Veterans and rookies head to Oxnard on July 28 to sharpen a high-powered offense through physical joint sessions against the Rams and Saints before the new season.
FRISCO - If you are an astute follower of Dallas Cowboys news - and because you're reading this, you must be - you are already aware of most of the details of the NFL's "big announcement'' on Monday.
The league officially released training camp reporting dates for all 32 teams.
Included, of course, is the note that Dallas veterans and rookies will report together to Oxnard, California, on July 28.
But again, if you read this space ... you already knew that, right?
You also already knew about the joint practice foes, but now we can nail down the dates.
On August 11, the Cowboys will make the move to Los Angeles and hold a joint practice against the Rams.
A week later on August 18, the New Orleans Saints will come to Oxnard and Dallas will hold a second joint practice.
No, these won't be "scrimmages,'' so beware reports to the contrary.
What purpose will they serve? Maybe a bad defense gets better. Maybe a mediocre special-teams group gets better.
And maybe a stellar offense does the same.
In 2025, offense was the only real positive to come out of Brian Schottenheimer's first year as head coach.
Dak Prescott threw for over 4,500 yards and 30 TDs, while CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens both surpassed 1,000 receiving yards, and Javonte Williams posted 1,201 rushing yards and 11 TDs.
The Cowboys were one of the highest-scoring teams in football last season, before the late-season drop-off that saw them become allergic to the end zone in the second half of games.
So while the unit as a whole was superb, there is still plenty of room for improvement, and Schottenheimer has talked at length this offseason about evolving.
Yes, the offense was good last season, but the Cowboys can't simply roll out what they did last year again, as defenses would have gone to work on Dallas in the offseason.
So, how do the Cowboys evolve their offense in 2026?
Coordinator Klayton Adams has an idea.
“We did a lot of studies in the offseason just looking at things that maybe we were missing or things that don't fit our personnel or things that we didn't do enough,” Adams said. “That's where you start. I'm also a firm believer that the story of the season tends to write itself.
"It's one of the reasons I try not to tie the screws too tightly to what you want to do in the offseason, because somebody's going to invent something accidentally in the preseason or in week six, week seven, or week eight, and then you're going to go, I want to do that.
"I do think a lot of that's going to happen organically.”
Those "organic'' changes can come as a result of working against guys with different-colored jerseys.
All in all, the camp and the joint sessions represent a delicate balancing act for the Cowboys. They'll want to go pedal-to-the-metal ... but they don't want to show too much of their blueprint and they darn sure hope to avoid injuries.
Will camp and join sessions translate to better production on the field for the offense and the other two phases, too? That is the hope.
