Moving on from Mike McCarthy signaled that the Dallas Cowboys do, in fact, have championship standards for themselves. While McCarthy is arguably their most successful head coach since the 1990s, his lack of success in the playoff was damning.
It turns out McCarthy's departure signified absolutely nothing as the Cowboys hired Brian Schottenheimer as their head coach late Friday night. The timing of the announcement suggests the Joneses know the move isn't of the popular variety.
RELATED:
Schottenheimer interviewed on Tuesday for nearly four hours and was asked back on Wednesday, when he reportedly interviewed for over five hours. Jerry Jones set the stage for Schotty to get the job and he clearly knocked it out of the park.
There is a lot of pushback and vitriol among Cowboys fans right now and understandably so given the candidates that were available this cycle. One thing everyone is on the same page about, though, is that Schottenheimer cannot call plays now that he's at the head of the snake.
His resume as a play-caller is alarming, to put it kindly.
Brian Schottenheimer's history as play-caller makes head coaching hire so much worse
It is actually hard to believe that Schottenheimer has been an offensive coordinator in 14 different seasons and for four different teams - the Jets, Rams, Seahawks and most recently, the Cowboys. In light of this bombshell hire, the infamous Schotty resume tweet is making the rounds.
it is once again time for me to tweet the Brian Schottenheimer career summary https://t.co/VyNusDxOuH pic.twitter.com/SNYAk5CBOB
— Rodger Sherman (@rodger) February 4, 2023
Only twice in those 14 seasons has Schottenheimer piloted a top-10 offense in terms of yards per game. While he's helmed five top-10 scoring offenses, only one of those cracked the top-five. His offenses have also ranked 20th or worse in yards per game seven times.
Let's not forget Schottenheimer's stint with the Jaguars in 2021 when he was the passing game coordinator. Trevor Lawrence, who admittedly as a rookie, led the NFL with 17 interceptions. The Jaguars ranked dead-last in offense that season.
For what it's worse, Schottenheimer had reasonable success in his most recent play-calling stint with the Seahawks from 2018 to 2020. During that span, Seattle ranked sixth in expected points added (EPA) were running ply and ninth in rushing success rate.
Maybe Schottenheimer will be able to translate that success to Dallas' running game. However, the only way Cowboys fans can begin to wrap their arms around the hire is if Schottenheimer doesn't call plays.
For all of Schottenheimer's limitations as a play-caller, he's a terrific leader. He seemingly won't have trouble getting buy-in from the locker room, but he can't call plays. That means the staff around him, specifically the offensive coordinator, needs to be very good.
That, sadly, is hard to believe. Again, though, the success of this experiment hinges on whether Schotty is calling plays.