{"id":37596,"date":"2025-02-28T12:38:26","date_gmt":"2025-02-28T12:38:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=37596"},"modified":"2025-02-28T12:38:26","modified_gmt":"2025-02-28T12:38:26","slug":"new-cowboys-coach-brian-schottenheimer-gets-unexpected-help-as-he-takes-reins-in-dallas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=37596","title":{"rendered":"New Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer gets unexpected help as he takes reins in Dallas"},"content":{"rendered":"

INDIANAPOLIS \u2013 Brian Schottenheimer\u2019s life hasn\u2019t changed all that much.<\/p>\n

Yet.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been five weeks since the Dallas Cowboys promoted their 51-year-old offensive coordinator to his first NFL head coaching gig. And while it\u2019s been two months since the season ended for \u201cAmerica\u2019s Team\u201d \u2013 and more like four months since it effectively did \u2013 Schottenheimer feels like he and his staff have remained in regular-season mode. He certainly hasn\u2019t made time to hit the Indy bar scene during the league\u2019s annual scouting combine.<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t gotten out much to be honest with you,\u201d he said Thursday. \u201cIt\u2019s been nonstop, there\u2019s a lot of work to be done. Again, other than a few autograph seekers, it\u2019s been pretty normal.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels like we\u2019re in-season a little bit right now in terms of the hours.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because he and newly hired coordinator Klayton Adams have been redesigning the 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 doing cram sessions for free agency \u2026 when not participating in interviews for this year\u2019s draft prospects.<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t had a whole lot of time,\u201d said Schottenheimer. \u201cIt\u2019s been a lot of long hours, and I really haven\u2019t had time to say what feels different.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even his working environment feels similar after owner Jerry Jones agreed to transplant the entire Dallas staff from Frisco, Texas, to the combine.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all got in here on Sunday, and Monday morning was no different than working out of The Star,\u201d said Schottenheimer, referencing the Cowboys\u2019 headquarters.<\/p>\n

And there\u2019s more.<\/p>\n

Schottenheimer is closely monitoring Dak Prescott\u2019s recovery and rehabilitation from a serious hamstring injury that ended the season for the league\u2019s highest-paid quarterback at the midway point. He\u2019s considering what life looks like without perennial All-Pro guard Zack Martin, who is expected to retire. He\u2019s hoping 2025 won\u2019t bring the same contractual distractions that 2024 did (Prescott, wideout CeeDee Lamb) even with All-Pro linebacker Micah Parsons now in line for his own big payday.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
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\"New<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>

Brian Schottenheimer was named head coach of the Dallas Cowboys last month.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Bring it on \u2013 even for a highly flawed team coming off a 7-10 season after Schottenheimer\u2019s predecessor, Mike McCarthy, had run off three consecutive 12-win campaigns.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m ready for it, always have been,\u201d said Schottenheimer, \u201cway more ready for it now than I was probably when I was 32 and had some opportunities.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I think the biggest thing for me would be it\u2019s way more clear to me now what I want to do, how I want to do it \u2013 with a special culture about winning, about doing it with the right type of people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet it seems it\u2019s the right type of people who have also been assisting Schottenheimer \u2013 namely his peers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d say the other head coaches have been amazing,\u201d said Schottenheimer, who\u2019s been patrolling NFL sidelines in various capacities since 1997, minus a few brief gigs in the college ranks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve reached out to me. They\u2019ve been awesome as sounding boards.\u201d<\/p>\n

That includes Eberflus, whom the Bears fired after Thanksgiving, the first time they\u2019d ever made a midseason coaching change. Now he\u2019s back in North Texas after being the Cowboys\u2019 linebackers coach from 2011 to \u201917. Schottenheimer, who admits issues he hasn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

\u201c(T)hink the world of him,\u201d said Schottenheimer. \u201cI think that that was just an incredible hire for us \u2013 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 \u2013 not just as a coach, but as a man.\u201d<\/p>\n

But 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cMike and Jerry had a lot of hard conversations and ended up not working out, but I will never talk about Mike McCarthy in any way but holding him in the highest regard,\u201d Schottenheimer said of his predecessor, whose contract expired after last season.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was one of my best friends in football. An amazing coach, an amazing mentor to me. And he\u2019ll be back on the sidelines before too long.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carroll, 73, who fired Schottenheimer when he was the Seattle Seahawks\u2019 offensive coordinator four years ago, already is back himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cPete\u2019s been incredibly impactful to me,\u201d said Schottenheimer. \u201cAnd 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\u2019s one of his greatest strengths \u2013 even at his age \u2013 his energy, his juice, his passion.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe challenged me,\u201d he continued, admitting they had a \u201chard breakup\u201d in Seattle.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said, \u2018Schotty, in a lot of ways you\u2019re a football savant. You\u2019ve been around the game your whole life, there\u2019s things that you\u2019ve learned along the way that you don\u2019t even know you\u2019ve learned. But what do you really believe in?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I thought that was really, really cool. And he didn\u2019t have to do that. But, yeah, amazing coach. Truly of all the coaches, including my father, he\u2019s the guy I probably model myself the most after.\u201d<\/p>\n

And if, like Carroll and McCarthy have done in their careers, Schottenheimer can capture the Lombardi Trophy that evaded his dad and the Cowboys for nearly the past three decades, then his life truly will change.<\/p>\n

All NFL news on and off the field.\u00a0Sign up\u00a0for USA TODAY’s 4th and Monday newsletter.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Dallas Cowboys new coach getting help from unexpected people<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer has leaned on his peers as he attempts to get America’s Team back on track.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":37600,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl"],"yoast_head":"\nNew Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer gets unexpected help as he takes reins in Dallas - NEWS USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=37596\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"New Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer gets unexpected help as he takes reins in Dallas - 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