There was plenty to point fingers at after the Dallas Cowboys dropped their Week 14 matchup to the Detroit Lions. Think of a shaky offensive line that couldn’t keep Dak Prescott clean, a defense giving up 44 points, and even KaVontae Turpin’s rough day in the return game. But the biggest, most obvious problem is hard to miss.

Detroit’s kick returns. Dallas got gashed there, and that’s exactly why first-year head coach Brian Schottenheimer says changes are coming to the kickoff-coverage unit with just four games left in the regular season.

“Yeah, we need to do that,” Coach Schottenheimer said when asked whether he had any conversation with Nick Sorensen on kickoff coverage struggles.

“Number one, the kickoff coverage has not been very good. We’ve lost contain, and the way it’s all set up now is again my left free, I got to keep my left arm free. And guys are trying to make plays. And again, the way you cover kicks well is to have everybody do their job, stay in lane, keep their contain, and play with the right arm free. We haven’t done that. And we’ll be looking at maybe some personnel adjustments as well.”

The numbers back him up. The Cowboys have struggled on special teams all season, especially in kickoff coverage. Opponents have logged 60 kickoff returns for 1,495 yards through 14 weeks. That’s 24.9 yards per return and nearly 115 return yards per game. But nothing exposed the issue more than the Lions did on Thursday night.

Detroit posted 8 returns for 261 yards, averaging 32 yards per return. And outside of the final drive, they consistently started near their own 42-yard line. That kind of field position swings games, and it swung this one. These are the clear signs that the Cowboys’ special teams coordinator, Nick Sorensen, is not getting the job done. Which is exactly why Brian Schottenheimer even pointed to that same problem afterward, saying:

“We certainly didn’t cover very well. I thought that kind of flipped the field, gave them a bunch of short fields, and we have to look at why that was. And we’ll do that, certainly an area for us to clean up.”

When you stack all of this together, it’s clear that the kickoff-coverage issues were one of the key reasons Dallas fell to the Lions. Schottenheimer is staying optimistic about fixing it, but the real test comes next week against the Minnesota Vikings. Now it’s about whether the Cowboys can actually tighten things up and keep their playoff push alive.

Can Brian Schottenheimer’s Cowboys still make the playoffs?

Head coach Brian Schottenheimer has dealt with adversity all season, so it’s no surprise the first-year head coach is still pushing for a playoff run despite sitting at 6-6-1 after 14 weeks. But there’s a wrinkle: that 44-30 loss to the Lions seriously damaged their postseason outlook.

According to The Athletic’s playoff simulator, the Cowboys now have just a 7% chance of reaching the playoffs with four games left. Winning out keeps them alive, but even that only bumps their odds to 42%, thanks to the traffic jam in the NFC. So, a clean sweep alone won’t solve everything.

If Dallas wants a real shot, the path might run through the NFC East, something Jerry Jones has hinted at. And while it once felt unrealistic, the Philadelphia Eagles dropping two straight has cracked the door open. At 8-4, Philly is suddenly within reach. If they fall to 8-5, the Cowboys’ odds jump by 10% entering Week 15, and soar to 54% if Dallas wins out.

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But the only harsh truth is the Cowboys are sitting on the playoff brink. However, the fact that they’re still swinging despite early defensive struggles and a 3-5-1 start says a lot about why the Cowboys are now one of the hottest teams in the league. Now it’s all about how they respond from here.