On Saturday, the Cowboys announced they hired Brain Schottenheimer as the team's new offensive coordinator.
After four seasons, the Cowboys finally moved on from Kellen Moore. Schottenheimer spent the 2022 season as a coaching analyst for the Cowboys.
Even with Schottenheimer hired as the offensive coordinator, Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy is expected to call plays for the offense.
Schottenheimer has 22 years of NFL coaching experience and 12 years as an offensive coordinator at the pro level. During his time last season with the Cowboys, he spent most of his time studying future opponents and assisting both the offensive and defensive units with game planning and self-scouting.
His most recent success was as the Seattle Seahawks offensive coordinator from 2018-2020, helping lead the team to three consecutive postseason appearances and, in 2020, set the franchise record for points scored (459).
The Seahawks went on to have the league's top rushing offense for the 2018 season, and quarterback Russell Wilson had a career-high 110.9 passer rating.
It has yet to happen much lately, but the Cowboys won a playoff game that year, and they defeated Seattle in that 2018 season, 24-22 in the Wild Card round.
Dallas hiring Schottenheimer was the safe high for Jerry Jones and the team. Hiring someone from within when this next season will be all on the head coach is Jerry Jones up to his old ways again.
Schottenheimer can help the offense. He and McCarthy worked together last season, so it is nice not to have someone from the outside come in and learn all that goes on inside that building of the offensive side of the ball.
“I am very happy to have Brian take on this key role with our team. He has been an important part of our staff already and has a great grasp of where we are and where we want to go,” McCarthy said after the hire.
McCarthy’s first NFL coaching job was offensive quality control coach for the Chiefs in 1993. Kansas City’s coach at the time was Marty Schottenheimer, Brian’s dad. McCarthy worked on that staff for six years.
As I noted, all these coaching changes put McCarthy center stage for the 2023 season. The window for this current Cowboys team has maybe two years left if we are lucky.
We will soon learn how well this team can run a west coast type offense, Russell Wilson had three of his best years when Schottenheimer was calling plays, let's hope he can get Dak Prescott back on track after his worth year as a pro in terms of interceptions.
It is hard to say how the Cowboys will look in 2023, but after two 12 win seasons in a row, it is difficult to not have optimism. Yes, I want them to win the Super Bowl or even reach a conference title game for that matter. Problem is, I'd much rather win 12 games than not make the playoffs.
Schottenheimer has been around the block a time or two, and he has had good times and bad as a coach, but all we can do at this point is hope he has some tricks up his sleeve to help the offense.
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