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Brian Schottenheimer says he's 'ready' to coach Cowboys after long career as NFL assistant

Brian Schottenheimer says he's 'ready' to coach Cowboys after long career as NFL assistant
2 weeks 2 days 18 hours ago Monday, January 27 2025 Jan 27, 2025 January 27, 2025 1:57 PM January 27, 2025 in Sports
Source: APnews.com
Dallas Cowboys new head coach Brian Schottenheimer, center right, becomes emotional as he reaches to hug his mother, Pat Schottenheimer, center left as his daughter, Savannah, from left rear, wife Gemmi and son Sutton, right rear, look on after a news conference where at the team's headquarters in Frisco, Texas, Monday, Jan. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)

FRISCO, Texas (AP) — Brian Schottenheimer was quick to address the skeptics over his hiring to lead the Dallas Cowboys, even before taking a moment to recognize his late father, longtime NFL coach Marty Schottenheimer.

"I've had some opportunities when I was a much younger man, that I didn't feel like I was ready," the 51-year-old said at his introductory news conference Monday. "I'm ready now. I know what I want. I know what it looks like."

The Cowboys promoted their offensive coordinator less than two weeks after parting ways with Mike McCarthy, who brought Schottenheimer in as a consultant in 2022 and was on an expiring contract after a 7-10 season.

Schottenheimer has 25 years of NFL coaching experience, but none as a head coach. He said the first chance came during his first stint as a play-caller, from 2006-11 with the New York Jets.

He said he had "pause," and a three-year run as Pete Carroll's offensive coordinator with the Seattle Seahawks almost a decade later played a big role in him believing he could be a head coach, in part from the challenges Carroll presented him.

The hourlong news conference at the team's headquarters included quarterback Dak Prescott and several teammates, Schottenheimer's family and Marty Schottenheimer's widow, Pat.

Owner and general manager Jerry Jones spent more than 10 minutes answering the first question, defending the hire and bristling over the suggestion that it was a conversative move by picking a coach on the existing staff.

"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," Jones said. "It's unbelievable. This is as big a risk as you can take, as big a risk as you could take. No head coaching experience."

Schottenheimer, who will call the plays, is the 10th coach in franchise history, and the ninth hired by Jones since be bought the team in 1989 and fired the only coach from Dallas' first 29 seasons, Pro Football Hall of Famer Tom Landry.

It's the seventh coach since the last time the Cowboys reached an NFC championship game, on the way to their fifth Super Bowl title in 1995. It's the longest drought in the NFC without reaching the conference title game.

Of those seven coaches, Schottenheimer is the fourth with no previous NFL head coaching experience.

Schottenheimer was an assistant with the St. Louis Rams, Kansas City, Washington, the San Diego Chargers and Jacksonville along with three one-year stops in college. His 14 years as an offensive coordinator include six with the Jets, three with the Rams and Seahawks and two with the Cowboys.

"How often do you have someone that has 25 ... years of working through the human relationship and working, aspiring to learn or have his ears and eyes wide open and looking for techniques and looking for things that make coaches better," Jones said. "He's had 25 years being around the kinds of things that he's going to have to draw on to be a coach of the Dallas Cowboys."

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