Brian Schottenheimer’s coaching staff is objectively impressive.
The Dallas Cowboys have finalized their first coaching staff under Brian Schottenheimer, and it’s a group that’s received plenty of praise. Schottenheimer plans to call offensive plays, but he filled out his offensive staff with coaches that come with strong track records for player development and also bring unique schematic backgrounds to the table.
Elsewhere, Schottenheimer went with experience. Matt Eberflus didn’t work out as a head coach, but his run as the Colts defensive coordinator was really strong, and his Bears defenses were always stout. At special teams, Nick Sorensen has experience in addition to having also been a defensive coordinator. Both coaches will allow Schottenheimer to focus more directly on coaching the offense, similar to the structure Mike McCarthy had with Dan Quinn (and later Mike Zimmer) and John Fassel.
What’s lost in all of these staffing decisions, though, is one key factor, and it’s something that separates Schottenheimer’s staff from the rest of the crowd: he chose quality over connections.
The NFL is known to be a good ol’ boys league, where coaches get jobs more so because of their connections than whether or not they’re actually good. We saw this most recently with the Sean McVay effect after the Rams saw success under McVay, and some could argue it’s why Schottenheimer has stuck around in the league as long as he has.
Whether or not that’s true, Schottenheimer did not take that same approach to building his coaching staff. With his staff completed at 18 total coaches, there are just five coaches who have previously worked with Schottenheimer. Two of those coaches are holdovers from the McCarthy staff: Steve Shimko, who was promoted to quarterbacks coach and had worked with Schottenheimer at both Georgia and Seattle, and tight ends coach Lunda Wells.
The other three coaches are Sorensen, his assistant Carlos Polk, and defensive pass game coordinator Andre Curtis. Polk only has one year of crossover with Schottenheimer – the 2021 season in Jacksonville – but that also saw him assisting Sorensen, making that more of a Sorensen hire than Schottenheimer simply bringing in someone he knows well. That’s similar to Curtis, who was there for all three years of Schottenheimer’s years with the Seahawks but also served on Eberflus’ Bears staff, making that more of a reunion with the new defensive coordinator.
Speaking of Eberflus, the decision to bring him in as defensive coordinator felt obvious to some because of his ties to the organization. That said, Schottenheimer and Eberflus have never been part of the same staff and have no obvious connections. It would be naïve to suggest Jerry Jones didn’t play any part in bringing Eberflus back to Dallas, but Schottenheimer’s willingness to embrace it – despite knowing a ton of other coordinator candidates from his various experiences – speaks volumes about what he was looking for.
This is even more apparent on the offensive side of the ball. Klayton Adams offers plenty of reasons to be excited, but he has zero ties to Schottenheimer. The additions of wide receivers coach Junior Adams and offensive line coach Conor Riley were also out of left field, having no real connection to Schottenheimer or anyone on staff, but rather just being good coaches getting hired because of their merits.
The same can be said of pass game specialist Ken Dorsey, a former coordinator who brings plenty of valuable expertise and insight into the room. Dorsey has just over a decade of coaching experience but no ties to Schottenheimer or Adams. The closest you can get to a connection is that Dorsey was QB3 for the 49ers in 2005 under new offensive coordinator Mike McCarthy; that’s really it.
Schottenheimer built his staff in much the same way Abraham Lincoln built his presidential cabinet: rather than filling it with party loyalists, as was the tradition, Lincoln sought a diverse group of differing philosophies that would later be coined the Team of Rivals. Schottenheimer doing the same thing in Dallas is significant in today’s NFL.
Take a look at the other head coaching hires, for example. Both Lions coordinators – Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn – left for head coaching jobs and filled their staffs with at least three coaches from Detroit. They also each added a couple coaches with ties to Lions head coach Dan Campbell.
In Boston, Mike Vrabel reunited with longtime Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels and also hired nine different coaches that worked with him on the Titans prior to his firing. And while Kellen Moore has yet to make any official hires to his Saints staff, all reports indicate that he’ll bring Brandon Staley – his former head coach with the Chargers – in to run the defense. Additionally, two of his assistant coaches in Philadelphia have been touted as frontrunners to be Moore’s offensive coordinator.
This is just the way things work in the NFL; it’s more about who you know and not about how good you are. That’s why Schottenheimer’s staff, and the process by which he built it, is deserving of such respect. There’s no guarantee that this staff will work out, but Schottenheimer has at least improved his odds by seeking outside voices and infusing his coaches rooms with creativity and new concepts.
