Jerry Jones has hired a new puppet. The Cowboys head coaching job, purportedly the most coveted job in the NFL, has gone to Brian Schottenheimer—someone with no head coaching experience.
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The Cowboys announced Schottenheimer – their offensive coordinator in 2023 and 2024 – as their head coach on Friday evening. Moments later, Bomani Jones and Mina Kimes discussed the move on The Right Time podcast. Bomani was expecting Jerry Jones to make a win-now hire. To him, Schottenheimer is on the other end of the spectrum.
“Here I was thinking Jerry was afraid he was going to die and that he needed to hurry up and win a championship before it happened. And now, apparently, he [has] got like a 30-year plan… literally no one has ever been happy to have Brian Schottenheimer as their [OC] ever… is there a single other owner who would have hired Brian Schottenheimer… I don’t think so.”
Dallas’ fans shared Bomani’s thoughts. They flooded the Cowboys’ post on Schottenheimer with negative comments, with some calling Schottenheimer’s hiring “despicable” and “a joke.” Some claimed that the decision shows Jerry Jones “isn’t serious about winning.”
Despicable decision!
Boycotting this organization! After 40 years! ✌ pic.twitter.com/StXF5xvJoh
— Rob Bosco (@BoscoBrew) January 25, 2025
Cowboys fans pic.twitter.com/jpzSVYQIiz
— Mavs Film Room (@MavsFilmRoom) January 25, 2025
The franchise waited until 10pm at night to make this announcement because it’s such a joke.
— Steve Zukowski (@scubazuke) January 25, 2025
More disappointed in the process than anything else. Instead of pursuing more vibrant and successful coordinators or proven former HCs, Cowboys FO settles for someone on staff. It’s like Stephen was trying to save money with the hire and Jerry didn’t want to get to know someone…
— Damian Van Winkle (@CoachDVW) January 25, 2025
The Cowboys were the second-to-last NFL team to find their head coach for 2025. Only the New Orleans Saints – who have long been rumored to be targeting Mike McCarthy – have yet to land someone.
The Las Vegas Raiders snagged Pete Carroll, a Super Bowl-winning head coach, earlier this afternoon. Even with Tom Brady’s limited ownership presence, they’re considered a laughingstock compared to Dallas.
Despite this, it was the Cowboys – not the Raiders – who hired someone with zero head coaching experience who wasn’t in consideration for any of the NFL’s other openings. This has Mina Kimes convinced that Jerry Jones is not interested in winning.
Mina Kimes: Clout more important for Jerry Jones
There’s no disguising it: Jerry Jones elected to maintain front-office superiority at the expense of winning. Or, as Kimes put it, he chose to put his own desires for clout over chasing championships.
“There’s winning [third], attention [first] and loyalty [second]… the idea that he was gonna go internal makes a ton of sense. I don’t think [Brian Schottenheimer] is bad, per say, at his job. [But] it never ever occurred to me that he would be a head coach.”
Bomani said Schottenheimer, the son of former NFL head coach Marty Schottenheimer, “has a last name we recognize and it done took this long for somebody to make him a head coach. That means that sh*t just wasn’t in the cards.”
Jerry Jones usually fights to procure every possible inch of the limelight. The timing of this news dump is the opposite of his standard operating procedure. He’ll surely show confidence in Schottenheimer as the man for the job during Monday’s introductory press conference. As always, though, his actions are speaking louder than his words.
