After making a flurry of changes in the offseason, the Dallas Cowboys will be a team looking to get back on track this season. Ahead of the 2025 campaign, one key member of the organization is attempting to use history as a source of motivation.
The biggest change the Cowboys made after last year was to their coaching staff. Following a five-year run as head coach, Mike McCarthy was dismissed from his position as head coach. The front office decided to fill this void internally by promoting Brian Schottenheimer. He's been with Dallas since 2022, and now will get his first opportunity at being a head coach in the NFL.
With training camp just around the corner, the ramp-up to the 2025 season is already underway. As he prepares for his first season as head coach, Schottenheimer is leaning on history to help light a fire under a team. He brought in multiple former Cowboys champions as part of a "Legends Day." The goal of this event was to help motivate this year's group by having an up-close view of the franchise's past success.
"I think the more those guys are around, the more we see their Super Bowl rings, which they wear very proudly, I think that's great for our guys because that's why we do it. We don't hide from that," Schottenheimer said. "There's such great tradition and history here with the Cowboys, and you talk about not just the Super Bowl trophies, but some of the great players. We wanted them to kind of see our energy and our juice, the way we like to operate. They paved the way for the guys that sit in those chairs today."
Though there are a handful of new moving parts, the Cowboys have a chance to get back in the mix in 2025. For starters, quarterback Dak Prescott will be returning after an injury-ridden 2024 campaign. Seeing that he put up MVP-level numbers when Schottenheimer first took over as offensive coordinator, he should continue to thrive with him as head coach now. Especially considering that the offense has a new weapon in the form of wide receiver George Pickens.
Seeing that they haven't made it past the divisional round since 1995, the Cowboys are eager to pull off a deep postseason run. Only time will tell if Schottenheimer's new tactics will help end the franchise's postseason drought.
