PHILADELPHIA — Walking from the floodlit grass of Lincoln Financial Field back to the visiting locker room that vibrated with celebratory music, Dallas Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer revealed no expression.

Schottenheimer didn’t cheer nor smile as he walked with purpose toward the locker room. Neither would Dak Prescott minutes later, even as the quarterback who threw for three touchdowns in the Cowboys’ 38-21 win over the Philadelphia Eagles passed teammates ready for high-fives or embraces.

“I just expect that,” Prescott said of the win. “Obviously I’ve been in the league 11 years now and understanding where this team is, what we need to do, the importance.”

Prescott spoke similarly when asked if the Cowboys’ 200+ yards rushing and 200+ yards passing represented the most complete offensive game of 3-4 Dallas’ season.

“The numbers would say so, but this is one game,” Prescott said. “We’ve got to build on this so that we can continue to do this. So we’re not going to be complacent and say, ‘This is it.’ We’ve got to go get better this week and do it again next week.”

Perhaps the Cowboys leaders’ muted tones, if not outward humility, sound like a change from the “GOTI” acronym they touted during training camp for the “Greatest Offense There Is,” with Prescott and Co. also speaking openly then about their Super Bowl visions. But to Prescott and at least some others, “GOTI” was not a pronouncement that the roster had arrived at deserving the praise. It was a challenge to teammates that their roster was assembled in a way suggesting they could be the greatest ever.

Consecutive prime-time losses to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (starting undrafted rookie Jalon Daniels in place of Baker Mayfield) and the Green Bay Packers began to cloud Dallas’ upside and control of playoff hopes. Schottenheimer has led the charge in shifting his tone in at least some ways.

Sure, a 17-point road division win matters. And “absolutely” was Prescott willing to deem Monday night a must-win game. But beating a team that’s lost half a dozen offensive starters won’t be sufficient to make the type of playoff run for which the Cowboys hope. Scoring 35+ points only against the Commanders and Eagles after they’d lost Jayden Daniels (elbow) and Jalen Hurts (blood clots) respectively doesn’t warrant crowning as the offense to fear.

Consider Schottenheimer aware of the criticism some are leveling against his play-calling, game management and team organizing. Consider the Cowboys eager to prove it all wrong.

Monday night was a “definitely hungry, pissed-off version of Schotty,” Prescott said. “It’s not like he’s naive. It’s not like he hadn’t heard some noise about him and whether it’s calling the games or whatever doubt that’s been out there. But we’ve got his back. He knows that. …. 

“More importantly, it’s just about us going out there and executing on Sundays.”

Cowboys re-commit to run after they’d ‘gotten away from it a little earlier’ in consecutive losses

Against an Eagles team down Hurts, wide receiver DeVonta Smith and wide receiver Dontayvion Wicks, the Cowboys’ defense still allowed touchdowns on Philadelphia’s first two drives. Running back Saquon Barkley, battling a hamstring injury and then compensatory back injury, gashed the Cowboys for 62 yards and a touchdown on just seven carries.

So Prescott and Co. knew they needed to score early and often to spell their defensive counterparts.

On six of their first seven possessions, they did.

Dallas’ star wideouts, CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens, accounted for 131 yards and three touchdowns combined. A key to their success: Dallas’ season-high 38 carries.

After 13 and 15 total rushes vs. the Bucs and Packers respectively, Dallas committed to the run game against Philadelphia.

The result: No longer were the Cowboys an offense unable to handle the blitz or balance their run-pass menu. Dallas ran six times in its first-quarter touchdown drive to set up Prescott to a spinning Lamb for the initial score.

A methodical, 14-play drive in the second quarter continued to incorporate some runs even as the explosive touchdown came courtesy a toe-dragging George Pickens 21-yard catch near the right boundary of the end zone.

Only once before the fourth quarter would a Cowboys run play exceed 15 yards. But the carries gradually wore down an Eagles defense with little room for error, demanding defenders return to the box rather than only focus on Lamb and Pickens.

Avoiding an early hole helped Dallas run the ball. But so did simply deciding to commit to running the ball.

“Not being stubborn, but saying, ‘Hey, we're going to run the ball. We're going to make this pop. We're going to make this happen one way or another,’” Prescott told Yahoo Sports after the game. “And Schotty may attest to it: I think in the past couple of weeks we might have even gotten away from it a little earlier than we wanted to. It doesn't help when you're down and you don't feel like you're necessarily stopping them. But yeah, it's a big difference when you're not down multiple scores and you can stick to it even when runs are inefficient. 

“Tonight showed that.”

All three of Prescott’s touchdowns targeted his receivers near the outer edges of the end zone in order to reduce the chances a defender tipped or intercepted the ball, as had plagued the Cowboys four times in the prior two games. Lamb spun away from Eagles defensive back Cooper DeJean on the first score, Pickens extending past safety Andrew Mukuba on the second.

“They did a good job of still trying to play over the top and taking that away, clouding George and rerouting CeeDee here and there when they could,” Prescott said. “They blitzed us early. We had the answers for it, and that allowed us to stay balanced all throughout the game.”

The threat of big receiving plays helped running back Javonte Williams and the offensive line establish the run to the tune of his career-high 155 yards.

“We got a high-level, high-power offense,” Williams said. “When you got GP, CeeDee, [tight end] Jake Ferguson, those guys on the outside? I mean, it's going to open up the running.”

With NFC East attainable and questions loud, what is Cowboys’ mindset?

Improving to 3-4, the Cowboys now sit second in the NFC East and 1.5 games behind the 4-2-1 New York Giants.

Outside of a Nov. 15 game against the 6-1 San Francisco 49ers, the Cowboys’ coming slate consists of below-.500 teams in the 2-5 Arizona Cardinals, 2-5 Indianapolis Colts, 1-6 Tennessee Titans and (again) the 2-5 Eagles.

There is opportunity. And there is also noise to shut out.

“It was very important that we get this win, to be honest. One, for the division and what we want to do at the end of the year, and two, for our confidence,” Lamb said after tallying a game-high 74 receiving yards and two touchdowns. “Losing two games we felt like we could’ve and should’ve won — I hate living in that ‘could’ve-should’ve-would’ve’ world, but I feel like we could have won those games but it didn’t work out for us.

“Tonight we got it done and we’re on to better things.”

Just before boarding the bus, Prescott reflected on the worlds his coaches and teammates live in, the range of criticisms they have and haven’t heard lately, and how it’s impacted the building.

“It doesn't bother me, but I see the way that it affects other people, and that bothers me,” Prescott told Yahoo Sports of the negativity surrounding a Cowboys team underperforming relative to expectation. “And you can't always protect people from taking in the information or hearing the noise. I can control what I hear. I can control what I read. Not everybody's the same way. …

“Some people want to read it or want to listen to it for motivation and then you hear so much and you're pissed off about it.”

Prescott emphasized that “I don’t blame” nor “get upset” with coaches or teammates impacted by criticism. Was Schottenheimer among those after the offense he coordinated managed just 10 and then 7 points entering the fourth quarter the prior two games? His postgame press conference was far terser than usual, perhaps not coincidentally amid the criticism he’s received and the questions about his confidence. 

This Cowboys’ offense, with a healthy offensive line to complement weapons like Prescott, Lamb and Pickens, did not enter the season with expectations of neutrality. The offense entered the season with an expectation of greatness that emanated from within and without, a product of the continuity and high-end talent invested — and also of necessity.

Rarely do first-time play-callers overhauling personnel and scheme in an organization find immediate rhythm and success. The Cowboys had hoped a potent offense could take the pressure off Christian Parker’s defense to perform immediately, recognizing that early in the season some players may be prone to overthink their new and diverse set of responsibilities.

Committing to the run game is necessary for the defense, too, with Dallas needing to control the clock to spell its defense that struggles to get off the field. Also key: avoiding turnovers. The Cowboys have won the turnover battle just twice in seven tries — each time, they’ve scored more than 35 points (albeit against teams down a starting quarterback).

Can Dallas string together just their second winning steak of the Schottenheimer era? At home against the Cardinals on Sunday, they’ll have the chance to try.

They know what’s at stake.

“We say the division's right in front of us — it is as long as we win. …” Prescott said. “Momentum's real, especially in this league. Yeah, especially in what we do and just understanding the parity and how tough this league is. When you get a win, the confidence it gives your group, the confidence it gives this team and just being able to build off of that and the benefit of also going home … 

“So it's Arizona, right? And we just got to make sure you have a great week of preparations to make sure that translates into a big win. And from there, you get two in a row, you start stacking.”