FRISCO, Texas — Dak Prescott does not want a play-call wristband, and the Dallas Cowboys offensive staff shortens its calls so he can verbalize every one of them himself, Cowboys offensive coordinator Klayton Adams said Thursday.
Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer calls the offensive plays, as he did in his first season as head coach in 2025. The call goes from the sideline into Prescott’s helmet, and Prescott relays it to the huddle.
Part of the challenge is the nuance the staff wants the tight end and the running back to hear on a given play, Adams said.
“A hundred percent, and specifically because Dak, I think, is pretty prideful about not wanting to be a guy that has a wristband,” Adams said. “He wants to really be able to verbalize the play call, and he wants to own it, and he works very, very hard at that. And so we try to shorten the verbiage as much as you can.
“Now, you also get greedy because, I guess it’s in college football now, but it didn’t used to be when I was coaching there, is you’re giving it to him directly in his headset,” Adams continued. “So sometimes you’re throwing something on there that’s like, hey, I want to make sure that the tight end knows what he’s doing here. I want to make sure that the back knows what he’s doing here because there’s nuance to it. We try to get those things assumed as much as we can so that there’s less words.”
Adams replaced Schottenheimer as offensive coordinator after Schottenheimer was promoted to head coach Jan. 24, 2025. Adams spent 14 years as a college assistant, starting at Boise State, where he played center. His last college job was at Colorado, where he was co-offensive coordinator and offensive line coach in 2018. From 2019 to 2022, he was an assistant offensive line coach and then the tight ends coach for the Indianapolis Colts. He coached the offensive line for the Arizona Cardinals in 2023 and 2024. In 2024, Arizona allowed 30 sacks, fifth-fewest in the league.
Prescott is entering his 11th season. Dallas drafted him in the fourth round in 2016, 135th overall, out of Mississippi State. In 2025, he completed 67.3% of his passes for 4,552 yards, with 30 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. The yardage total ranked third in the NFL. Dallas finished 7-9-1 and missed the playoffs. His teammates voted him one of the Cowboys’ four captains again this season.
Klayton Adams On What The Cowboys Offense Will Look Like in Week 1
Every offseason, Adams looks at what worked, what did not, and where the offense needs to pivot.
“I guess we’ll just have to wait until Sunday night to see what that looks like,” Adams explained. “You see what’s happening around the league, and then you look at yourself in the offseason, you see what did we do well, how do we build off of that, what did we struggle with, where do we need to pivot, and so those are the thought processes that go into it.
“I always say this, but you go into week one thinking that you’re one thing, and usually by week four or five, you figure out the things that you’re good at and maybe you’re something else,” Adams added.
The New York Giants have a new defensive staff. Dennard Wilson is their defensive coordinator after two seasons in the same job with the Tennessee Titans, and head coach John Harbaugh is in his first season in New York after 18 with the Baltimore Ravens.
Klayton Adams On Red Zone Scheme And The Scramble Drill
Scheme matters in the red zone, but Adams said the players are the ones who win in the NFL.
“I think that it has a role for sure,” Adams said. “There are bad plays down there. There are things that when you call it, you’re like, man, we didn’t give the quarterback a chance. Or there’s times that when you try to assess like why you were or you weren’t successful down there, it’s maybe you’re not, you feel like, gosh, I don’t know if I gave the back the best chance here because this wasn’t a great scheme for them.
“So I think it’s part of it, but just like third downs and everything else, the players are the ones that win in this league,” Adams detailed. “And so I think that when you watch sometimes the top red zone teams around the league, sometimes what you see is a guy extending a play and then a team that’s really, really good in the scramble drill.
“So we’ve got to make our own luck a little bit more down there, but scheme is part of it, and that’s something that we owned in the offseason is, all right, how do we put our players in the best position to be successful?” Adams noted. “Having said that, it’s not all of it.”
Prescott’s last game at MetLife Stadium was the 2025 finale on Jan. 4, a 34-17 loss to the Giants. He went 7-of-11 for 70 yards before Joe Milton III replaced him at halftime.
Sunday’s kickoff at MetLife is 7:20 p.m. CT on NBC.
