting just eight games, Prescott was sacked 21 times and pressured 98 times last season, per PFF. That averages out to well over two sacks per start. When Prescott was pressured, opposing defenses got home 21.4% of the time.

While Prescott’s cadence is not fully to blame for those numbers, it seems that Schottenheimer has recognized that it was a potential detriment to the offense.

If nothing else, this is another positive sign from the first-year head coach.

He has stated repeatedly that players will have to earn their starting job. That obviously does not include Prescott, but Schotteheimer did note on Thursday that the two-time Pro Bowler is still in the “developmental phase” in addition to backups Joe Milton and Will Grier.

“The minute these quarterbacks think that they figured it all out, that’s probably when it’s time for them to think about doing something different,” Schottenheimer said.

While Prescott’s starting job is not in danger, Schottenheimer clearly has a strong idea of what he wants QB1 to clean up. It starts with the cadence.