Grading the perplexing Cowboys promotion of Brian Schottenheimer to the head coaching role
The Dallas Cowboys made the perplexing move on Friday evening of promoting offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer to the team’s head coaching position.
Schottenheimer rose the ranks in Dallas from being a coaching analyst in 2022 to the team’s offensive play-caller in 2023 and the team’s head coach in 2025.
The new Cowboys coach has been around the NFL for nearly three decades, and he now follows in the footsteps of his father, the late Marty Schottenheimer, as a head coach in the pros. What do we make of this?
Despite speculation of a splashy Cowboys hire like Colorado head coach Deion Sanders, Dallas chose the path of least resistance by bumping Schottemheimer up to the main job after parting ways with Mike McCarthy earlier this month.
It’s a strange series of events for the Cowboys, as Schottenheimer hints to basically more of the same of what Dallas got under McCarthy with less experience. It’s hard to really see a world where promoting Schottenheimer makes that big of a difference for Dallas; keeping McCarthy around made more sense since he at least has a recent track record of winning.
Team owner Jerry Jones tabbing Schottenheimer reinforces Dallas’ intent of maintaining stasis with quarterback Dak Prescott and wide receiver CeeDee Lamb. There will be no culture shock coming to Jerry World; promoting your offensive coordinator of the last two seasons means you’re confident the path you’re on and don’t feel seismic changes are necessary to regain success.
What else do you even say about this? Schottenheimer has been fine as an offensive coordinator, but he’s never been a head coach before. He’ll now be tasked with resurrecting Dallas as an NFC heavyweight. In a division where the Philadelphia Eagles and the Washington Commanders are about to duke it out for a Super Bowl berth, that’s going to be tough to do right away.
We have no idea what a Schottenheimer team will look like, but you can probably look to its range in the last two Cowboys seasons. Getting Prescott back to playing an elite level will be paramount for making this work, but the quarterback needs more talent around him to make this offense soar. The idea of Dallas taking running back Ashton Jeanty in the first round of the 2025 NFL Draft feels much more likely now.
Dallas needs real investment on both sides of the ball, so look to Jones and the Dallas front office as a major force into where this next era of Cowboys football is going. Schottenheimer hasn’t really done anything in the NFL so far to suggest he’s the kind of Kyle Shanahan-level coach who can elevate your roster with his schematic prowess, so adding more talent is key.
It’s not fair to Schottenheimer to write off what he’s capable of as a head coach, but it’s also a struggle right now to understand how this will be all that different for Dallas than the last few years have been. For that, we’ll grade the Cowboys promoting Schottenheimer with a C.