There were 14 penalties flagged on Sunday against the Dallas Cowboys, costing more than 150 yards, in the narrow 27-23 win over the Colts in Indianapolis, and while teams can have bad days and refs can get trigger-happy on letting the flags fly from time to time, the volume of mistakes the team made–a veteran team playing in Week 9 against a team in the midst of selling off big pieces of its roster–was no anomaly. It was emblematic of the struggles of this group all season, which has had as hard a time handling success as it has had with failure. At 4-5, it’s had a good amount of both, but the fact that the Cowboys are so lax and so undisciplined, ultimately, falls on the head coach. And despite being just one-and-a-half seasons into his NFL career as a head coach, it might well be time for the Cowboys to pull the plug and fire Brian Schottenheimer.
He is now 11-13-1 in two years as the Cowboys head coach. With time left to rescue the 2026 season, maybe a drastic change is in order.
Cowboys ‘Teetering on Success’
That’s the thought from the “Monday Morning Quarterback” column at Sports Illustrated this week, in which the Cowboys’ penalties are called out and Schottenheimer is held accountable for them–something owner Jerry Jones almost certainly won’t do.
From writer Connor Orr: “The Cowboys were absolutely a team teetering on success by a handful of extraordinary individual plays that were nearly counterweighted by the fact that second-year coach Brian Schottenheimer’s feel for play-calling seems to have vanished and that nearly every positive play was negated by a boneheaded penalty.”
And that’s probably the best case for firing Schottenheimer–his one area of expertise, the one thing he is expected to excel at is play-calling. He called himself an “elite” play-caller, in fact. But the Cowboys have seen none of that elite play calling through nine weeks of this season and so the question looms: What does Schottenheimer do well if not call plays?
Is Brian Schottenheimer Irreplaceable?
But Orr points out the problem with the Cowboys firing Schottenheimer: There is no one on the staff ready to take over for him. Klayton Adams and Christian Parker are the coordinators, and neither has head-coaching experience. Adams has never called plays. Parker is fighting for his NFL reputation by trying to shore up this defense. Both Adams and Parker were considered future head coaches before the season, but if this team goes completely off the rails, that might change.
Writes Orr: “The only argument for keeping Schottenheimer at this point is that getting rid of him would probably be too destructive and the staff doesn’t seem to have a ready-made interim replacement. … If Schottenheimer wasn’t the play-caller on offense, would it even be a question at this point? Having a coach that is valuable enough not to be fired amid a disappointing season is only a humble brag if you have someone able to take the gig.”
The Cowboys do have new special assistant Mike Pettine on hand. But he was retired until recently, and is probably not the guy the Cowboys want on the sidelines now.
Cowboys Urged to Fire Brian Schottenheimer Amid ‘Boneheaded’ Mistakes