After moving on from head coach Mike McCarthy when his contract expired at the end of the 2024 season, the Dallas Cowboys are officially set to begin a new era.
According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, the Cowboys hired Brian Schottenheimer as their next head coach on Friday. The deal is for four years, per NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport.
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones expressed his support for Schottenheimer as he revealed the news.
“Brian Schottenheimer is known as a career assistant,” Jones said, per Schefter. “He ain’t Brian no more. He is now known as the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys.”
The Cowboys interviewed Philadelphia Eagles offensive coordinator Kellen Moore, former New York Jets head coach Robert Saleh, former Minnesota Vikings head coach Leslie Frazier and had a conversation with Colorado head coach Deion Sanders before choosing Schottenheimer (via Schefter).
A coaching veteran who had his first assistant job in the NFL in 1997 at the age of 24, Schottenheimer originally joined Dallas as a coaching analyst in 2022 before taking over as the team’s offensive coordinator in 2023. The team led the league in scoring at 29.9 points per game in his first year in the role, but that number dropped to 20.6 ppg in 2024 amid a tumultuous year.
The 51-year-old is taking over a Cowboys team that went 7-10 in its final year under McCarthy. Dallas will have the No. 12 pick in the 2025 NFL draft.
Injuries played a key factor in the Cowboys’ lost season. Dallas quarterback Dak Prescott was lost for the year after just eight games due to hamstring surgery. Star edge rusher Micah Parsons also missed four games with a left ankle sprain.
Still, the Cowboys have enough talent to compete with elite teams if they can stay healthy. Prescott and CeeDee Lamb are one of the top quarterback-receiver tandems in the league, and Dallas has a solid core on defense that should be able to bounce back from its disappointing showing this past season under a new staff.
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