The Dallas Cowboys are set to change their offense by committing to a new three-point philosophy.
In March 2022, the NFL side promoted Brian Schottenheimer to the role of offensive coordinator, a year after he was hired as a consultant. While he won’t be tasked with calling plays - head coach Mike McCarthy will cover that - the 49-year-old will draw up the weekly plans for their offense.
Speaking to the Cowboys' official website, Schottenheimer has outlined exactly how he wants the five-time Super Bowl winners to play and three things he wants to see from their offense. "We wanna play physical, fast and to make everyone cover the entire field," said Schottenheimer. "I want us to be able to play fast."
To increase their in-play speed, the Cowboys traded for wide receiver Brandin Cooks, and selected quicksilver sixth-round running back Deuce Vaughn at the NFL Draft in April - the only addition to the team’s backfield. Last season the Cowboys were ranked as one of the quickest offenses in the league and in neutral situations, the only team to run quicker plays was the Philadelphia Eagles, who made it to the Super Bowl.
Kellen Moore - who Schottenheimer replaced as offensive coordinator, at one point had the Cowboys as the top-rated offense in the league with Dak Prescott as quarterback. But Schottenheimer made clear that while he has no desire to change the old playbook completely, he is keen to make some small alterations.
"It's been a grind [but] it's been fun," Schottenheimer said. "As you guys know, the system's not broken. It's not broken. They've won a lot of games here. Mike's been around for that. They've scored a ton of points and I have a ton of respect for Kellen [Moore] and [Doug Nussmeier], and Skip [Peete] and [Joe] Philbin — I've coached with most of those guys before. In terms of the process, we're getting organized for OTAs. We've had a lot of discussions."
The Cowboys have a vastly experienced man in charge of their offense, having featured in the same role at the Los Angeles Rams and most recently, the Seattle Seahawks. The Cowboys' pace of play and how McCarthy decides to balance the run and pass will be things to analyze during their training camp and in the early stages of the season.
"When you start with OTA Install 1, and you go through the process, there might be things in OTA Install 1 that may be different from Training Camp Install 1," Schottenheimer added. "The way it's set up is pretty cool. The [players] hear it in Phase 2, for the first time, and we're 12 concept teach days in.
“A concept teach day is where we take a family of plays and install those, all of the different adjustments and things, with not as many formations. And then when we get into OTAs, we'll actually put together real installs with specific formations with builds, and then we'll tweak those as we prepare for training camp."
The Cowboys will be keen to build on their results from last season where they won 13 games but were defeated by the San Francisco 49ers in January's divisional round.
