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When the Dallas Cowboys announced in their Friday night news dump that their next head coach would be former offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer, they probably knew what was coming. The hire most Cowboys fans feared for days had become a reality and the national media and NFL fans coast to coast were having a heyday with it.
The hope that typically follows a new coaching hire was absent from this transaction. Schottenheimer had a rather spotty record as an offensive coordinator and despite being a lifelong coach, he’d never elevated to the position of head coach before. But it’s that level of unknown that inspires just the smallest nugget of optimism. The idea Schottenheimer has never had full control of the team before offers up a “superposition” of sorts.
Given all the unknown, Schottenheimer is both a success and failure at the moment. He’s a mystery much like Schrodinger’s Cat in the famous thought experiment of an observer’s paradox.
In a nutshell, Schrodinger’s Cat is a hypothetical situation in which a cat is locked in a box while being exposed to possibly deadly radiation. A person can assume the cat is dead given the circumstances, but until someone opens the box to confirm the status of the cat, the cat is both alive and dead.
Schottenheimer’s inexperience as a head coach and years of working in the background make him an unknown, much like that cat. There’s plenty of reason to think he’ll be underwhelming but until someone actually observes him coach in 2025, he’s also a potential success.
That’s the benefit of an unknown.
The main criticisms of Schottenheimer stem from his brand of offense. The run-run-pass approach isn’t an appropriate formula this day and age, not even with the sport’s current running game resurgence. The coaching tree in which Schottenheimer has grown from is uninspiring, to say the least, and there has been little indication he’s going to stray from what he’s shown in the past.
Even still, he worked in the background behind Mike McCarthy throughout his time with the Cowboys so it’s unclear what an off-leash Schottenheimer really looks like. There’s little reason to think this will be a great success but at the same time there’s no way to know for sure until the new season starts.
The heavily scrutinized Schottenheimer hire is the Cowboys’ version of Schrodinger’s Cat and it will be roughly seven months before anyone gets to peek inside the box to confirm which way this situation falls.