Brian Schottenheimer: We Are Going to Be a Physical Team | Dallas Cowboys 2025

Brian Schottenheimer: We Are Going to Be a Physical Team | Dallas Cowboys 2025

I see uh Michael Parsons getting some rehab work. How is that progressing? Yeah, he got some work done on his back yesterday. I think uh uh it’s going good. He was doing some of the stuff in the mock last night, so it’s always good to see him moving around, but I think it’s going well. Is he getting closer to possibly practicing with you guys? Uh again, still one of those things dayto-day just kind of keep an eye on it and uh again, he’s doing all the things that uh we need him to do. Clarence Hill DLLS Cowboys. Uh what’s your philosophy on starters in the preseason? Do you have one? And and how does you plan to implement what you plan to do with your starting this week? Yeah, I I think I I do have a philosophy number one, and you know, it’s a philosophy kind of that I’ve generated over the years. I obviously reserve the right to change my mind if I want to based on how we’re doing out here in practice against ourselves and things like that. But, um, you know, I’ll be general in what I say, but, you know, there’s a handful of guys that that won’t play, you know, but there’s really when you look at it, you have a target set of numbers that you want to get throughout the preseason. So, maybe the number is 40 for a player. So, maybe that’s 10 to 15 plays tomorrow, another 25 or whatever against, you know, Baltimore, and then you decide the third game. Um, our players are aware of kind of where they are going into this game. I’m not going to get into all the specifics. It would take me forever. It’ be the only question I answer. But, uh, the philosophy is again, there’s certain guys that we feel like, hey, you know what? We don’t need to see them play in this first game. But, that could certainly change going into the next game. You know, Dak hasn’t played in the free season since 2019, I believe. And I don’t know. Uh, certainly he hasn’t missed the last nine games last year. Is the Rams practice and and stuff you do, teamwork here enough to get him ready for Eagles? I think so. Yeah, I think, you know, we’re getting some great work and the Rams thing was great for us just because, you know, when you when you look at a clearance, it’s like, you know, the pass rush was different. It was intense. You know, we had a great practice yesterday, very physical, uh, which you guys know from being out here, I was very, really proud of that. But like, yeah, Dak’s a guy that, you know, at the end of the day, you know, he’s seen a lot of football. He’s played a lot of football. I I will step back and laugh for a second. So, my old man, he had a philosophy that in the preseason, everybody plays. So, story goes, fourth preseason game, Leenian Tomlinson, you know, MVP of the league. Hey, LT’s playing. And the coaches are like, are you you sure? He goes, oh yeah, he’s playing. So then he went to Cam Cameron, he goes, here’s the deal. Call a pass where he’s free releasing. And then he goes to Drew Brees and says, “Whatever you do, do not throw the ball to 21.” So he ran a swing route to I’ll never forget it. He ran a swing route to our bench. Okay, Drew threw the ball somewhere else and LT just kept running over to the sideline, took his helmet off, and sat down. But he played. So I’m like, that’s another way to do it, you know. But I always remember thinking, interesting. So everybody plays, but it was like under no circumstance you throw the ball to that guy because I think, you know, it’s just, you know, these guys that know how to play the game, they know how to play the game. One more quick question. Numbers at running back. Uh certainly, can you give us update on blue deuce? I mean, it seemed like you’re going to be challenged on Saturday. Yeah, again, I’ll get some more information when I go in there. We’re a little bit challenged. We got some good backup plans organized. We got some athletes that you guys might see toting the rock a little bit and uh we’ll do some fun things with those guys. Uh but uh hey, we might have to just go all five wides and getting empty and slinging around a little bit, you know? I mean, that that’s like that’s old football back, you know. I used to do that, you know, on Thanksgiving weekend with my family, just getting empty and spread it out. Uh but again, I’ll get more information about the injury guys, but we’re a little little thin at that spot, but that opens up opportunities for other guys. And again, you guys know I’m big into cross trainining and um hopefully we stay pretty healthy in this game. Brian Todd Archer of the ESPN Cooper Rush was a reliable backup for years here uh up behind Dak. Joe’s untested. How important are are these preseason games for him to not only for himself but for you guys to have complete faith that he can do it if needed? Yeah, well I think we have faith in Joe already. I think that’s the first thing I would say, Todd. Uh it’s incredibly important. You’re talking about a guy that hasn’t played a whole lot of football, not just in the National Football League in college. You know, I mean, some of these guys coming out of college, they’ve got five, six years worth of starts and uh every rep that Joe gets is is critical. So, he’ll play a ton of football and, you know, he’s going to do some great things. He’s going to make some mistakes. That’s part of preseason football. I’ll make some mistakes. you know, I mean, uh, being a first-time head coach and that’s why we do preseason and, um, but the reps are important for him just because every chance he gets to stand back there and have to what I say drive the car, which is the move the offense and things like that, he’s learning and he’s learning on the run and um, I think uh, he’s as excited as anybody to go out there and compete. Then with Rebel, can you where is he in his recovery return rehab? Yeah, I think, you know, again, had a little swelling, what was it, a week, 10 days ago, but I think, you know, he’s doing really good now. And again, I don’t I’m not going to put a timeline on him, but I think he’s he’s back to where um we kind of want him to be. And um the thing that’s been fun for me, and I think DA talked about this the other day, is kind of watching, you know, how Trayvon’s really been kind of leaning into Von and kind of helping him. And even in all the things that we do, he’s a guy that really understands that, okay, I’m not getting the physical reps, but there’s things that I can be learning and I can be watching and I can be mirroring. That’s what you call it. You mirror. I stand behind a guy that’s taking the live reps and things like that. And he’s he’s really bought into that. So, um, quick story, Joe Horn, obviously great receiver, played for us in Kansas City. He was a guy that was the first guy I ever saw do it. And so, he would literally stand about 15 yards behind the offensive play. And so if the receiver JJ Bird and Derek Alexander, whoever was running the route, he’d be like 15 yards. He’d go in motion like behind everything and he was just stacking reps because Joe was more of a rep learner. And I’m not saying Bond’s that. I’m just saying the next thing you know, Joe takes off. He goes to New Orleans, he gets a huge contract, he becomes a Pro Bowl receiver. So, the power of mental reps, I think, doesn’t go unnoticed on me because I’ve seen guys like Joe Horn maximize those and turn those into really um, you know, career-defining changes. A little bit that early in camp. He does. Yeah, Joe does that at times as well. Yep. Michetic coach Shimco was telling us the other day about how, you know, when you’re Dak and you’re going into year 10, there’s really not much a defense can throw at you haven’t seen before. But with Joe, you know, he still needs to see all these different things. what he said like if he doesn’t see something maybe doesn’t hit on it when he sees it again he’s he’s been right on it. How have you kind of seen him him grow from those perspectives? Number one, Joe loves to be coached. Uh he’s really very competitive. Um you see no one has more fun at practice than Joe and it’s not just the back flips. It’s just he loves competing and you know he makes a big throw you know he’ll have his swag walk going and things like that. He just loves it. He loves to be out there. But I would totally agree with what Shimmy said. I mean, I think, you know, there’s things that he, you know, hasn’t seen and he might miss. And there’s some blitz looks from the scrimmage the other day that kind of caught him off guard that, you know, he was like, “Oh.” But then when he sees him on video, he’s like, “Okay, that makes sense.” Remember, this is all brand new for him. You know, this is a protection system that’s been in place for the most part for the past, you know, three years. And Joe’s one of the new guys with it. And I think, you know, what’s going to be really good for us is just watching him throughout the preseason, you know, adjust to different blitz looks and that we see from, you know, the Rams and Baltimore and Atlanta. And but he does he he he grasps things really well and when you watch him in, if you could see him in the film room and we’re making uh the notes and talking about, I mean, he is dialed in like his eyes do not I don’t think he blinks. He literally stares like because he’s he’s taking it all in and he competes in the classroom just like he does on the field. Uh you mentioned you mentioned maybe Brett Favre threw the ball that like that. Can you think of any other quarterbacks you’ve seen that have thrown a ball that remind you anything? I really can’t uh that I’ve been around because if you’re not out there like you know I’ve seen guys of course throw it you know on TV but if you’re not out there like uh when I was in New York uh Brett Favre uh he was what 40 uh and his elbow was bothering a little bit so he wanted to go inside and because it was his arm was bothering him so he went to coach Manini and said hey you know Eric do you mind if we go inside and Eric’s like yeah we’ll go inside but I want you to let it rip today and he kind of looked at him he’s like oh you want me let it rip today. He’s like, “Yeah, I want you to let it rip today.” And to this day is maybe one of the greatest practices. I have the tape somewhere, Beta Cam. Uh so I don’t even know if I can play it anymore, but like literally was the most impressive practice I’ve ever seen because it was he was challenged by Eric in a good way. Uh but yeah, the arm strength at 40, 41, whatever he was, was incredible. Um Joe might have him on distance if I’m being honest with you. Joe might be able to throw it farther, but the RPMs are very close. Nick Harris, former Telegram. Who are a couple of guys or position groups that you’re looking forward to seeing in a live game environment at this point? You know, I think the young linebackers get me excited. You know, I want to kind of see those guys play a little bit. You know, um and when I say young guys, it’s not just rookies. It’s it’s, you know, first, second, you know, third year players. Um the backs were beat up, but I still want to see these guys, you know, go and whoever it is, it is. The tight ends, you know, they get me excited. Those are the first couple ones that that popped into my mind. But there’s really guys at every spot. And again, we talked to the team this morning about, you know, number one how amazing it is looking back and I think it was like first day of the phase two when we could practice. It was like 70 days before the first real game. And so today the countdown tracker was set to one because we actually play a live football game tomorrow. And so there’s going to be some, you know, really great film and learning opportunities and maximize the opportunity. We talked about that like, you know, you’re getting evaluated on everything you do, how you come off the field in terms of and make the adjustments and how dialed are how dialed in you are when you’re talking to the coaches and we’re making adjustments. So, uh there’s guys at every spot that uh again um we will be, you know, excited to see how they respond, not just to the environment, but to the overall flow of a game. We’ve seen Elijah Clark with the one children had a good play with the one yesterday. When a guy comes in undrafted, how can they earn the trust so fast to be put in those situations? Do right, you know, just do right longer. I mean, that’s what we talk about all the time. The standard’s a standard and uh both those guys have done a great job of, you know, picking up the things and uh they spend extra time in the meetings. They ask great questions. When you’re sitting in the defensive meetings and you’re listening to the guys and the DB meetings like, you know, both Zion and Elijah uh ask great questions. Zion actually just beat Crop in a in a basketball competition this morning, so he’s probably on cloud nine right now because he beat Crop on a buzzer beater. Um, but you know, to me it’s um when guys come in, you just know like this they get it like they’re this is a business and I want to make the Dallas freaking Cowboys. And to do that, man, I got to I got to I got to do something special, and that’s work my ass off and don’t take any days off and ask questions and and and and compete so hard in everything I do. Uh, and those are two guys that have done that along with many, many, many others. Tommy, Dallas Cowboys.com. Dak was talking about yesterday and how he’s seen Joe Bro with his internal time clock and getting the ball out. Where have you seen Joe take those steps in the in the mental getting the ball out part? What are you going to need to see in the next three or so weeks that’ll show you that he’s on track to keep progressing? I think Dak’s dead on and Joe knows that. You know, Joe’s the ultimate competitor. Joe’s a 6’5, 235, 38 pound guy. So, the competitive nature in him is to stand back there and rip, you know, piss missiles at people. And um literally in walkthrough, our guys are like, “Dude, please stop.” Like, “Stop. It’s a walkth through.” And he’ll throw some some some fast balls. But um the last two days I would say has been his two best days of understanding the time clock. And the way we kind of do it, you know, is we tie it to their feet. So the best quarterbacks in the world, they listen to their feet because their feet tell them when to eliminate your progressions and when to get to your outlet or when you actually have to take off and run. So you literally talk about listening to your feet. And when I say that, I’m talking about, okay, my first hitch tells me I’ve got a little bit of time. that second hitch happened, you’re like, “Okay, I got to do something now because I’ve used up my time clock’s going.” And um the last two days, I would say, um he’s been much much better. Uh it’ll be interesting to see when the bullets are flying live tomorrow how he does. How hard is it for young quarterbacks to to get back down? Is that something that you’ve seen kind of stretch and vary between different guys over the years? I’m a huge footwork guy. So I think you know Tommy when you when you talk about it’s like that is the hardest thing to to to figure out because you know and that’s what I hate about seven on seven because seven on seven there’s no time clock like you can still do it but you don’t feel it like you know shoot I’ll say this about Dak the last two practices yesterday’s I thought he did an incredible job of finding the checkdown but like whether you go back to the young quarterbacks I’ve been around um Sam Bradford Drew Brees Philip Rivers um you know Andrew wasn’t young when I had him, but like there’s a there there’s a learning curve and that I I think that’s what takes them so much time is when to eliminate a progression because when you have a progression, I’m going from right to left, you know, I’m starting with Garrett and I’m working all the way over here to to Calvin. It’s like sometimes you lock in on those things, but there is a time clock that you have to feel and instinctively take over and it takes a little while. Joe, Joe, Dallas Morning News. This might be a little bit of a reach and you kind of talked about it a little bit, but in the evaluation period during these games when you’re trying to learn about these guys, do you curate maybe challenges for certain guys that you want to see how they respond to certain elements, maybe putting them in a position in play where I want to see how he handles this? Yeah, I think you know, absolutely. The answer is yes. It doesn’t always happen. Like you have a plan sometimes to go in and you know, we don’t control who they play. There’s matchups that you’d like to see again. Like even watching the film where you’d be like, “Man, I wish we could get a chance to see this matchup again.” And um but like again like I’ve said before when you’re when you’re calling the offensive plays of course you’re looking in the huddle and you’re saying okay hey I want to get the ball to Joe so I’m going to call play. I know what position you’re playing. You’re playing XZ FY H whatever it is. Okay so I’m going to call this play cuz I want to try to get you a ball. Doesn’t always happen that way. On defense there’s things that you can do where we want to evaluate guys with blitzes and things like that. Uh although like I said the seven iron will be out, you know, and uh we playing, you know, downwind a little bit, but that’s that’s going to be fine because it’s going to come down to us having to execute and I think that uh we will execute better in this game than we did in the scrimmage. You mentioned when you’re talking about Pete that you kept notebooks of things that hey, I’m going to write this down. I kind of like this or I didn’t like this throughout your coaching career. You still have those notebooks? I do. Where do you keep them? Uh in my uh office in uh the top lefth hand drawer. How many? Don’t go in there. Cable will tackle you guys if you try to go in there. Yeah. How many do I have? They’re little. They’re not very big. I’d say probably 12 to 15ish. And they’re kind of sorted by year. And um I go back through them and read them quite often and highlight things and it’s interesting to see how I’ve changed some of my things that I’ve changed. And I probably started that around 2016 or 17 actually when I left Georgia and came back to the NFL is when I really started kind of doing it. And um so that’s kind of where it started. And um in the old days I used to have like just the yellow folders, you know, and and I still have those. My wife actually thinks I’m an absolute, you know, packrat, you know, like I’m a hoarder because one thing football coaches all we all do is you like, “Oh honey, I need that playbook from 1996.” It’s like you never know when I’m going to want to look back at that thing cuz man, we had a really good year back in whatever. You never look at it. And now, of course, I’m not the most techy guy, but all these things are on jump drives and things like that. But, um, it uh it’s fun to go back and and look at those things and to challenge yourself and be like, man, do do you really still believe that because you did back then and and sometimes it’s yes and sometimes it’s not really. I’ve changed. Garrett Bodell, CBS Sports. Ryan, couple uh guys got tangled up yesterday. Jake Ferguson in the red zone and Jaden Blue. Um what are your updates on on them and where they’re at? Yeah, I think again I’ll find out more when I go in there, Garrett, but I think you know Fergy’s doing good. Jaden’s still getting some testing done. I don’t think it’s anything uh too serious, but you look I’ve talked about this with you guys like we’re going to practice physical and I challenged our guys yesterday. I’ll share this with you guys because I’m incredibly proud of it. So I told them, “Hey, we’re going in pads. We need to get we need to get our pads down, play with better pad level. We got to have a physical practice. And in the first two periods, if we do it right, which they’ve always done it right, then I’ll take them off and we’ll put the soft shells on. And so they were like, “Okay, cool.” So we started the practice. They answered the bell like they should because they understand the standard is the standard and that’s the way we have to play. And so after the second period, um, I kind of called them up, said, “Yep, go take go take the pads off, put the shells on. that’s something you’ll do during the season as the season drags on into week nine and eight and things like that. And they’re like, “No, we want to keep on. We need this work.” And to me, that tells you that they’re buying into the fact that we need to be a physical team. And um nothing gets you more fired up than that as a coach because they they’re embracing the grind. They’re embracing the fact this is training camp, you know, and we’re going to we’re going to play a game tomorrow and then, you know, they get Sunday off and Monday we’ll do a little mock and then boom, Tuesday we’re going back to pads. We’re not backing off on the fact we’re going to be a physical team. Well, that was my question. Oh, well, good. Michelle Monte WA. Um Dak talked about that already talked about that kind of thing. I love pass every day. Um that combined with some of the chippiness we’ve seen throughout camp, especially at the beginning. What do you make of um I guess what that says about where these teams at? Because I don’t know that that would be their decision. I I think that they’re competitors and again you you heard the last response like I was very prepared to take the pads off and this was actually right after Fergie. You know Fergie had the thing and you know again things happen and you know Fergie and Kenneth talked K9 and you know again those things happen and it gets addressed and you know it never it never bleeds from there to there. It really doesn’t. you’re a family, you know, and uh but again, to me, when you start with your football mantra and you talk about, you know, all about the ball, things like that, and then you talk about owning the line of scrimmage, well, there’s one way to own the line of scrimmage, and that’s to play physical and to get your pads down and to get your eyes underneath the chin. And I think these guys have bought into that and they could have easily said, “Yeah, let’s take them off, coach.” you know, you told us if we put it out there, you’d take them off. And I was going to and they were like, “No, we’re good to go.” And um means they’re uh they’re excited about what we’re trying to do and they realize that there’s work to be done. Did you talk to K9 about that headed? Was it clean? Was it I mean, how do you how do you Yeah, I mean, it it happened. I mean, again, they talked more than I did. You know, Fergie’s fine, but again, those are things you want to avoid. you know, you want to avoid those things, you know, and so, uh, those are the things that we talk about, but, uh, it wasn’t the only one. You know, we had too many guys on the ground yesterday. Again, the physicalness of practice is fine. It’s there was too many guys on the ground. You know, sometimes it was the pass rusher got too close. One time the pass rusher got pushed in the back. One time it was a run through linebacker. Like, those things happen. And again, I’m going to say it again, and you guys can keep quoting me, and it’s easy for you to write down, but we want these guys to play on the edge without going over the edge. And part of that is they’re learning how to practice and stay up. And um we’re not there yet where we need to be in terms of keeping guys up and protecting one another from a physical standpoint in those physical practices, but we’re getting there. Babe, radio network 105.3 FM. It took a while to get all that out, babe. Yeah. Don’t get Yeah. Uh you mad at Tad about that? No. No. Not you’re good, Tad. He’s tacked into no. Wow. So, you know, I always think of the play caller, the quarterback as kind of the pitcher catcher baseball catcher last just how much has it helped you being around Dak last year, making that position to jump into a play call as opposed to getting a new guy feels be a rookie or a veteran guy. Yeah. Yeah. It’s huge. You you get it. You understand you’ve been you’ve been that guy. Um, I think it’s I think it’s huge. I think because, you know, Dak and I number one, we’ve have incredible trust in one another. We’re not going to agree on everything. Um, but the no really both of us, you know, matter of fact, there was a play yesterday that he didn’t like the name of it and uh I said he goes, “Yeah.” He goes, “It’s just not hitting my brain.” He goes, “Can we change the name?” I said, “I tell you what, if you throw a touchdown here, I’ll let you let you change it.” And then the defense jumped offside so he didn’t run the play. So then he said, “Hey.” He said, “What do you what do you want to do? You didn’t give me a chance to repeat the play.” I said, “Fine, you can name it.” So, I guess he won that one. Um, but uh, no, it’s it’s important. I think it helps. It’s if you don’t have the confidence and the trust in one another as the quarterback and the play caller, you know, to have real conversations leading up to games. Hey, I really don’t like this play. Hey, don’t don’t don’t don’t call that one early. Or, hey, yeah, I’m good. I love that one. Or, hey, Shotty, hey, you go, man. Hey, I’m I’m good. You know, we put a concept in yesterday, little wrinkle, and he was like, “Dude, I love that.” And so it just makes the communication easy because there’s already connection, there’s already trust, and the exit part comes pretty easy. Awesome. Thanks, guys.

Head coach Brian Schottenheimer speaks to the media prior to the Cowboys first preseason game against the Los Angeles Rams, the opportunity ahead for Joe Milton, provides injury updates and more.

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