1 week Ago By Jimmy Kempski
A couple weeks ago the New York Giants made the asinine decision to retain their head coach / general manager combo of Brian Daboll and Joe Schoen for another season. On Thursday, Jerry Jones said, "Hold my beer." The Dallas Cowboys announced late on Friday night that their new head coach is Brian Schottenheimer, who has 14 years of NFL experience as an offensive coordinator, but has never produced impressive results.
A look at Schottenheimer's coaching history since he initially landed the Jets' offensive coordinator job in 2006: The Cowboys' most recent head coach was Mike McCarthy. During his five-year tenure, the Cowboys had a 49-35 record. • 2020: 6-10 • 2021: 12-5 • 2022: 12-5 • 2023: 12-5 • 2024: 7-10 Starting quarterback Dak Prescott suffered season-ending injuries in each of McCarthy's two losing seasons.
In his three other seasons, McCarthy presided over a lot of regular season wins, only to have Super Bowl hopes quickly extinguished in the playoffs in spectacular fashion. A week or two ago, if you were to poll the average Eagles fan over whether they would have preferred the Cowboys retain McCarthy as their head coach a while longer, the majority of them would have likely said yes. However, it is worth noting that the Cowboys and Eagles split during the McCarthy era, 5-5.
Comparatively, the Eagles had a 14-7 record cumulatively over the Giants and Commanders during that span. The Cowboys won the NFC East in 2021 and 2023, and have been the Eagles' biggest threat for the division during the McCarthy era. While perhaps not a coach likely to win a Super Bowl (he did win one with Green Bay, but only one despite 13 years with Brett Favre and prime Aaron Rodgers), he did at least bring a certain level of floor competency to the Cowboys on gameday.
As we noted when the Cowboys and McCarthy parted ways a week ago, it was no guarantee the Cowboys' new head coach would be an upgrade. And really, a downgrade felt like a decent probability, which could further plunge the Cowboys into the free fall they experienced this past season. Schottenheimer, in my opinion, is indeed a downgrade, and a pretty significant one at that.
More alarmingly for Cowboys fans, the Cowboys interviewed fewer people for their head coaching job than a summer ice cream parlor might have for a part-time teenager to work the register. Schottenheimer aside, they reportedly only interviewed Eagles OC Kellen Moore, Seahawks AHC Leslie Frazier, and former Jets HC Robert Saleh for the job. They seemed to have simply landed on hiring a warm body already in the building who is likely inexpensive.
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