When the Dallas Cowboys brought Mike McCarthy in to be their new head coach in 2020, they probably expected the Super Bowl winner to deliver championship glory. Unfortunately, it didn’t go down like that. Dallas went 1-3 in the playoffs under the former Packer, and after a rough 7-10 campaign last year, he was handed his walking papers.
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Up stepped Brian Schottenheimer. The son of NFL icon Marty Schottenheimer, Brian had served as Dallas’ offensive coordinator for the 2023 and 2024 seasons. He first joined the Cowboys in 2022 as a coaching analyst. It wasn’t the most exciting hire, and Dallas will hope that Marty’s legendary playoff struggles aren’t passed on to his son.
The Cowboys claim they are happy with the hire. But many are not convinced they are embarking on a new era. FS1 pundit Colin Cowherd, for instance, believes they are going to have a one-year hiccup that ends with Schottenheimer leaving out the same door McCarthy did.
“Number one, this is the least surprising of any I’ve done in the last two days. Brian Schottenheimer is a one-and-done. Jerry will know by Thanksgiving that he made a huge mistake. Forget the fact that Philadelphia and Washington will probably both blow them out in the division twice,” Cowherd said on an episode of The Herd.
Is Detroit's time up at the top of the North?@colincowherd and @JohnMiddlekauff give their NFC Bold Predictions. pic.twitter.com/b5oLUoUP5o
— Herd w/Colin Cowherd (@TheHerd) June 25, 2025
Cowherd went on to argue that, more often now than ever, head coaches in the NFL are only getting one year to prove they are the right fit. There have been many one-and-dones in the league recently.
“We’ve got a lot of one-and-dones happening now. David Culley, Steve Wilks, Urban Meyer, Nathaniel Hackett, Antonio Pierce, Jerod Mayo. People liked Antonio Pierce. The Raiders played a lot of people tough, including the Chiefs. One and done happens all the time now,” the long-time sports radio personality explained.
Cowherd added that another reason Schottenheimer is likely to be fired by the end of the 2025 season, at least in his view, is the fact that the NFC is much stronger as a conference than it was just a couple of years ago.
“There was about a three-year window to make hay in the NFC, where it was kind of soft. … The coaching and the NFC are no longer soft. And I think Dallas is gonna be humiliated on a lot of Sundays. That’s my first surprise.”
And that’s before even getting to the fact that arguably Dallas’ best player, Micah Parsons, is still waiting on the deal he’s been expecting for a few months now. He held up his end of the bargain by participating in voluntary and mandatory OTAs. However, with no end to negotiations in sight, Parsons is now saying “time will tell” if he has to hold out of training camp at the end of July.
Not exactly the rosiest picture to come into for Brian Schottenheimer. He has no previous head coaching experience, must deal with a major holdout, and must navigate not only the Cowboys, but the media frenzy that constantly surrounds America’s Team.
