After the Cowboys opted to not renew the contract of former head coach Mike McCarthy, the team made what seemed to be the only decision and promoted offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer to succeed him. In response to Kevin Patra of NFL.com, even when Schottenheimer hadn’t landed the highest job, he had an “agreement” with the front office to stay on the Cowboys’ staff in 2025.
While Schottenheimer was an obvious candidate for the job from the get go, the Rooney Rule requires a certain variety of minority candidates to be interviewed, so other coaches were considered in Dallas. Patra recalls that Leslie Frazier, Kellen Moore, and Robert Saleh were all interviewed for the pinnacle coaching job along with Schottenheimer, which reflects what was covered in PFR’s 2025 NFL Head Coaching Search Tracker. After the primary round of interviews, though, Schottenheimer was awarded the job.
Even when Frazier, Moore, or Saleh were hired as a substitute of Schottenheimer, he claims that he would still have ended up in Dallas last yr. Because the team was going through the hiring process, Schottenheimer claimed that there have been “a lot of teams” that were “courting” him and “attempting to say, ‘Hey, we wish you to return be our coordinator.’” We didn’t note Schottenheimer as a reputation to observe for other open coordinator jobs in that offseason, however the Cowboys weren’t going to risk losing him.
“After just talking it over with Stephen (Jones) and Jerry (Jones)…while we figure this out and also you guys undergo the interview process — which, there’s an intensive interview process you will have to undergo — we had made an agreement that I might stay here irrespective of what,” Schottenheimer explained.
It’s unclear who these teams pursuing Schottenheimer were, as nothing was reported on the time, but it appears that evidently, so long as McCarthy was out of the image, Schottenheimer was going to be a component of the Cowboys’ staff in some capability. Luckily for him, he did get to remain, and in attending to stay, he received his first head coach opportunity.