Tag: RB coach

Report: Cowboys to hire RB coach with ties to Alvin Kamara, Austin Ekeler

From @ToddBrock24f7: Derrick Foster served as RB coach in New Orleans for 2024 and was with the Chargers for Austin Ekeler’s three most productive seasons.

The Cowboys have made up their minds on a key member of Brian Schottenheimer’s coaching staff.

The team will hire Derrick Foster to be their running backs coach, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram‘s Nick Harris, who cited multiple sources in a Monday midday post to X.

Foster, 38, will come to Dallas from New Orleans, where he served as RB coach this past season and helped guide Alvin Kamara to 950 rushing yards in 14 games and a yards-per-game average (67.9) that was 12th-best in the league for 2024.

He was in same position for the Chargers prior to that and was instrumental in helping Austin Ekeler deliver the three highest season yardage totals of his NFL career.

Foster had interviewed with the Cowboys last week, as had former Dallas running back Tashard Choice, currently the position coach at Texas. Oregon running backs coach and Metroplex product Ra’Shaad Samples was also reportedly on the candidate list.

Both Choice and Samples were highly regarded, though there was speculation that either would have had to take a significant pay cut to leave their premier Power Five programs to work for Jerry Jones, who has a reputation for giving budget-conscious contracts to his coaches.

Like those individuals, Foster also has extensive college experience, dating back to 2011 with stints on staff at Valdosta State, Tennessee, Northwestern State, Samford, and three seasons at Iowa before making the jump to the NFL in 2021. His role at nearly all of those stops focused on running backs.

The Cowboys will look to turn around their ground game in 2025 after a season in which they ranked 27th leaguewide in rushing yards, were third-worst in yards per carry, and had the fewest number of rushing touchdowns of any team in the NFL.

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Rico Dowdle finished the season ranked 12th in rushing yards with 1,079. He didn’t see consistent usage as the Cowboys’ lead ballcarrier until late November, though, as the team insisted on forcing a committee approach with Ezekiel Elliott for the first half of the season.

Elliott was released prior to Week 18, and Dowdle is now set to enter free agency this offseason. The Cowboys are widely expected to address the running back position in either the draft or free agency, or both.

And it will fall largely on Derrick Foster to restore the once-great Cowboys ground attack into a source of strength for the team in Schottenheimer’s first season.

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Report: Next RB coach in Dallas could be one of these 2 former Cowboys

From @ToddBrock24f7: Tashard Choice and DeMarco Murray both became college RB coaches after the NFL. Now they could vie for the same staff job in Dallas.

The Cowboys will dive head-first into their head coaching search in earnest this weekend as Kellen Moore, Robert Saleh, and Leslie Frazier are set to officially interview over the next few days. Of course, that will do little to quell the rumors about top coordinators whose teams are still in the postseason- like Aaron Glenn and Ben Johnson- or other notable celebrities like Deion Sanders, Bill Belichick, and even Jason Witten.

But there’s going to be a shakeup involving much, if not most, of the rest of the Cowboys coaching staff, too. And that means the Joneses are weighing candidates for much more than just the top job.

New potential coordinators and position coaches are likely going to be coming through the doors of The Star in short order. And it sounds as if a few of them will be, just like several of the head coaching prospects, familiar faces within Cowboys Nation.

Nick Harris of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram has revealed that two former Cowboys stars could be vying for the same role on the new staff.

Tashard Choice and DeMarco Murray are said to be under consideration for the role of running backs coach, Harris said during an appearance on The Zach Gelb Show. Both were successful ballcarriers for the team in the Wade Phillips/Jason Garrett era.

Choice is currently the running backs coach at Texas, a job he’s held since 2022. He served the same role at Georgia Tech and North Texas prior to that.

GLENDALE, AZ – DECEMBER 25: Runningback Tashard Choice #23 of the Dallas Cowboys rushes the football against the Arizona Cardinals during the NFL game at the University of Phoenix Stadium on December 25, 2010 in Glendale, Arizona. The Cardinals defeated the Cowboys 27-26. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

A fourth-round draft pick by Dallas in 2008, Choice played for the team for three-plus seasons, but he was largely overshadowed by Marion Barber III and Felix Jones for most of his tenure. He compiled 1,139 rushing yards and averaged 4.6 yards per carry wearing the star.

He went on to play for Washington, Buffalo, and Indianapolis before wrapping up his playing career in 2013. By 2016, he was back in Dallas, on the staff as an intern to begin his coaching journey.

With the Longhorns, Choice was instrumental in helping to develop Bijan Robinson into a Doak Walker Award winner and a top-ten draft pick.

Murray’s arrival and rapid rise in 2011 as a third-round pick, ironically, was the spark that sent Choice packing out of Dallas. The 6-foot-1-inch back started his rookie season as the Cowboys’ third-stringer but finished as the team’s top rusher, a title he would keep for four straight years.

He holds the franchise’s single-season record for rushing yards with the league-leading 1,845-yard effort he put up in 2014. Murray also earned an All-Pro nod and was the NFL’s Offensive Player of the Year during that sensational 12-4 season.

Nov 28, 2013; Arlington, TX, USA; Dallas Cowboys running back DeMarco Murray (29) carries the ball against the Oakland Raiders during a NFL football game on Thanksgiving at AT&T Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

Murray made the Pro Bowl two out of his four seasons in Dallas before entering the free agent pool in 2015. He played one lackluster year in Philadelphia but then landed in Tennessee, where he returned to Pro Bowl form in 2016 with another 1,000-yard season. He retired from playing after the 2017 season.

Murray is in the NFL’s top 75 in all-time rushing yards and remains the Cowboys’ No. 7 all-time leading rusher. Like Choice, Murray returned to the college ranks to coach running backs; he spent 2019 in Arizona and has been with his alma mater of Oklahoma since 2020.

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Jerry Jones loves to bring popular former players back to the Cowboys, as he’s shown repeatedly over the years. It’s not inconceivable that Moore (or maybe even Sanders) ends up as the team’s head coach in 2025, and Harris confirms that “it is a widespread expectation that [Witten] is going to be on staff in some capacity.”

Now it appears that either Choice or Murray could be back on the Cowboys payroll as well.

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Cowboys RB coach Jeff Blasko on ‘health leave of absence’ just prior to season opener

From @ToddBrock24f7: Jeff Blasko’s first official game as Cowboys RB coach will have to wait; the team’s other offensive staff will handle his duties in Week 1.

Amid several high-profile Cowboys players showing up on the injury report for the 2023 season opener against the Giants, the team will also be scrambling to deal with the temporary loss of one of its assistant coaches.

Jeff Blasko, the Cowboys running backs coach, is on a “health leave of absence,” according to the team. This is Blasko’s fourth year on staff in Dallas but his first as RB coach.

Blasko did not travel with the team to New York. The Cowboys announced via the injury report that “his coaching duties will be shared by the offensive staff.”

Patrik Walker of the DallasCowboys.com crew said in a post, “I expect Mike Solari and Brian Schottenheimer to take the lead there.” Both are veteran coaches in the league with plenty of professional football experience, but it’s worth noting that they’re both already in brand-new roles themselves for 2023.

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Solari’s regular job as OL coach will be further complicated in Week 1 by recent injuries sustained by starting left tackle Tyron Smith and starting left guard Tyler Smith. The Cowboys are thin behind them; Brock Hoffman was elevated from the practice squad and may be pressed into service against the Giants as a result.

Week 1 will be Schottenheimer’s debut as Cowboys OC with the full complement of his starting playmakers. Dak Prescott, Tony Pollard, CeeDee Lamb and others will get their first game snaps on Sunday night after being held back for the entirety of the preseason schedule.

Now it looks like they’ll also be juggling Pollard’s first game as the Cowboys’ lead back on a very important and tone-setting night. Pollard will make his return from a brutal leg injury suffered in January’s playoff loss, and the team will be navigating the new workshare of Pollard’s backfield mates Rico Dowdle, Deuce Vaughn, and Hunter Luepke.

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Ravens hire former Chiefs assistant Greg Lewis as WR coach

The #Chiefs have a new assistant coaching vacancy to fill with RB coach Greg Lewis joining the #Ravens coaching staff as WR coach.

The Kansas City Chiefs now have another assistant coaching vacancy to fill.

The Baltimore Ravens announced on Wednesday that they’ve hired former Chiefs RB coach Greg Lewis for their WR coaching vacancy. Lewis was in the running for a position with the Washington Commanders under Eric Bieniemy, but they ultimately went a different direction.

When Andy Reid was asked about the situation with Lewis at the combine, he gave the following response to the Athletic’s Nate Taylor.

“I don’t know exactly where Greg is with things,” Reid said.

Well, now we know exactly where he stands.

Lewis has a long history with Andy Reid, which is where he first crossed paths with Ravens HC John Harbaugh. He played wide receiver with the Eagles from 2003-2008, a time when Harbaugh was special teams coordinator and defensive backs coach in Philly.

A member of the Chiefs’ coaching staff since 2017, Lewis spent four seasons as WR coach before becoming the team’s RB coach in 2021. He claimed that he wanted a new challenge and was switched to that position with Kansas City. Now, he’ll find himself back in his old role and the Chiefs will find themselves looking for their third RB coach of the Patrick Mahomes era.

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Lions hire Scottie Montgomery as new RBs coach and assistant head coach

Montgomery has been the RBs coach for the Colts and has prior head coaching experience

The Detroit Lions have hired Scottie Montgomery to be the team’s new assistant head coach and running backs coach.

Montogmery comes to the Lions from the Indianapolis Colts, where he had been the RB coach for the last two seasons. Montgomery has a broader coaching history that includes a stint as the head coach at Duke University and with several teams as a wide receivers coach. He was a wide receiver for some NFL teams in the early 2000s.

Montgomery replaces Duce Staley, who held both titles under head coach Dan Campbell in 2021-2022. Staley left to join the new coaching staff with the Carolina Panthers.

During his time with the Colts, Montgomery helped develop Jonathan Taylor into the NFL’s leading rusher in 2021.

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Report: Michigan State football closing in on new RBs coach

MSU is closing in on its new RB coach

The Michigan State football program lost its beloved running backs coach William Peagler this past week to the University of Florida. Mel Tucker has taken little time to close in on who he wants to replace Peagler. The Spartans are expected to bring back former offensive assistant Effrem Reed to fill the void.

Reed has spent the last two seasons as an offensive analyst and assistant running backs coach with Michigan State but took a job with Georgia Southern as their running backs coach earlier this month.

Reed will be returning to East Lansing, already knowing the vision the coaching staff has, and what is expected of him as an assistant coach.

Reed played his college football as a running back at Louisiana under Jay Johnson, who was the offensive coordinator of Louisiana at the time, from 2012 to 2015. In his coaching career, Reed has spent two seasons as a graduate assistant at Louisiana and two seasons as an offensive analyst at Michigan State.

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