Dallas Cowboys Head Coach Brian Schottenheimer talked to reporters Monday at the Star in Frisco. The Cowboys announced Schottenheimer had signed a four-year contract Friday to replace Mike McCarthy.
McCarthy spent five seasons as head coach, but he and the team did not negotiate a contract extension this winter.
Schottenheimer, 51, has been coaching in the NFL and at colleges almost 30 years, starting as an assistant with the St. Louis Rams in 1997. Since then, he has served as an assistant, quarterbacks coach, tight ends coach, wide receivers coach or offensive coordinator at three colleges and with eight NFL teams.
"I'm honored and privileged to be the next head coach of the Dallas Cowboys," he says.
Schottenheimer started with the Cowboys as a coaching analyst in 2022 and became offensive coordinator in 2023.
"I know the players. I know the building. I know our strengths; I know our weaknesses. I know our issues," he says.
Schottenheimer says he and the Jones family see football "the same way," describing the Cowboys as a first class organization.
"We've got some incredible, incredible players. We've got incredible support staff," he says. "To do what we need to do is going to take incredible amounts of hard work, but we're going to do it together."
"That's rare to come in here with that kind of energy, that kind of 'I'm gonna show 'em,'" says Owner Jerry Jones. "That's rare to combine those two things."
Jones says the decision might be considered "risky" since Schottenheimer does not have experience as a head coach in the NFL, but he says this move is "not a hail Mary at all, in any way."
"Yes, to some, it might be couched as a less than glamorous hire. What I would say to you is I got here taking shots. Good things have happened," he says. "Don't think for one minute I won't take a shot. This was risky, but by the same token, how often can you take a risk when someone has had almost 30 years of being around coaches, being around players? That's two thirds of his life and then the rest of it growing up in a football-oriented family."
Brian Schottenheimer is the son of Marty Schottenheimer, who won 205 games as a head coach in the NFL.
Brian Schottenheimer says he hopes to be remembered as a champion and "someone who created one of the greatest cultures professional sports has ever seen." He says he plans to build a successful team together with his staff. Asked about Dak Prescott, Schottenheimer described him as "one of the best."
"Through the coaching he's going to get, through the hours and hours and hours of time he and I will spend together, he's going to play elite-level football, and he's going to lead us to championships," Schottenheimer says. "This guy prepares different. I'll be coming down late at night, trying to get something to drink, my eyes are bugging out from watching video, and he's still in the building. We've got the right guy."
NFL Hall of Famer and former Cowboy Michael Irvin questioned why the team hired someone from within the organization.
"It was time to bring someone in here who could shake things up and grab this last leg of Cowboys Nation," he said in a video posted on YouTube.
Irvin says "a third of Cowboys Nation has never felt or lived the glory of a championship story" because they were born after the team's last championship in 1996. In the video, he says the team should have hired teammate Deion Sanders.
"I don't know what will happen with Coach Schottenheimer and the Dallas Cowboys, but Jerry's a shrewd, shrewd businessman. This opportunity I'm shocked he did not see," Irvin said.
Jones says he is "dreaming" of the Cowboys returning deep into the playoffs to play in a game like Sunday night's NFC Championship.
"I'm dreaming of it. I will always dream of it. I never quit dreaming of it. I want that," he says.