The Dallas Cowboys are hiring offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer as their new head coach, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
The decision comes nearly three weeks after the end of the regular season, and it’s unlikely to stir up much excitement. Cowboys fans were hoping for a more significant move after their 2024 campaign came to an unceremonious end for the 29th consecutive season.
Former Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy entered the 2024 season on an expiring contract, and the expectation was that anything short of a deep postseason run would mark the end of his tenure in Dallas.
Yet, Schottenheimer’s hiring suggests that Cowboys owner Jerry Jones didn’t enter the offseason with much of a plan. The Cowboys spent the past 11 days searching for a head coach. After all that time, Jones simply settled on elevating Schottenheimer, the team’s offensive coordinator, to head coach.
Jerry Jones mentioned the concern about his new HC right after his hiring
Jones spelled out the concern with Schottenheimer’s hiring in his statement to Schefter.
“Brian Schottenheimer is known as a career assistant,” Jones said. “He ain’t Brian no more. He is now known as the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys.”
Career assistants are typically known as career assistants because their skill sets don’t translate to head coaching responsibilities. Schottenheimer, the son of former NFL coach Marty Schottenheimer, has 14 years of experience as an offensive coordinator, he has never been a head coach before.
The Cowboys were beginning to run out of other viable coaching options. Nearly two weeks after moving on from McCarthy, the Cowboys were just one of two teams remaining with a head coaching vacancy.
Many of the team’s hiring delays were self-inflicted wounds. Most non-playoff teams made decisions regarding their coaching staff immediately after the final game of the regular season. The Cowboys, however, waited a week before parting ways with McCarthy. The league has strict guidelines in place for how and when team’s can interview head coaching candidates that are currently employed by playoff teams. The delay caused the Cowboys to miss the window for potential interviews with top coaching candidates whose teams were still alive in the playoffs.
Schottenheimer’s hiring will make it difficult — even for Cowboys fans — to be optimistic about the team’s immediate future. At this point, Jones may be wishing he would have allowed McCarthy to retain his coaching position. Despite the team’s losing record, McCarthy did a commendable job of coaching a roster that lost significant pieces in the offseason and suffered significant injuries throughout the regular season.