Emmitt Smith Q&A: NFL Career Rushing Leader Breaks Down the 2026 Cowboys

Emmitt Smith is a Dallas Cowboys legend.

The 57-year-old is the NFL's all-time leading rusher with 18,355 yards. He accomplished just about everything you can on the gridiron, winning the NFL MVP, the Super Bowl MVP and three Super Bowl titles. In addition to being the league's career rushing leader, he also still holds NFL records for most rushing attempts (4,409) and rushing touchdowns (164).

Although Smith is long retired and enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, his name will always be connected to the Cowboys — and it doesn't hurt that he was a key member of the team's last Super Bowl win in the 1995 season.

Smith spoke one-on-one with Athlon Sports to talk about a range of topics, including the Cowboys' prospects for next season, the George Pickens situation and his ongoing partnership with Bud Light.

Bud Light's "Grill for America" campaign will include limited-edition patriotic packaging and a $250,000 giveaway for grilling essentials including coolers and cash this summer. Proceeds will benefit Folds of Honor, helping to provide life-educational sponsorships for relatives of fallen or disabled service members and first responders.

[Editor's note: The following article has been lightly edited for readability.]

Athlon: The Cowboys had an up-and-down season last year. Obviously, they had a great offense but the worst scoring defense. What's the key for them to get back to contending status?

Smith: Well, I think right now, one of the keys is definitely getting in physical, great shape to go through a grueling season. Playing in the NFC East is never easy, and never has been easy. So physically, mentally and emotionally, what we should be doing this offseason, is gelling as a unit and as different components of the unit, different segments, offense, defense and special teams is important as well. With the addition of the new guys that are coming in, whether it's a new D coordinator [Christian Parker], new players that have been drafted through the draft, those are all good things.

But what I'm loving the most about this Cowboys offseason, it's been fairly low key, fairly quiet to me. That is a focus that needs to take place and continue to elevate itself throughout the course of the season, and just trying to trying to maintain health getting better in year two of Brian Schottenheimer's offensive scheme, and allowing our new defensive coordinator to implement his new scheme with the young players that he drafted and the current veterans that are around that's going to help us stop the run, and the linebackers that we gathered, the secondary that we're putting together.

I think the disconnect that we saw defensively will come together this year. I think communication is going to be extremely important for our defense in order to not have some of the breakdowns that we saw last year where we gave up chunks of yards down the [field] to wide open guys because we busted a cut.

Athlon: How do you feel about how they tackled the defense issue? They drafted Caleb Downs and Malachi Lawrence in the first round. They brought in a new defensive coordinator from Philly in Christian Parker. Do you think that this is the season they get things right? Obviously, they traded Micah Parsons last year. Do you think that they get the ship righted on that end?

Smith: Well, I think that we stabilized some stuff. I don't know if we got it right completely, but we stabilized. I think anything that we stabilize on the defensive side considering the way our defense played last year gives us at least an opportunity to have two to three or maybe four more wins. Those are three to four more wins that gets us in the playoffs, and anything is possible.

Great health throughout the course of the season, better execution defensively, executing at a high level offensively and on a consistent basis, we know we have one of the best kickers in the entire National Football League. Just those dynamics alone says on paper that we should be a better team, and if they translate from paper onto the football field and translate from losses to wins. I think you'll see significant improvement in the Dallas Cowboys this year, and have you wanting to see us again next year.

Athlon: If this defense can at least be decent — because they were the worst in the NFL last season — the NFC East is kind of wide open, right? Could you see Dallas contending for that No. 1 spot in the NFC East as soon as this season?

Smith: Most definitely. As you said, we were the worst last year. If we can just make it to the top 20, just the top 20 would have had us in the playoffs last year with the performance that we had offensively. Now we got to replicate that offensive performance and get better. I think we will get better in year two in this offense. But if our defense can go from the bottom 30 all the way up to somewhere in the top 20, I think just that alone is enough to get us into the playoffs and perhaps even win the NFC East.

Athlon: Like you said, this has been a pretty low-key offseason for the Cowboys. The one thing that's been in the headlines has been the George Pickens situation, the whole franchise tag situation. What are your thoughts on the situation with George Pickens?

Smith: I think for George, it may not be the most pleasant thing to get tagged the way he did. However, for the Cowboys overall, I think it's a great thing. Because now you have George Pickens that's coming back for an entire season. You have CeeDee Lamb. Your offensive wide receiver core is set. You're filling out the third wide receiver with KaVontae Turpin and then you probably draft a few other guys to come in ... and backups around that wide receiver core.

I think offensively, we ran the ball effectively. Last year we had a 1,000-yard rusher, which is great if we can get another 1,200 to 1,400 yards out of our backs this year. If not, we should be able to get 1,400 at least out of all the backs combined. That's enough to keep everything moving offensively and defensively.

We just talked about the defensive side of the ball, special-teams wise, we still have one of the best — if not the best — kicker in the game of football today. All those things on paper have us looking the part, but we've looked the part in the past. I think the difference is the newness of the D coordinator, the consistency of the head coach in Brian Schottenheimer and what he's doing. All those things are stabilizers to me. Any kind of success that we have this year should mount on top of that and make us better in the years to come.

Athlon: Tell me what you're doing with Bud Light, this grilling campaign and Peyton Manning. I know you've been partnered with them for awhile, and you've done work with Manning in the past.

Smith: Last summer, Peyton Manning and I shot a grilling backyard campaign called "Priorities Set" and had a beautiful setup backyard with spectacular TV setup with grilling. We're grilling back out in the backyard and everything else, and having nothing but Bud Light and having great conversations, getting prepared as he remodels his new home. The first thing he's remodeling outside the home is the backyard for the grilling and getting ready for football season. We had a great time shooting the commercial. Great experience working with Peyton, and this year with Bud Light.

We're celebrating 250 years of America's birth, and so in doing that, created this commemorative can, probably one of the only cans that probably will be commemorated before we celebrate something else. It's gonna be a minute, but Bud Light is doing a great giveaway with $250,000 in grilling essentials, including coolers, as well as cash for the summer. We're embarking upon the summer within the next three to four weeks.

So June will be here before you know it, grilling season to be around Fourth of July, Memorial Day and all these things about to start happening, then football is kicking right back in and so forth. We're celebrating right now and starting off right now with Bud Light.