What’s motivating Rico Dowdle as Panthers prepare to take on Cowboys
Rico Dowdle admitted that he’s heard from a few of his teammates this week.
The now-Carolina Panthers running back heard from Brock Hoffman, his old center. Dowdle heard from Malik Davis, his fellow running back last year and one of his best friends. He even heard from Dak Prescott, his old quarterback.
“Dak texted me after the game,” Dowdle said, perched on a chair in front of his locker Wednesday. The Panthers’ running back shared this as he was three days removed from the game of his life and a few hours removed from being announced as Week 5’s NFC Offensive Player of the Week. What earned him the honors: 23 carries, 206 yards and one touchdown — all in a 27-24 comeback win against the Miami Dolphins.
Dowdle said Prescott offered him congratulations.
And something else:
“See you next week.”
Dowdle didn’t need to hear from former teammates to be motivated this week. But the reminder of where he left probably didn’t hurt. The Western North Carolina native and former University of South Carolina star is going up against his previous employer in the Dallas Cowboys at 1 p.m. Sunday in Bank of America Stadium — the same Cowboys he ran over 1,000 yards for a year ago.
And even though he downplayed what the matchup means to him personally on Wednesday, he stood on something specific, with an understated and justifiable confidence: “I will be coming.”
Dowdle hasn’t brandished the chip on his shoulder much publicly this year. But in flashes, the discerning eye could see it.
You saw it in his introductory interview with Charlotte media in March, when he expressed surprise that his free agency market wasn’t better. He signed a one-year, fully guaranteed $2.75 million deal in 2025. His response: “We were thinking more multi-year going into free agency, but it is what it is, and it took a turn.”
You heard stories about it after the Dolphins game, including one in which he told Jaycee Horn that he was going to have the game of his life and run for 180 yards. (He was off by 20. Semantics.)
You even heard it from the man himself postgame on Sunday: “Oh for sure, they gotta buckle up,” Dowdle said of the Cowboys postgame. “I think they know for sure. ... They didn’t keep me there for five years for no reason. I’d definitely say that.”
Word, in fact, got all the way around to Brian Schottenheimer, the head coach of the Cowboys currently who was Dowdle’s offensive coordinator a year ago.
“It’ll be good to see Rico this weekend,” Schottenheimer told media Monday in Dallas. “I know we’re going to have to buckle up, he said. So we’ll bring our seatbelts, Rico. We’ll buckle up.”
So in any case, it’s hard not to notice the stakes of the game for Dowdle. Head coach Dave Canales tried denying that any opponent means more than another — “That’s not part of our language here,” the coach said — but even Canales eventually nodded in acknowledgement.
“He’s human,” Canales said. “I know that there’s going to be emotions and all that. But we have to set those things aside. I don’t know if there were any special emotions last week. He played hard, and I expect him to play the same way again.”
How Rico Dowdle and Chuba Hubbard are sharing a backfield
Dowdle’s emergence has come at an interesting time.
For one, he’s clearly seeing opportunities — and running “violently” as Canales likes to say — just in time for the Panthers to play against lower-ranked defenses. The Dolphins have a bottom-three rush defense. The Cowboys, too, give up 412 yards per game, the most in the NFL. They’re also allowing 127.4 rushing yards, specifically, per game, and have allowed six rushing touchdowns in five contests.
For another, Dowdle’s surge comes just as Panthers starting running back Chuba Hubbard is sidelined with a calf injury. The team’s primary runner a year ago — who also notched a 1,000-plus yard season and a four-year extension to go with it in 2024 — didn’t play against the Dolphins. He also didn’t practice Wednesday, perking up the possibility that Dowdle could take the mantle again.
Both Dowdle and Hubbard reiterated how much they enjoyed working together Wednesday. Dowdle said Hubbard “works like no other; first guy in, last guy out.” Hubbard called Dowdle’s Sunday showing “one of the best performances I’ve ever seen in person — or really ever, to be honest — I’m really happy for him.”
“One thing you can never be mad about is having a talented RB room,” Hubbard said. “I think there are ways to complement each other. Also I think that there are moments like this, where one guy goes down, another guy gets to step up. Just Rico, Trevor (Etienne) and the rest of the guys, Deejay (Dallas), everyone just filled in and did a great job.”
But the numbers suggest that having a too-talented running back room is possible. Neither back has had the production they’ve had in 2024 prior to Week 5. Some of that is game circumstantial; the Panthers falling behind by a lot early generally prompts that. Some of that is facing good running defenses, too.
But some could also be attributed to neither having the opportunities to shine. Both runners seem to play better as games go on. Both were able to do that as unquestioned RB1s a year ago.
Has splitting carries been a hinderance of rhythm rather than a way to keep fresh?
They say no.
At the same time, when asked about Dowdle’s ability to read defenses, to suggest plays to Canales that he likes — including one in which he broke off for a 53-yard run Sunday — Dowdle suggests that feeling out the game is critical for a running back.
“Once you get going, you kind of get in a rhythm out there, and you’re feeling certain things out, the flow of the game, and seeing things that I feel like our kind of working,” Dowdle said. “It just so happened that I noticed plays when they worked. So it’s just feeling the flow of the game and seeing certain things, how they plan certain things, and it opened up.”
‘No predictions, let the game tell it all’
Dowdle said that when he was with the Cowboys, they’d plaster on the walls motivation material. Earning an NFC player of the week nod certainly qualifies as such, Dowdle said.
In this regard, Dowdle seems to know that he doesn’t need to add any more bulletin board material, do nothing more than he’s already done. When asked if there have been any declarations of how many yards he’d run for — like he did last week — the running back smiled.
“No predictions,” he said. “Let the game tell it all.”
He has plenty incentive to do so.
This story was originally published October 9, 2025 at 6:00 AM.
