A few weeks back, right after the NFL season ended, the Dallas Cowboys announced that they were getting rid of their head coach, Mike McCarthy. Prior to joining the Cowboys, McCarthy was coach of the Green Bay Packers, where he won a Super Bowl. He was brought to Dallas to do the same.
But in his five seasons with the team, that never materialized. And this year, “America’s Team” only won seven games. Which is why just this weekend, Dallas offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer was named head coach.
For what this all means, the Standard turned to Blogging the Boys editor in chief, RJ Ochoa.
Texas Standard: Before we talk about coaches, I’m curious, what do you think went wrong this season for the Cowboys? They’ve been a playoff team in recent years, but this season had a losing record.
RJ Ochoa: Yes, I think some important context is that the Cowboys hadn’t gone to the playoffs three straight years in a row. That had not happened to this franchise since the mid-nineties. And so nobody hangs a banner for things like that, but that was an important and record achievement.
That being said, while there is enough blame to place at the feet of people directly involved — whether that’s Dak Prescott or Mike McCarthy — the front office really failed this team.
Over the course of last offseason, as they have done so over the last decade and change, they were notoriously inactive in free agency. They did not offer any help or replenishments for players that left for other teams in free agency. That left the roster in a pretty barebones sort of state, and we saw that obviously serve as a detriment to their ability to win or succeed in any sort of capacity beyond that.
The Cowboys front office delayed important extensions for landmark players on their team, like CeeDee Lamb and Dak Prescott. There’s enough data in the NFL to prove that, like when you’re purchasing a house or a car, the price is the price. The market is the market. The Cowboys waited and let those prices rise and rise and rise.
In the process, they also created a lot of off-the-field distractions, which carried into the season. It was masterfully designed all the way up from the very top.
So when did we start hearing that this was the end for coach Mike McCarthy?
I think that it made a lot of sense that he probably wasn’t going to be back when they didn’t make a decision on him after last year’s playoff loss. It is not a common thing in the NFL or sports in general to send your head coach — or skipper, or gaffer, or whatever — into the final year of their contract because you create this narrative that it is a lame-duck sort of status. And if you’re a player or another coach, why would you want to join what seems to be a sinking ship?
So it really felt DOA in that sense after they didn’t extend McCarthy or fire him outright after the 2023 season. And to be clear, for anyone who is unaware, they could have extended him, and it obviously would have faced a lot of backlash because they lost that playoff game.
But unlike with players, there is no salary cap relative to hiring and firing coaches in the NFL. The wealthiest team in professional sports could have exercised that wealth and said, “We’re just going to extend you right now, McCarthy. And if it goes south, we’ll fire you, because at the end of the day, it’s just money, and we have more of it than anybody else.”
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Well, the new head coach is a guy named Brian Schottenheimer, who’s worked as the Cowboys’ offensive coordinator and never held a head coaching job at any level. What’s been the reaction so far?
It’s really unfortunate for Brian Schottenheimer because he has worked very hard to become a head coach in this league. His father was one of the greatest coaches in NFL history, and I think you want to see people like that succeed.
Sometimes people throw out the word “nepotism,” and I don’t think there’s any doubt that who Brian’s father was opened doors for him to get into the NFL. But I think it also works against you because people assume you’ve only gotten opportunities because of your family.
His time served certainly proves that he’s worth his salt in that sense. But this was a really uninspiring hire. If you had no idea how this whole thing worked and I told you, “Well, they fired the head coach, but they decided to hire as his successor someone who worked underneath him and therefore shares his philosophies and ideologies,” that wouldn’t make sense.
The Cowboys delayed the McCarthy decision by over a week, and that’s also important because it cost them an opportunity to interview the hottest names in the coaching cycle this year — Detroit Lions coordinators Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn. Dallas was not able to speak with them, and they ultimately took other head coaching opportunities. They were also unable to speak with Mike Vrabel, who became the New England Patriots head coach.
So they went about this, like everything we’ve talked about so far, in quite literally the most ineffective and inefficient manner. And Brian Schottenheimer is the poster boy for all of that. Again, it’s unfortunate for him, but it just seems like a lazy decision — “He’s down the hall, he’s already in the HR system, let’s just do this now.”
It is impossible to get a group of people to agree on anything in today’s day and age. You can’t get a group of people to agree on the best flavor of pizza or ice cream. But the whole world acknowledges that this is a poor hire — one born out of laziness, incompetence, and a lot of arrogance at the same time.
