From Within: Cowboys promote Brian Schottenheimer to offensive coordinator

The Cowboys promotion of Brian Schottenheimer isn’t a flashy hire, but one that could bring much-needed wrinkles in Dallas. | From @CDBurnett7

After the Cowboys parted ways with offensive coordinator Kellen Moore, they needed to fill the two roles he held. Head coach Mike McCarthy was given the reins as the play caller in Dallas, but the Cowboys still needed someone manage the actual coordination of the scheme and design the plays for McCarthy to call. They decided to stay in-house for the hire.

Brian Schottenheimer spent the 2022 season on the Dallas staff as a coaching consultant on a team that delivered their first back-to-back playoff seasons since 2007. After multiple interviews from outside, the Cowboys announced Schottenheimer as their new offensive coordinator Saturday.

Schottenheimer began his coaching career in 1997 as an assistant for the Rams, but bounced around the ranks with his most notable years as offensive coordinator for the Seahawks from 2018 through 2020.

McCarthy issued a statement on his new offensive partner.

While Schottenheimer isn’t the flashy hire that many were hoping for, it was the obvious one. The Joneses have been known to stay in-house and this is no surprise. That said, there’s a lot of detail that he can bring to the offense, as noted by PFF’s John Owning.

Unfortunately, Schottenheimer’s offenses were often criticized due to their predictability on account of a lack of creativity as a play caller — those aren’t the kind of critiques that will inspire Cowboys fans after the team jettisoned a boy wonder for this retread candidate. Luckily for Dallas, the predictability of Schottnehimer’s play-calling shouldn’t be an issue because McCarthy will be calling plays. That could allow Schottenheimer to focus on what he does best: designing an offense that intertwines the running, play-action passing and dropback passing games at a high level.

Cowboys fans will be happy to hear that hiring Schottenheimer would likely mean a move away from the hitch/curl routes that were so frequently leaned on during Moore’s tenure as offensive coordinator. The Cowboys targeted hitch routes the fourth most in the NFL; however, Schottenheimer appears to favor routes where his receivers are on the move rather than a stationary target, as his offenses are littered with drive, shallow-cross, spear and “China” passing game concepts — none of which have a stop, curl or hitch route baked into the basic play.

If Schottenheimer can focus on his strengths while McCarthy improves as a play caller, Dallas hopes to find success in this change of scenery as they look to finally get over the hump and reach a conference championship next year.