Brian Schottenheimer's mentors provide Cowboys with laundry list of reasons not to hire him

After letting Mike McCarthy leave in as awkward a fashion as possible last week, it seemed like the Dallas Cowboys had narrowed the focus of their head coaching search to Philadelphia Eagles offensive coordinator (and former Cowboys coach and player) Kellen Moore. Dallas fans were ... unenthused, to say the least: Moore's history as a coordinator isn't quite as sterling as, say, Ben Johnson or Aaron Glenn, and he doesn't come with nearly the sort of leadership experience as big-name candidates like Mike Vrabel, Bill Belichick or Deion Sanders, creating the impression that Jones was just falling back on hiring the guy he was most familiar with.

Now, though, Cowboys fans would probably kill to go back to a time when Moore seemed to be atop their team's wish list. Dallas looks poised to hire a former offensive coordinator alright, but it's not Moore — it's Brian Schottenheimer, who appears to be drawing serious consideration after spending the last two years as OC under McCarthy. Dallas has asked Schottenheimer back for a second interview, and while nothing is done just yet, he seems like a very real possibility. Which should strike fear into the hearts of anyone familiar with his resume.

Brian Schottenheimer's resume should have Cowboys fans very nervous

You'll often hear talk of someone's coaching tree, the path they took and the coaches they worked under on their way up the ranks. And for good reason: The coaches you work under often have the most influence on how you view everything from scheme to scouting to organizing a practice to managing a locker room. And in Schottenheimer's case, that tree has bore some very rotten fruit.

As if the last name wasn't a dead giveaway, Schottenheimer broke into the NFL thanks to his dad, former head coach Marty, under whom Brian served as QB coach with the Chargers from 2002 through 2005 — otherwise known as the period that nearly short-circuited Drew Brees' career before it got off the ground. Marty was always known as among the most offensively regressive coaches in the league, and that's been something of a theme in Brian's career: After a few years in San Diego, he moved on to the New York Jets, where he served as offensive coordinator under first Eric Mangini and then Rex Ryan. Schottenheimer's offenses were consistently run-first, run-second slogs, never doing enough to support the team's solid defenses.

Following a mutual parting of ways after the 2011 season, Schottenheimer found yet another uninspiring offensive mind in Jeff Fisher, under whom he served as OC with the St. Louis Rams for three mediocre seasons. From there: two years under Chuck Pagano as QB coach with the Colts, three years as OC under Pete Carroll in Seattle — in which he very famously refused to let Russ cook — and a year as passing game coordinator for the disastrous Urban Meyer era in Jacksonville.

All told, that's ... a whole lot of lowlights, and a whole lot of time spent on coaching staffs without a ton of offensive acumen. The most decorated offensive mind he's worked under is, by far, McCarthy, which doesn't bode well considering just how retrograde the Cowboys offense looked in 2024. There's very little argument that Schottenheimer is even an above-average offensive coordinator, and we have no evidence to suggest that he has what it takes to be a head coach in the NFL — he's never done it before, and it's not like he's been around a ton of successful organizations. We could always just take Jerry's word for it, but when has he earned the benefit of the doubt?