There are many things we don't know yet about Dallas Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer. One of them is whether or not he's a trick play kind of coach.
Sure, the 2025 NFL season won't be his first one calling the plays. But it will be the first time he's calling his own offense. For a long time in Seattle, he called Pete Carroll's. But it wasn't his offense. It wasn't his team.
I think about this as we wait for the Cowboys to make it to training camp in Oxnard, California, because of a very random reason. The Cowboys' social media team uploaded a picture of second-team All-Pro left guard Tyler Smith catching a one-handed pass (Slide five in the post embedded below).
Obviously, this is just Smith having some fun while getting his pictures taken but boy, oh boy, how neat would it be to watch him get a target in the end zone?
This is not just about Smith, even though it's his pic that quickly got fans on social media daydreaming about a trick play featuring a lineman. It's about the 2025 Cowboys offense and what they'll be like. Under Mike McCarthy, the team didn't run many trick plays.
In fact, ask any fan about it and they'll probably remember Ezekiel Elliott lined up at center in the final play of a tough playoff loss to the San Francisco 49ers. Other than that, not a lot comes to mind.
When you tune in to watch Andy Reid's Kansas City Chiefs or (now Chicago Bears head coach) Ben Johnson's Lions, it's not a matter of if they ran trick plays in a game but a question of how many.
Nothing about Schottenheimer's past suggests the Cowboys will be pressing the trick play button very frequently but again, this is the first time he's truly running the show. I guess at minimum, we can cross our fingers and hope for some fun.*
*Note: Unless, of course, you're one of those old school fans who roll your eyes back at any trick play. In that case, you're probably doing so reading this very article. Sorry about that!
And if the Cowboys do get tricky, let's see if Smith's picture foreshadows a play he will never forget.
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