FRISCO, Texas — Three consecutive years of 12-5 gave way to a train wreck of a campaign from the TV in 2024, the team finishing with a losing record for the first time since 2020, and while the blame could be slathered over several slices of the proverbial bread, e.g., injuries, the offense under Mike McCarthy earned its fair share of accountability as well.
Losing Dak Prescott to a season-ending injury made things worse, true enough, but the unit was disjointed prior to the All-Pro being lost in early November, giving way to backup quarterback Cooper Rush.
How might things look differently under Brian Schottenheimer, though?
That is the question heading into 2025, and especially after owner and general manager Jerry Jones made it known Schottenheimer sunk his incisors into his own lip on several occasions as offensive coordinator under McCarthy's playcalling — due to philosophical issues with the scheme though, and not because of any sort of personal vendetta.
"I've watched him have deference to experience," said Jones. "... I've watched him bite his lip sometimes, when he didn't necessarily agree with the direction. He bit his lip as [Marty Schottenheimer] would've told him to: 'Bite your lip and have deference to the head coach.'"
It's unclear in which situations that occurred, but the coming era of Schottenheimer in Dallas will soon begin to shed light on his thought process as it relates to all things offense — his hiring of Klayton Adams as offensive coordinator and Derrick Foster as running backs coach giving strong indication, already, as to the direction things will go on that side of the ball.
"I go back to my days with Pete [Carroll]," said Schottenheimer. "I think if you go back and you look at some of the things we did in Seattle, obviously, the starting point for me would be things that our players do well. You're always going to start with that. If your system's not flexible enough to do what your players do well then you're probably in the wrong business."
So, players over scheme. Got it. And then what?
"I'm a big believer in cut-splits," he furthered, candidly publicizing more detail. "I'm a big believer in shifts and motions to distort things."
Ah, lots of pre-snap motion. Please, do go on.
"We're going to do a great job of marrying our runs and our passes and make those look the same," said Schottenheimer. "I'm proud to say at two different times in my career as a coordinator, we led the league in rushing, and they go hand in hand. The running game and the action pass game go hand in hand."
More play action would serve Prescott well seeing as, statistically, he's proven to be one of the best in the entire NFL when operating off of the play-action pass; but, in 2024, he was on track to deliver the lowest total passing yards off of play-action — averaging only 5.25 play-action passes per game last season.
For contrast, during his 2021 campaign, when he threw for 4,449 yards (falling just shy of breaking Tony Romo's single-season franchise passing record) and a career-high 37 touchdowns, Prescott averaged nearly 7.5 play-action passes per game.
Yet still, Ezekiel Elliott and Tony Pollard combined for 2,345 yards from scrimmage and 14 touchdowns.
It's kind of a big deal, and the inclusion of Adams and Foster are projected/hoped to help re-establish a dominant rushing attack in Dallas, at least once free agency and the draft are sorted out to determine who the personnel will be.
There's at least one more thing Schottenheimer is keying in, though, and it's another thing Prescott's offenses tend to thrive when deploying against opposing defenses.
"I would say there's [also] a tempo element that we're excited to mix in that our players have all shown an affinity for," said the Cowboys' head coach before, again, willfully offering up more insight into exactly what that means and looks like on a weekly basis. "Let me expand on that a little bit. Why do players like tempo? Well, they like tempo because it allows them to play free.
"You guys have heard some of the play calls — Dak could rattle off four or five of them right now, and they're pretty long. So when you go fast and you're playing on the ball off these guys, it's a little bit more like pickup basketball.
"Those would probably be the biggest things that I would say from an offensive standpoint."
And, with that, the blueprint is fairly apparent for the offense going forward, and the rest is putting the pieces in place to execute it — players and coaches alike — because Schottenheimer won't have any time to waste in getting the Cowboys turned around.
Not so coincidentally, that means Schottenheimer's use of tempo won't only apply to what happens on the field. He started using it on January 27, his first day tasked with rebuilding the most watched sports organization on Earth.
As the offseason calendar speeds along, Schottenheimer and the Cowboys are already in a hurry-up offense.
