Schottenheimer hire essentially Cowboys’ version of Schrodinger’s Cat – Reid Hanson, Cowboys Wire
Despite the frustration with the hiring of Brian Schottenheimer, it’s still unknown what could come from his tenure as head coach.
The hope that typically follows a new coaching hire was absent from this transaction. Schottenheimer had a rather spotty record as an offensive coordinator and despite being a lifelong coach, he’d never elevated to the position of head coach before. But it’s that level of unknown that inspires just the smallest nugget of optimism. The idea Schottenheimer has never had full control of the team before offers up a “superposition” of sorts.
Given all the unknown, Schottenheimer is both a success and failure at the moment. He’s a mystery much like Schrodinger’s Cat in the famous thought experiment of an observer’s paradox.
In a nutshell, Schrodinger’s Cat is a hypothetical situation in which a cat is locked in a box while being exposed to possibly deadly radiation. A person can assume the cat is dead given the circumstances, but until someone opens the box to confirm the status of the cat, the cat is both alive and dead.
Schottenheimer’s inexperience as a head coach and years of working in the background make him an unknown, much like that cat. There’s plenty of reason to think he’ll be underwhelming but until someone actually observes him coach in 2025, he’s also a potential success.
Among many other things in this well-researched article, Epstein explains what a colleague from his play-calling days expects Schotty’s scheme to look like.
A league executive who worked with Schottenheimer at one of his offensive coordinator stops described the blended philosophies that could guide the system he would build for the Cowboys.
In Seattle, he adjusted his system to the terminology then-Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson already knew to improve consistency for Wilson, the executive told Yahoo Sports. That process would be even smoother should Schottenheimer carry over language for Prescott as he’s already operated in the same language.
With the Jets, Schottenheimer was gap-scheme oriented, the executive said, while later working with more wide-zone and play-action concepts. Tempo and screen game wrinkles trace his Seattle play-calling, Schottenheimer unafraid then to implement pass concepts even on early downs.
The Cowboys’ hire may be neither creative nor inspiring in league circles. That doesn’t mean it can’t work.
“I would not be surprised at all to see Schotty have success as a head coach,” the executive and former Schottenheimer colleague said. “He’s really organized. He’s a direct communicator. He’s got some fire. He’s got some edge.
“He did some really good things [here], things that I probably didn’t [appreciate then] full scale.”
How Jerry, Stephen Jones can assure Cowboys fans amid divisive Brian Schottenheimer hiring – David Moore, DMN
Cowboys cannot afford to sit on their hands again in free agency.
Vitriol of the move — if that’s your response — is likely reserved for Jerry and Stephen Jones. They are the ones on trial with fans here, much more so than Schottenheimer.
Both men are aware of their current standing in popularity polls. Father and son are under no delusions that this move will energize or even appease an increasingly frustrated fan base.
That shifts the focus to March 12. That’s the next chance the Jones family has to slowly begin to change hardened hearts and minds.
Will Jones squared show they have learned the painful lessons of a 7-10 season? Will they alter their approach to free agency for the first time in more than a decade?
“Maybe we could have done a better job of betting on the come with some of the young guys,‘’ Stephen Jones said in November. “Maybe we could have gone a little more into the future to help the current team. Maybe we should have pushed a little more (money) out.
“We’ve got to look at that.‘’
Hiring Schottenheimer was only the first step. There are more for Jerry and Stephen Jones to take before fans can become excited about the 2025 season.
Jerry Jones’ worst nightmare: Approach to Cowboys’ hire could invoke fan apathy – Saad Youssuf, The Athletic.
At some point, your customers will notice that you aren’t investing in your business and are treating them as cash cows.
Fans buy jerseys. They show up for training camp in Oxnard, Calif., albeit in decreasing numbers lately. Road games often feel like home games because Dallas fans come in droves.
Many would call the Cowboys’ hiring of Brian Schottenheimer on Friday night as the next head coach a decision founded in comfort and safety. While that’s true from a football operations standpoint, it’s also perhaps the riskiest decision Jones could have made. That risk isn’t tied to wins and losses, but something Jones cares about even more.
Apathy.
Sports entertainment shows will discuss the Schottenheimer hiring for the next few weeks. Fans will offer their remarks about it for a little while, too. But after the initial wave — which coincides with a conference championship weekend featuring two division rivals and then the Super Bowl — passes, how does Jones convince Dallas fans to care? What cards does he have left to play?
The bottom line has been unaffected so far, but the risk for Jones’ worst nightmare — fan apathy — has never been higher than it is right now.
Winners and losers of Cowboys’ Brian Schottenheimer hire – Nate Davis, USA Today
Three names from Davis’ list of winners and losers,
Winners: Dak Prescott
Continuity was important to the Dallas quarterback, who’s set to enter his 10th season after a blown hamstring cut his ninth short. But Prescott’s best year in the NFL occurred in 2023, when he led the league with 36 touchdown passes and was the runner-up for MVP. Former coach Mike McCarthy was calling the plays then, but Schottenheimer had a front-row seat to what worked so well. The goal moving forward will clearly be to get the QB back at that level of production, which Prescott didn’t approach in 2024 even before going down for good in Week 9.
Winners: Ashton Jeanty?
Or maybe Rico Dowdle? Or fellow free agent Najee Harris? Or fellow free agent J.K. Dobbins? Or maybe UNC’s Omarion Hampton? The point being, Schottenheimer’s best offenses – and those that have been part of the most successful teams he’s coached for – have featured a strong ground game. Though the Cowboys, who pick 12th in Round 1 of the 2025 draft, have several needs, running back appears to be one, and that could be a logical spot to target Jeanty, the highly regarded former Boise State star and two-time All-American who led the country.
Losers: Mike McCarthy
“Loser” is too strong a label given what a strong five-year run he had in North Texas plus the fact he decided to explore other pastures. But McCarthy didn’t get the Chicago Bears gig that Jones initially refused to let him interview for when Dallas had exclusive negotiating rights to him. Maybe McCarthy gets the call from the New Orleans Saints – the last remaining team with a vacancy – two decades after he was their offensive coordinator. Regardless, hard to see McCarthy finding a situation as good as the one he seemed to have in Big D. with 2,601 rushing yards in 2024. Regardless, expect the Cowboys, who ranked 27th rushing the ball in 2024 – and that was despite a strong finish from Dowdle, who’s a free agent himself – to put a much bigger emphasis on their ground attack under Schottenheimer.
Spagnola: In the search end, there’s continuity – Mickey Spagnola, DallasCowboys.com
Cowboys trying to sell continuity with their head coach hire.
Continuity, somewhat of a blessing when considering some of the wholesale changes going on in the NFL these days, with teams not only moving on from head coaches but also general managers.
So now the Cowboys merely handing off to the son of late longtime head coach Marty Schottenheimer, having been with the Cowboys for the past three seasons, and actually McCarthy’s right hand offensive hand the past two.
And then Will McClay still the vice president of player personnel, providing continuity in his general manager-like duties with all these NFL front office firings and hirings taking place.
So really, no major changes so far, Schottenheimer mostly sustaining an offense Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott has run for the past two years since McCarthy took over from Kellen Moore after his departure in 2023. And compared to other teams, the Cowboys have demonstrated somewhat uncommon continuity at the head coaching position considering Schotty becoming just the 10th head coach in what now will be the franchise’s upcoming 66th season.
Report: Broncos assistant special teams coach Chris Banjo is interviewing for the Cowboys special teams coordinator job – Scotty Payne, Mile High Report
With John Fassel leaving the team, the Cowboys could turn to a former player to be their new special teams coach.
According to NFL Network insider Mike Garafolo, Denver Broncos assistant special teams coordinator Chris Banjo is interviewing for the Dallas Cowboys special teams coordinator job. He previously interviewed for the 49ers special teams job and could receive interest from the Jets to join their coaching staff according to 9NEWS Denver’s Mike Klis.
Banjo, a former NFL player who played for the Jaguars, Packers, Saints, and Cardinals from 2013 through 2022 joined the Broncos coaching staff with Sean Payton. He has been the Broncos’ assistant special teams coach for the past two seasons and is now getting looks from other teams around the league.
The interesting thing here is that the Broncos surprisingly fired their own special teams coach Ben Kotwica earlier this offseason. Banjo would be the logical in-house replacement, but with him having multiple interviews with other teams, the Broncos could be losing him as well.
A closer look at why an all-NFC East championship game is the peak of Cowboys embarrassing fallout – Sean Martin, Blogging the Boys
The Cowboys have no one but themselves to blame.
Robert Saleh. Leslie Frazier. Kellen Moore. Brian Schottenheimer. Those are the four names of the only coaches to officially interview for the Cowboys head coaching vacancy. This is the list produced by Jerry Jones’ reported “solo mission” to find his franchise’s next coach after five seasons of Mike McCarthy.
No Ben Johnson, who went to the Chicago Bears. No Aaron Glenn, who is now the head coach of the New York Jets. No Mike Vrabel, who predictably returned to the New England Patriots. Even the slight intrigue of the Cowboys starting the interview process with Saleh and then adding Frazier, signaling a potential shift to a defensive mind after a decade and a half of Garrett and McCarthy specializing in offense, was quickly swept up in the momentum of another offensive hire feeling inevitable once Schottenheimer became the first candidate to reach a second interview.
The very fact the Cowboys needed a new head coach after rumors and speculation they wanted McCarthy back, and it was more of the former coach’s decision to part ways than it was the front office was surprising. McCarthy has since interviewed for the now-taken Bears job as well as the still-open Saints job.
If this is true, hiring Schottenheimer is the closest thing to McCarthy, his offensive coordinator for the last two seasons, and is probably also the closest thing the Cowboys can do to tell the fans they don’t see a need for real change. Schottenheimer has never had an opportunity to call plays for the Cowboys, but the bad taste left in the mouth of how the offense looked so inept and fundamentally broken under both McCarthy and Schottenheimer’s guidance in 2024 is enough to feel like retaining any significant part of the previous staff on this side of the ball is a bad idea.
There is another layer to this that perhaps gets even darker. Again, if it remains true that the Cowboys were sent into scramble mode even just a little bit by McCarthy’s exit, their final interview list paints a picture of not having the easiest time in the world convincing coaches to consider the job. When the quarterback responsible for three of the five Super Bowls in the team’s history calls the job “not exactly coveted”, there is fire where this smoke blows.
The Cowboys clearly had their opportunity to choose Quinn as their head coach if they wanted to over the three seasons he was McCarthy’s defensive coordinator, sticking with McCarthy and watching Quinn remain loyal. This loyalty ran out at the exact same time the magic of Quinn’s defense did as well, as a 48-32 beatdown at the hands of the Packers in the Wild Card round last year hurt Quinn’s prospects as a head coach candidate elsewhere. It took a while, but Quinn ultimately settled in Washington, and now the year one results have been some of the best in franchise history, with a defense featuring plenty of former Cowboys as well.
