INDIANAPOLIS – Brian Schottenheimer’s life hasn’t changed all that much.
Yet.
It’s been five weeks since the Dallas Cowboys promoted their 51-year-old offensive coordinator to his first NFL head coaching gig. And while it’s been two months since the season ended for “America’s Team” – and more like four months since it effectively did – Schottenheimer feels like he and his staff have remained in regular-season mode. He certainly hasn’t made time to hit the Indy bar scene during the league’s annual scouting combine.
“I haven’t gotten out much to be honest with you,” he said Thursday. “It’s been nonstop, there’s a lot of work to be done. Again, other than a few autograph seekers, it’s been pretty normal.
“It feels like we’re in in-season a little bit right now in terms of the hours.”
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That’s because he and newly hired coordinator Klayton Adams have been redesigning an offense that ranked 17th in 2024. Former Chicago Bears head coach Matt Eberflus is doing the same for a defense that just surrendered the second-most points in the league. In his spare time, Schottenheimer is having cram sessions ahead of free agency … when not participating in interviews for this year’s draft prospects.
“I haven’t had a whole lot of time,” said Schottenheimer. “It’s been a lot of long hours, and I really haven’t had time to say what feels different.”
Even his working environment seems similar after team owner Jerry Jones agreed to transplant the entire Dallas staff from Frisco, Texas, to the combine.
“We all got in here on Sunday, and Monday morning was no different than working out of The Star,” said Schottenheimer, referencing the Cowboys’ headquarters.
And there’s more. So much more.
Schottenheimer is closely monitoring Dak Prescott’s recovery and rehabilitation from a serious hamstring injury that ended the season for the league’s highest-paid quarterback at the midway point. He’s considering what life will look like without perennial All-Pro guard Zack Martin, who is expected to retire. He’s hoping 2025 won’t bring the same contractual distractions that 2024 did with Prescott and wideout CeeDee Lamb – especially with All-Pro linebacker Micah Parsons now in line for his own payday.
And then there’s the matter of just getting more familiarized with the entire team, particularly the defensive players Schottenheimer hasn’t worked as closely with.
“I would say most of my day is spent walking the hall and getting a feel for the players,’ said Schottenheimer, who often patrols the weight room and training room at The Star.
Bring it on – even for a highly flawed team coming off a 7-10 season after Schottenheimer’s predecessor, Mike McCarthy, had run off three consecutive 12-win campaigns.
“I’m ready for it, always have been,” said Schottenheimer, “way more ready for it now than I was probably when I was 32 and had some opportunities.
“But I think the biggest thing for me would be it’s way more clear to me now what I want to do, how I want to do it – with a special culture about winning, about doing it with the right type of people.”
It seems the right type of people have already been helping Schottenheimer – namely his peers.
“I’d say the other head coaches have been amazing,” said Schottenheimer, who’s been patrolling NFL sidelines in various capacities since 1997, minus a few brief stints in the college ranks.
“They’ve reached out to me. They’ve been awesome as sounding boards.”
That includes Eberflus, whom the Bears fired after Thanksgiving, the first time they’d ever made a midseason coaching change. Now he’s back in North Texas after being the Cowboys’ linebackers coach from 2011 to ’17. Schottenheimer, who admits issues he hasn’t anticipated in his new role arise nearly every day, is leaning on him for advice and counting on Eberflus to deploy a defense that gets back to generating takeaways.
“(T)hink the world of him,” said Schottenheimer. “I think that that was just an incredible hire for us – and one that, quite honestly, that a lot of people were trying to get him. And we were able to get him, which is great for me – not just as a coach, but as a man.”
However Schottenheimer, the son of Marty Schottenheimer, whose 200 regular-season wins are the most in league history for a coach who never won a championship, reserved his loftiest praise for his two most recent bosses, McCarthy and Pete Carroll.
“Mike and Jerry had a lot of hard conversations and it ended up not working out, but I will never talk about Mike McCarthy in any way but holding him in the highest regard,” Schottenheimer said of his predecessor, whose contract expired in January.
“He is one of my best friends in football. An amazing coach, an amazing mentor to me. And he’ll be back on the sidelines before too long.”
Carroll, 73, who fired Schottenheimer when he was the Seattle Seahawks’ offensive coordinator four years ago, is back himself as the Las Vegas Raiders’ new boss.
“Pete’s been incredibly impactful to me,” said Schottenheimer. “And what do I mean by that? I mean the way he looks at the game, the way he wants people to let their own personality shine and not kinda put people into a box, per se, I think that’s one of his greatest strengths – even at his age – his energy, his juice, his passion.
“He challenged me,” he continued, admitting they had a “hard breakup” in Seattle.
“He said, ‘Schotty, in a lot of ways you’re a football savant. You’ve been around the game your whole life, there’s things that you’ve learned along the way that you don’t even know you’ve learned. But what do you really believe in?’
“And I thought that was really, really cool. And he didn’t have to do that. But, yeah, amazing coach. Truly of all the coaches, including my father, he’s the guy I probably model myself the most after.”
And if, like Carroll and McCarthy have already done in their own careers, Schottenheimer can capture the Lombardi Trophy that always evaded his dad and the Cowboys for nearly the past three decades, then his life truly will change.
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