The Dallas Cowboys were mocked when they hired Brian Schottenheimer as their head coach. The backlash wasn't so much about who they hired, but the process that landed them on Schottenheimer, who spent the last three seasons with the team, including the last two as offensive coordinator.
While Schottenheimer has had a rollercoaster first season at the helm, it's become increasingly clear that Dallas hired the right guy. Like any first-time head coach, Schottenheimer is still learning on the job, but it's impossible to ignore the job he's done. All of that hard work and progress culminated in the Cowboys' monstrous 31-28 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs on Thanksgiving.
In case you needed any more evidence that Schottenheimer has the full support of the locker room, Dak Prescott made a loud statement about Dallas' head coach after the win.
"He's the right guy for a job. We're all following him," Prescott said, via Joseph Hoyt of the Dallas Morning News.
If Dak Prescott believes in Brian Schottenheimer, so should Cowboys fans
Prescott isn't one to throw a coach under the bus, but it is pretty evident how much belief QB1 and the entire team have in Schottenheimer.
Just look at the buy-in:
“The heartbeat of this football team is different”❗️ pic.twitter.com/zOvW9OrsDo
— Dallas Cowboys (@dallascowboys) November 28, 2025
Prescott is playing the best football of his career in Schottenheimer's offense. While Prescott put together some great seasons in offenses in which Mike McCarthy and Kellen Moore called plays, he's never been in this much control, and he's never been in this healthy of an ecosystem.
From installing more motion and pre-snap movement, marrying the run and pass, knowing when to dial up play-action, and designing plays FOR players rather than designing plays to get the ball in certain areas of the field (looking at you, McCarthy), Schottenheimer's scheme has been a revelation relative to the previous iteration of the Cowboys' offense.
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That isn't to say Schottenheimer doesn't have room to grow as far as situational play-calling. But if this is what it looks like in year one, Dallas is in great hands moving forward.
Beyond modernizing the offense, Schottenheimer is clearly a leader of men. The way the Cowboys navigated and then responded to the Marshawn Kneeland tragedy is perhaps the biggest testament to that.
On the field, Schottenheimer had the team ready to play in Week 1 just days after its best player, Micah Parsons, was traded to an NFC rival. There were some hiccups along the way, but the Cowboys have taken down last year's Super Bowl teams, the Eagles and Chiefs, in a span of four days.
Per Opta Sports (h/t to Brandon Loree of Blogging The Boys), the Cowboys are the first team ever to knock out both of the previous season's Super Bowl participants in a span of five days or less.
The Cowboys might not end up making the playoffs because the NFC is incredibly deep, but Schottenheimer was definitively one of the best hires of the 2025 hiring cycle.