The Dallas Cowboys will hire Brian Schottenheimer, Dallas' offensive coordinator for the past two years, the team announced Friday, eleven days after announcing their divorce from Mike McCarthy.

Prior to making this decision, the Cowboys interviewed Philadelphia Eagles offensive coordinator Kellen Moore, former New York Jets head coach Robert Saleh, former Minnesota Vikings head coach Leslie Frey Ze and Schottenheimer.

Schottenheimer emerged as a key candidate in the team's search, first meeting with owner and general manager Jerry Jones and team brass on Tuesday and Wednesday. No other candidate accepted a second meeting, and conversations between Schottenheimer and Jones lasted for multiple days.

The team will formally introduce Schottenheimer during a press conference on Monday.

"Brian Schottenheimer is known as a career assistant," Jones told ESPN. "He's not Brian anymore. He's now known as the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys."

The more they discussed it, the more quarterback Dak Prescott and others in the building liked the coordinator, leading Jones to believe he was the one to hire, even though he had not been with Seattle since 2018-20. He hasn’t called a game since becoming coordinator with the Eagles.

From there, Schottenheimer spent one year as quarterbacks coach and passing game coordinator with the Jacksonville Jaguars, followed by four years with Dallas. During Schottenheimer's first year on the job, he served as a consultant, working with then-defensive coordinator Dan Quinn.

When Moore left to coordinate the Los Angeles Chargers' offense, Schottenheimer was promoted to offensive coordinator under McCarthy, who took over the play-calling.

The son of late head coach Marty Schottenheimer was promoted after 14 years as NFL offensive coordinator with the New York Jets (then St. Louis). Louis Rams, Seahawks and Cowboys. He has coached in the NFL in 25 of the past 28 seasons.

Before the team's season ends, Schottenheimer addressed the uncertainty for employees whose contracts are expiring.

"It's a fair question," Schottenheimer said on Dec. 30. I saw a Hall of Fame coach named Marty Schottenheimer get fired after going 14-2.

"So what I've learned this year is you're committed to 17 games... you owe it to your team, you owe it to the players and the staff. Sunday is coming up.

"We'll play one last game and see what happens."

What will the Cowboys look like under Brian Schottenheimer?

There are some coaches in the NFL who refuse to speak out about their career aspirations. They insist that they stay focused on the moment and the task at hand because if they excel at it, the rest will fall into place.

Schottenheimer changed that course in an interview with Yahoo Sports on August 4, 2023.

"I'll be honest with you 100 percent: I would love to be a head coach," Schottenheimer said during his first training camp as Cowboys coordinator. "I used to stay up late thinking about it, I want to be the youngest head coach in the NFL. I still would love to be a head coach. But I don't think about it. I really don't know.

"If it happens, it happens. Honestly, I want to give back."

The 51-year-old longtime coach is transitioning from consultant to coordinator, drawing lessons from his deep dive into league defenses last season. Quinn asked him to study the defense, not to predict what he would do, but to predict what the coordinator would do — and why.

Take the Philadelphia Eagles.

“The Eagles are going to be a good team because we’ve played them a lot,” Schottenheimer said. "Just using the RPO (run pass option) versus the run read option, when you do the run read option, it's more of a pre-snap decision. The quarterback is either going to have numbers or be impactful ... and if it's an RPO , that is, after the steal, there will be a reaction, I am reading an article, if he does something, then I will react after the steal.

“It’s fun to try to get inside the heads of Nick (Sirianni) and Sean (Waldron) and understand why they do what they do to certain opponents.”

Along with McCarthy, Schottenheimer helped establish a version of the West Coast offense that the Cowboys viewed as the "Texas Coast" offense. Precision has replaced some of the creativity Moore encouraged, with receivers' route depth now tied to the quarterback's footwork, leaving less room for improvisation. Conservation plans have also changed.

In two years, the results have changed dramatically.

The Cowboys lead the field in scoring in 2023 and rank fifth in total offense. Prescott finished second in the MVP voting, losing to Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson.

The next year, with the same staff and similar personnel, the Cowboys struggled. Their offense dropped to 17th and their scoring dropped to 21st.

Prescott suffered a season-ending hamstring injury in November but had issues protecting, running the ball and reliably passing the ball before he was injured. A year after he led the league with 36 touchdowns to just nine interceptions, a year after that, he threw 11 passes with eight interceptions in eight games.

The Cowboys are looking for new voices on the field and on offense. It's unclear whether Schottenheimer will achieve that goal.

He also learned from the influence of various programs over two decades while working under McCarthy, not to mention growing up with his father.

One league executive who worked with Schottenheimer as offensive coordinator described a mix of concepts that could guide the system he built for the Cowboys.

The executive told Yahoo Sports that in Seattle, he adapted his system to terms that then-Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson already knew in order to improve Wilson's consistency. Had Schottenheimer inherited the language for Prescott, the process would have been smoother since he was already operating in the same language.

With the Jets, Schottenheimer was oriented toward gap schemes and later worked on wider zones and play-action concepts, the executive said. Wrinkles of pace and screen play have traced his play-calling in Seattle, with Schottenheimer unafraid to implement passing concepts, even during early downturns.

The Cowboys need to build around Prescott as they enter the first season of his record-breaking four-year contract extension worth $60 million per year. It's too early to tell whether they think the best way to build around him is to emphasize the passing game or step up to protect him and run the game as NFC teams, including the Eagles, have had success with this season .

Possibilities for other Cowboys employees

It's too early to tell whether the Cowboys will bring back defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer, who has settled into a rhythm late in 2024, the first of his return with a talented Dallas defense. season.

While Schottenheimer has not been a head coach in the NFL before, his extensive experience coordinating and working with his father may give him more leeway in not having to rely on his former head coach on defense like Bears head coach Ben Johnson. Coordinator. His target is former New Orleans Saints head coach Dennis Allen.

The Cowboys have expressed internal interest in current Washington Commanders Anthony Lynn (former Chargers head coach) and Brian Johnson (former Eagles offensive coordinator). Neither was available for interviews ahead of the Commanders' NFC Championship Game in Philadelphia on Sunday. But there's something familiar about every offer, with Lynn serving as Dallas' running backs coach in 2005-06 and Johnson coaching Prescott at Mississippi State.

The Commanders return to the division title game for the first time since the 1991 season, making the Cowboys' NFC title drought the longest in the league. Dallas has not advanced past the divisional round since the 1995 season. Since 2010, every other NFC team has surpassed that mark.

Fans naturally want to know what Schottenheimer has to offer over Moore, who is also familiar with the Cowboys and has played the past six seasons. A team source said Moore impressed in interviews as a coach who has matured in his philosophy and vision for running the team since leaving Dallas two years ago.

Schottenheimer did not guarantee interviews with any other club's coordinators and head coaches this cycle. By comparison, Moore conducted virtual interviews with the Cowboys, Saints and Jacksonville Jaguars during the league-allowed window between the Eagles' wild-card game and divisional round victory.

Schottenheimer's former colleagues believe that "lifer" coaches like Schottenheimer are sometimes overlooked because they don't offer the same traction as an "unknown commodity" like Moore. Schottenheimer is more outgoing than Moore, which may resonate with a team that traditionally views presence as a presence. Schottenheimer's offense in Seattle was his most successful, ranking in the top 10 in scoring all three years before head coach Pete Carroll fired him for what a source said was the best offense in balancing a strong defense. There are "philosophical differences."

The Cowboys' hire may have been neither creative nor inspiring in league circles. That doesn't mean it doesn't work.

“I’m not surprised at all to see Shorty succeed as a head coach,” said the executive, a former colleague of Schottenheimer’s. "He's really organized. He's a direct communicator. He's got some fire. He's got some upside.

"He did some really good things (here) that I probably didn't fully appreciate (at the time)."