Brian Schottenheimer: Titles Should Be Earned | Dallas Cowboys 2025

Brian Schottenheimer: Titles Should Be Earned | Dallas Cowboys 2025

Hi. He’s not ready. I’m ready. Fall start, delay a game. Yeah, for sure. Discipline. Discipline. Right. Calvin Watkins, Dallas Morning News. You talked about the depth depth chart changes. How much of your original plan in terms of snap counts for players originally have changed since that preseason game? Not much. You know, some of you guys played a little bit more. So, again, like I told you guys yesterday, there’s always a Okay, what’s the total number that we want for a guy? And there’s a range, you know, Calvin, that you’re looking at, okay, hey, it’s 30 to 40. It’s whatever. It’s unlimited. Uh so based on not much but based on the fact that a few guys played a little bit more than we thought they would last game those numbers will get adjusted and a few guys that played a little bit less. Most of those guys were offensive because of the limited ops they’ll play a little bit more. I’m assuming you know those guys. How many of those guys have you said I need to look at them a little bit more against? It’s a big part of it just because you’re trying to, you know, we want to make the right decision and we will. We’ll make the right decision come cut down day and to do that you have to have all the information. So, um, we’ll have a staff meeting tonight to kind of finalize some of that stuff and, uh, get a feel for, okay, hey, this guy’s doing good. But like yesterday again with the mocks and stuff, we we moved a number of guys into different spots, both up and down. And, um, all that’s always communicated to them, hey, you’re doing good, so you’re getting more reps with the the the ones, and hey, you got to pick it up a little bit. here moving down a spot. Give us a housekeeping thing on blue going to be back. Yeah, like I said yesterday, uh Clarence, I think most of those guys are trending in the right direction. We’ll find out a little bit today. Today should be a really good practice, a chance to see some of those guys bounce back, just all the guys that are trending in the right direction. But again, until we see how today goes and how they look, we won’t really know. got a couple days to make that decision. Couple days left. You worry about guys looking to go home and do up the ante this week with two physical practices. So they won’t be getting excited about going home because it’s been a long time been up to, you know, they July 20th. Yeah. Well, it really wasn’t nearly as long as last year. Last year felt like an eternity. You guys were here. Um but no, I I started the meeting off of that. You know, we need to we need to be present. We need to stay in the moment. We’re going to have two physical practice and pads today. uh hour 45 today, two hours tomorrow. And um you know, are there distractions about going home? Yeah, probably. But leave that at the door. Leave that, you know, in your room. And when you’re here, you’re doing football. And we got a lot of work to do. And I think the best teams in the league, they maximize these opportunities, these weeks leading up to preseason game two. You’ve played a game, you’ve made some adjustments from personnel standpoint, and now you need to go do it uh during the week of practice. Brian for ESPN. D last week a week and a half ago kind of CD down the field after one play and really carrying out his fakes more to kind of get some sprint working. Is that by design as he’s coming back to the hamstring? Yeah, it’s really got nothing to do with the hamstring. It’s just getting some of his top speeds. You know, quarterbacks, they don’t run like some of the other guys do. Everything is tracked, Todd. You know, everything catapult um you know, just the the power, the movements, the steps, the distance, the speeds, all that stuff is measured. So, it’s more about just him getting to top speed because as a quarterback, you’re not getting to top speed in practice as much as you would in a game when you’re moved off the spot. So, completely by design and you know, Britt and um you know, Brily and those guys do a hell of a job with us with the catapult system and tracking everybody’s um data. Where do you come down on Dak running? Is there like he has to do some of it but maybe not? Yeah, Dak’s got to be able to run. I mean, you know, quarterbacks run in this league. That’s what they do. And uh again, are we going to come out first play of the season against Philadelphia and run power read with the quarterback? No, probably not. Sorry about that. That it’s not happening, Vic. But um at the end of the day, yeah, he’s got to move. He’s got to make plays. He’s got to extend plays. Can we run them? Sure. You know, we’ll run him. You know, he’s he’s a good athlete. He has to be smart getting down. You know, hey, if he’s in if he’s in danger, slide, get down. And that’s what all the great ones do. I swear this isn’t related to what I just asked, but you’re one of 19 that didn’t do the tush push last year. Why doesn’t every team do it if there’s such a high success rate? Again, I think, you know, it it’s it’s like everything. You you have a a philosophy of what you believe in. It’s obviously a great play. We have different ways of what I would say attacking the A gaps and things like that. But, um, it’s an investment and I think the Bills and the Eagles do it better than anybody else and it’s what they believe in. And um you know I think at the end of the day you know it’s a a good football play that uh they’ve perfected in a lot of ways and uh we have some plays that we feel like we’ve perfected that are different than that any kind. Yeah, he’s doing good. Uh he’s getting some reps, you know, and just the mock stuff, the slow speed stuff because he needs that mentally to kind of stay prepared and things like that. But, um, I think he’s he’s doing well. Again, not putting a timeline on it, but, uh, I’ve been very pleased with what I’ve seen from him. And the the intensity that he’s attacking the rehab and the way he’s working and, um, is not normal for a secondyear player. So, I’m very proud of him for that. I guess what this offensive line can be going forward obviously in first round picks it. So, obviously think Well, I think, you know, it’s it’s the catalyst for an offense on every team. I mean, it really is. You look at the best teams in football and usually their offensive lines um are very physical. They set the intensity and the mindset of the offense and there’s a part of staying healthy. That’s a big part of it. You know, you need to stay healthy. Um but, uh uh we have the makings of being a really good offensive line. We really do. we just uh have to maximize these next couple weeks and get get ready and um but I think the mindset that we’re trying to build and the physicality we’re trying to play with and the way we cover down and finish and you know one of the things we corrected our guys on the other day was you know picking guys up off the off the ground and you know pushing the pile but you know go pick up your brother man go pick him up guys on the ground let’s fill them off or whatever and three guys are standing there looking at him then that’s not right you know so go pick him up you know cover down and that it’s it’s a mindset Nick Harris for Telegram. Been here about three and a half weeks and I know you’ve had a couple of camps out here in talk about the functionality of this place and how it works for you guys to be able to come out here. Yeah, it’s the best. Just the location of it, the fact it’s all so close, Nick. I mean, you can literally go from meetings to walkthroughs to workouts to, you know, you know, to lunch to get, you know, a nap or something. I mean, the the functionality of it is amazing. The fields have been great. The fans have been great. I just think it’s it’s very very seamless for us and uh again they continue to do an awesome job. They roll out the red carpet for us here and they take good care of us and um our guys are very respectful to the staff here uh at the uh at the resort and uh it’s a it’s just a great relationship. Question, what did you see over the season? How do you how has that been applied here at camp? And then do you have an update on Yeah, with I mean again I think I’ve talked multiple times about his confidence. He came back and he his body was ready. You know, some of the training and the things that he did during the offseason, actually the break really to get ready for the offseason program was awesome. He was around a lot more than he was in years past. Just working out with our guys and, you know, spending time with Britt and Britt Brown and those guys. But, um, you know, I think, you know, he’s having a great camp and again, one of those guys that we expect to have a big year for us, uh, in our in our tight end sets. And then Brev’s doing good. I mean, he’s a little bit he’s progressing nicely. Uh, he’s, you know, able to walk around and and get up on his toes some. So, that’s all positive stuff. Cowboys.com. Talk a little about Tan. Let you guys receive on Saturday. How’s he used his connection with junior in college to maybe translate here so far? Well, it’s his birthday number one. So, let’s start with that. It’s 24 today. Uh, so happy birthday, Tan. I already said that in the meeting, but you can hear it again. Um, you know, it really the relationship with Junior’s been important. That’s why he’s here because the relationship with Junior, but he’s the guy that again each and every day he has, you know, been able to move into different spots and if we need a guy to go to X, he can go to X. If we need a guy to move to Z, he can go to Z. Hey, we need you in the slot, he can do that. And so the the instincts and the intelligence that we talk about with that is great. But also, he’s he’s kind of a he’s he’s a gamer, man. and he just he loves to compete. He loves to play the game and uh he finds a way of getting open and again is that instincts. It’s not just good luck. I mean there’s instincts, there’s route running skills that he has. Uh but I do think that you know the relationship with Junior has made him very comfortable in the beginning. So his focus can be more on okay I got to learn I got to learn the system and what we’re doing. Joe a lot of positions. one position I feel like we haven’t asked you a lot of safety and what have you seen from them and as you have questions in the other parts of your secondary how important is it going to be for them to have success well the communication from the safeties is critical so both Donno and Malik are having great camps they uh have really done a great job of not just buying in but learning flu system and uh again take a moment to just really tell you how impressed I am with you know Andre Curtis I was with him in Seattle the guy’s an unbelievable human being first but a great coach and so he coaches those guys the right way. He’s very demanding. Uh he’s got a great relationship with those guys. I think they they trust him. They believe him. But the communication jumps off the off the off the tape when you hear him out there in practice. I think you know um Malik for the first two weeks was really flying around and hitting people like you had a couple big big plays. Donovan was a guy we were kind of ramping up a little bit. But those are both guys that have great experience. Now what we need to do is figure out kind of the guys behind them and um you know how Maris is doing and some of the young guys Clark and um Mike Smith. So both guys having a great camp as you would expect from veterans that are really good football players worry about a lot. This is an assumption but is it a luxury not to worry about the special teams unit and Brandon Aubrey and Brian Anger and Treny just how consistent they’ve been the last couple years? Yeah, I think so. You know, plus I just love the guys. I mean, just their their their DNA, the way they’re made up, the uh the way they work together, the way they just, you know, that was a big part of it in the offseason. We’re going into the offseason, we’re looking at goals and okay, hey, making moves and what do we want to do? Keeping those three guys, I think, was something that we identified early that would be great for our football team. Not for me per se as a first-time head coach, but just for our football team. They’re they’re all very, very talented. They’re very good, but again, that connectivity, that relationship that they have is very seamless. pretty good imbalance between Thomas and Richards and the number of snaps they played. A was that by um I think Nate played very very well. Um you see the confidence that he’s gaining with his punch, Brad. the how he’s setting people aggressively and just the physicality that he brings. Awesome is a guy, another guy that again outside the two penalties. You know, he had the two alignment penalties back to back. You know, those can’t happen. Those self-inflicted wounds, but what you love about Awesome, man, is he’s just got the flexibility. You know, he plays tackle, he plays guard, we can move him on the right, we can put put him inside. He’s an emergency emergency emergency emergency center. You know, he’s emergency emergency. Uh but he’s got that flexibility which you love. And so both guys are um working hard and this will be a big week for both those guys. It was just because Awesome could play more guard. That’s why Brad Towns of Dallas Morning News uh spoken to some of Pickkins’s high school and college coaches and they made the point that he wanted to be coached and I wonder if you share that assessment and what’s been the most striking part about coaching him this first couple of months. Yeah. Uh, number one, I would agree with that. I think, you know, from the time that we got George and we went into my office and spent some time together and shot some free throws and just talked and got to know each other, he made that very clear. He’s like, “Coach, I, you know, I’m thrilled to be here. Number one, I want to be coached. I want to be, you know, I want to I want to be great. You know, I want to be a great player. I want to continue to be great.” And so, you know, lean into me. Be tough on me. Tell me the things I need to do. And so, you know, again, the way I am, Brad, is I start with the relationship piece of it. and because I think you can coach people hard and coach them the right way when you have those relationships. But that doesn’t surprise me. He’s been nothing but um incredible in terms of the way he’s worked with us, the way he’s communicated with us and um I talk about it all the time, but the relationship that he and Sidi have is special. And Junior Adams has done an amazing job of building the culture of his room and and that’s something to be talked about because you know there’s certain rooms where it’s like you got personalities and people like, you know, superstars. It’s like sometimes they don’t always get along. It happens in quarterback room. It happens in in defensive line rooms. It happens in a lot of rooms. But Junior’s built an amazing culture in that room where guys really just want to win and have success and they don’t really care who gets the credit. Coach Michelle Monta. What have you seen Solomon Thomas bring to the locker room? One of your stories that we I’d say leadership. You know, here’s a guy that’s been around for a long time. Uh, seen a lot, been on different teams. He sees what we’re trying to build here and the positives of what we’re trying to do from the culture and the connection piece and, uh, the the compete every day, all those different things. But, uh, he’s a consistent guy, man. And, you know, he’s not always the most vocal person in the world, but the way he practices is is incredible. I mean his numbers when you look at the catapult like we were talking about earlier every day it’s the highest you know on the team for the most part in top three or four for sure. So just that work ethic the way he runs and I remember adub white cotton saying to me before we finalize the the deal for him. He said you will never be around a guy that practices as hard as Solomon does. And early on in the offseason program it was very very evident. And then, you know, I think we had a a moment in uh the offseason where we asked him to share his story, his foundation, and um what he’s been through. And it was you could have heard a pin drop. And it was uh awesome to see this incredible athlete, great player, great man share and be vulnerable with his teammates. Brianna Aldridge, CBS News, Texas. Going back to OTAAS to now to camp, you could see the energy at practice was different. The tempo from beginning to end. You talked about the excitement you’re trying to bring. I know it’s only one preseason game in, but did you see any of that translate to the field? Even talking about some of the veterans who didn’t play. Yeah, I think when you look at the film, you know, you you see the guys getting excited for the guys playing between the white lines, like they want these guys to have success. They want to lean into these guys. I mean, you know, Trayvon Diggs was into it. I mean, he was coaching, you know, some of the young corners and talking to them like that’s what we want. You know, I think um if you build the brotherhood the right way, they should care. You know, they should care how their teammates are doing and not over there just kind of hanging out on the bench and not caring. They want to see him have success. They want to see him do well because why? They’re invested. You know, they’re invested in the locker room. They’re invested in the weight room. They’re invested out there on the practice field. So, I was very, very pleased with with that group. And the best teachers in this game are players, you know? I mean, I see myself as an elite teacher, but like I don’t play the game. The guys that play the game on in between the white lines. There’s things that they can um you know, give to our younger players that are as impactful or more impactful than some of the things that I say and uh they’re crazy if they don’t use that. And our young players are stupid in my opinion if they don’t ask for that. Eric quite a bit. Do you think he has DC potential? Absolutely. I think um again another guy and all of our coaches are great. I’m not again I just talked about Junior because I was asked about George, but um another guy that’s done an incredible job of creating a culture, a um a close-knit special bond in that room. He’s tough as nails. You know, he uh he’s a guy you don’t want to cross. The players definitely understand that uh we got a lot of alphas in that room, but uh if you close the door and you’re going to let one come out, ADub might he might cheat to get out, but he would probably be the one that might come out and I say that respectfully to everybody in there. But, uh he’s a grown ass man and I think uh his knowledge of the game, you know, the way that we play the front, but he understands the big picture. He understands, you know, the whole defense and how the run fits tied together with the safeties in the secondary and understands pass coverages and things like that. So, um, the answer is, uh, 100%. You talk very highly of your assistant coaches and rightfully so. But you don’t have an assistant head coach. Why not? Um, that’s a great question. I can’t believe nobody’s asked me that. Um, to me, at the end of the day, I think this I think, you know, I want to lean on all my coaches. won. Uh, I’ve obviously got an inner circle of people that that I talk to a lot, but I I’m not real big on titles. I think titles should be earned and not given. And this is year one. And so, will we have an assistant head coach next year? Maybe. But I I I do think that sometimes, and we’re all guilty of this, we’ve all done it. But, you know, sometimes you use titles to get guys out of contracts and things like that. You try to. Doesn’t usually work. But my belief is that con, you know, titles, if someone’s named the assistant head coach, they should have earned that, you know, and they should truly be that. Whereas like, okay, if I have a question on anything, I’m going to it. But it’s more of a team of people now that I use and it’s not always position coaches because they’re pretty busy. It’s more coordinators and and things like that. But, um, I was asked by many guys when I was interviewing, hey, what about a potential title? And I was honest with all of them. I said, “Yeah, I’m not saying I’m not saying no forever, but I am saying no now.” And that’s just because of um my belief. Before you got here, who’s the guy on the staff that said maybe it was the head coach that said, “Hey, I don’t think we should do that.” So now, as a head coach, play caller, who is that guy for you in a sense? You’re talking about the assistant head coach? Yeah. I’m I’m trying to understand the question. Ask the question again. like any like in your space right now, who’s the coach that says, “Hey, Shotty, we can’t call that right now. Hey, coach, we need a timeout. Could you miss something?” Well, yeah, I lean Yeah, I lean on Ryan Feeder a ton. You know, Feeder is the game management expert. Um, Clayton Adams, the coordinator. I mean, you know, I I don’t think these guys are afraid of me. I think they know I have a temper, so they know how to approach me the right way. But uh yeah, I think we’ve built a staff, Calvin, that guys are willing to hold everybody accountable, including myself. I want to be held accountable. I’m going to make mistakes and I’m going to step up in front of the team and step up in front of you guys and admit, hey, I made a mistake and I have no problem with that. And if I’m judged on one mistake, then so be it. But um I think we’ve built a staff that I don’t want yesmen. I I can’t think of one member of our staff that’s a yes man. I think they will challenge me. they will challenge because if they can’t challenge me then how can I count on the fact they’re going to challenge their players you know I mean you’re talking about players are making 30 40 $50 million you know so if they can’t hold their head coach accountable then why would why would I trust that they can do that so that was part of the deal with when we went through the hiring process real quickly um you inner circle confidants who are those I’m not going to share that with you just because it changes you know a little bit and I’m not again I don’t want to separate you know and say okay these are the only guys I talked to. So, respectfully, I I appreciate you asking the question, but and it does change, you know, but so if it’s it’s here’s what I’ll say without naming names, it’s it’s it’s different for different things. If it’s a discipline issue, I might go to a couple different guys. If it’s something game management guys, I might go to a couple different guys. If it’s something offensively, you know, um and then sometimes I go to, you know, uh you know, Jerry and Steven or Todd Williams or people like that. So, um, it’s not just I make it sound like we have this little fourperson deal that we go sit in my office, we close the door, and no one’s welcome. It’s not that. It’s really you because I have so much energy. I’m usually moving from office to office and I’ll be sitting here and I’ll be like, you know, hey, Clarence, get over here, you know, and then I’ll bring three or four guys in and be, what do you think about this? What do you think about that? I Because the way I make decisions is I talk. Shocker, you guys know I like to talk, but like the way I make decisions is by talking. So, if I talk out loud normally and I listen to people, it makes it very crystal clear for me of what I want. Okay. Hey. All right. Great. I’ve got everybody’s input. Anything else? Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do. Absolutely. Yep. Good question. Thank you, guys.

Head coach Brian Schottenheimer speaks with the media before practice to discuss the offensive line, wrapping up the final days of practice in Oxnard, and how the young players are responding to the new staff.

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