The Cowboys have their next head coach in Brian Schottenheimer.

Their decision — and how they arrived at it — will continue to be dissected for weeks.

However, as far as Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is concerned, his experience was enough to guide him down the hall to Schottenheimer, a coach he’s known well during the latter’s time serving under former Dallas head coach Mike McCarthy.

“I know that Shotty is no stranger to these guys (players),” Jones explained during Schottenheimer’s introductory news conference Monday. “I know he’s no stranger to this building. I get my proverbial ass kicked over needing people in my comfort zone. Without this thing being about me in any way, if you don’t think I can’t operate out of my comfort zone, you’re so wrong it’s unbelievable.

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Jones assumed a bit of a defensive stance Monday when asked why he chose Schottenheimer, the son of the late Marty Schottenheimer, as his replacement for McCarthy, pointing to his decades of time spent as Cowboys owner for credibility before delving into what made Schottenheimer a qualified candidate.

“I have a good background in the makeup of what a coach is,” Jones said in a lengthy response. “To think that you can make a decision in an interview and if you didn’t and had never communicated or had a visit, I wouldn’t dare have an interview unless I talked to many, many people that knew that person, and had those kind of life experiences. … Knew their story.

“We know what osmosis is and we know what Shotty grew up around. … Frankly, from the standpoint of Shotty, those X hairs crossed. Shotty might never had been in our mirror, our view, had he not joined us to be with Mike as a consultant three years ago. … I’ve sat in handful of meetings with Shotty. I’ve listened, I’ve watched him. I’ve watched him have deference to his head coach.

I’ve watched him have deference to experienced guys like (defensive coordinator Mike) Zimmer. … I’ve watched him bite his lip sometimes when he didn’t necessarily agree with that direction. But he bit his lip, as his daddy would have told him to bite your lip.”

With this partnership, the Cowboys are banking on both Schottenheimer’s pedigree and familiarity shared by both parties.

They’re hoping a coach who has never gained experience atop a staff will produce success in his first try, with some confidence rooted in the fact he already understands the details of the organization.

As Jones admitted, it’s a risk, but one he deemed necessary in order to return his club to prominence.

The hire has attracted plenty of criticism. Schottenheimer wasn’t a highly desired candidate anywhere but Dallas, and his hiring followed a prolonged evaluation period in which the Cowboys waited nearly a week before parting with McCarthy, costing them valuable interview time in the hiring cycle.

But as Jones sees it, Dallas had a gem already in its building. That gem just needed to be polished and presented to the world, which the Cowboys believe they’re doing in hiring Schottenheimer.

“Now let me share something with you, with all of that you’ve just heard him reference his osmosis. His family,” Jones said of Schottenheimer. “Anybody in this room who doesn’t believe that the apple doesn’t go far from the tree missed it someplace down the road, especially if there was an effort to make it that way.

“You go around to the countless number of coaches that Shotty has served on staff with and been around.

The countless players. How often do you have someone that has 25 of years of working through the human relationship?

“How often do you have a chance to take advantage of all of that at 50 years old, which is a puppy. Yet he’s had 25 years being around the kind of things he’s going to have to draw on to be the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys. I like his baggage. I like his baggage. I like that experience.”

Naturally, in a quarterback-driven league, the signal-caller became a topic of conversation.

Dak Prescott’s abbreviated 2024 season inspired a fresh round of questions regarding their future under center and how Schottenheimer might work with the quarterback — who he described as “one of the best.”

“Iron sharpens iron. Dak and I have an incredible relationship, just like I have an incredible relationship with all these guys,” Schottenheimer said. ”

Dak and I know how to push each other’s buttons, we know how to have a hard conversations. I laugh because I think about training camp last year, a ball got intercepted and we kind of had a thing in place where it was like if you throw an interception, you come out.

And so I took Dak out and he’s like, ‘what?’ He pushed back. The competitor in him is special.

“And so I think he and I working together, along with the rest of the guys, putting together the system. There will be tweaks. There’s gonna be changes. But, he’s the type of worker that changes an entire organization and I think he and I see the game of football offensively very, very similar. We’ll have tons of communication moving forward on some of the thoughts we wanna do, whether it’s tempo or, you know, some of the different things we’re trying to do with our play-action passing game, the run game, things like that. He’s easy to talk to and love and respect him along with all those guys.”

Some might wonder why the Cowboys parted with McCarthy at all if they were simply going to replace him with a lieutenant.

Dallas’ leadership spun it positively, explaining the Cowboys were seeking some continuity while also making a change they felt was necessary.

Schottenheimer referred to McCarthy as “one of my best friends,” reflecting on their time spent together in Dallas and describing it as “some incredible, incredible success.”

He’s hoping to build on that foundation by adding his own touch to the franchise with the same goal each of the 32 coaches in the NFL carry with them into a new season: Win a Super Bowl.

“We’re going to win. And we’re going to win a championship,” Schottenheimer said. “Otherwise, why are we doing it?”