It is hard to objectively say what would constitute as a successful season for the 2025 [Dallas Cowboys](https://www.bloggingtheboys.com/). This franchise has been living in a shadow that only continues to grow for the past 30 years so. While we all want to see it put to an end, just making the playoffs on some level would feel like serious progress.
That statement obviously involves some context and even more is necessary to figure out what success or playoff probabilities are like for this year’s version of the team. Given that they have a new head coach in Brian Schottenheimer that obviously plays a role, as does the fact that Schotty has never been a head coach before.
Schottenheimer is the 10th head coach in Cowboys history and looking at the first years of each one is interesting, but also something that has to be taken with a grain of salt. Different head coaches have taken over the team at different points. Rosters were in different shapes and the state of the league was different. We cannot compare them all apples to apples.
Let’s do our best to remember that.
### History shows that making the playoffs in a head coach’s first year is a 50-50 thing for the Cowboys
Understanding that different circumstances have surrounded each coach in franchise history during their first season, you should know that four of the previous nine reached the postseason in their initial campaign.
Consider things like Tom Landry starting with an entirely brand new franchise or Mike McCarthy navigating life amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Needless to say that there are variables they each saw as different challenges.
#### Dallas Cowboys Head Coach First Seasons in History
* Tom Landry............................................ 0-11-1
* Jimmy Johnson..................................... 1-15
* Barry Switzer......................................... 12-4, lost [NFC Championship](https://www.sbnation.com/nfc-championship-game) Game
* Chan Gailey........................................... 10-6, lost in Wild Card Round
* Dave Campo......................................... 5-11
* Bill Parcells............................................ 10-6, lost in Wild Card Round
* Wade Phillips........................................ 13-3, lost in Divisional Round after bye
* Jason Garrett........................................ 8-8
* Mike McCarthy...................................... 6-10
Only Switzer, Gailey, Parcells and Phillips reached the playoffs in their first seasons leading the Cowboys. Of those four only Switzer won a playoff game, although Phillips should get some credit for leading a team to a first-round bye.
Looking at this list a little bit differently, it features six of the nine who took the Cowboys job with no previous NFL head coaching experience. The outliers in that sense are/were Parcells, Phillips and McCarthy.
It feels unfair to remove Parcells and Phillips from the discussion because they took over the Cowboys after having been head coaches before, but given that Schottenheimer hasn’t it is worth having the discussion out loud. This means that only two head coaches in franchise history who took the post under similar circumstances from an experience standpoint to Schottenheimer navigated the team to the playoffs in that first year and they were Barry Switzer and Chan Gailey.
With all due respect to those two men, it feels fair to say that a big reason for this was the nucleus of talent that was the 1990s Cowboys dynasty. It isn’t a stretch to say that Brian Schottenheimer isn’t working with that kind of group right now.
All of this means that if Brian Schottenheimer leads the Cowboys to the playoffs this season that he will be the first coach in team history to do so in his first season since Wade Phillips in 2007 and the first to do it without any prior head coaching experience since Chan Gailey in 1998. It has clearly been a long time since either of those things occurred.
If there are no playoffs for the Cowboys this year then how long can we expect it to be until the team returns to the postseason, though? Below is the number of years it took each head coach to reach the playoffs with the Cowboys, if they did at all.
#### Dallas Cowboys Head Coach First Playoff Appearance with team
* Tom Landry............................................ 7
* Jimmy Johnson..................................... 3
* Barry Switzer......................................... 1
* Chan Gailey........................................... 1
* Dave Campo......................................... 0
* Bill Parcells............................................ 1
* Wade Phillips........................................ 1
* Jason Garrett........................................ 4
* Mike McCarthy...................................... 2
We all know that Jason Garrett was afforded a lot of time with the Cowboys and to his credit (sort of) he had the team in contention for a playoff berth in the final game of each of his first three seasons. They just happened to lose all three of those. Oops.
Dave Campo remains the only head coach in team history to never take the team to the playoffs at all so he is clearly the outlier here. Obviously Tom Landry took over the team at the beginning so it is difficult to properly compare things, but it stands to reason based on most of this century that a playoff appearance in the first two years is to be expected (this also feels like a fair ask).
A lot has to go right in order for an NFL team to reach the playoffs. Brian Schottenheimer needs to make sure to pull all of those levers. He can make a bit of history if he does so.