INDIANAPOLIS – It's been 31 days since the Cowboys officially announced Brian Schottenheimer as the 10th head coach in franchise history, and now that his staff is assembled, they're working diligently to find players that fit Schottenheimer's vision.
In his second press conference as the head man in Dallas, Schottenheimer pulled back the curtain on what he and the Cowboys are looking for at certain positions, most notably the offensive line and running back spots.
"You want a guy that's got vision, you want a guy that has contact balance," Schottenheimer said when asked what he looks for in running backs. "The fronts that we're seeing, the fronts that we're facing require guys to be able to make hidden yards."
"Whether there's a free safety in the hole or there's a linebacker, a defensive lineman coming off at the point of attack, you got to have a guy that's willing to run through arm tackles."
It's not just what running backs can do between the tackles that Schottenheimer looks for, he wants to see their ability to contribute in the receiving game as well.
"I do believe that you have to have the ability to catch the ball coming out of the backfield," Schottenheimer said. "Why do I say that? If a team wants to commit to stopping the run, there's ways that they can try to do that…"
"That doesn't mean they have to play like a receiver, but they have to be able to run routes coming out of the backfield and have the ability to separate and run after the catch is important."
A large component of being able to establish the run, as well as giving a quarterback time to throw to a running back or receiver, is the offensive line. With the additions of Klayton Adams and Conor Riley to his coach staff, Schottenheimer was more excited about the growth he's expecting from second year players up front like Tyler Guyton and Cooper Beebe.
"You watch Cooper Beebe, Tyler Guyton, those guys, Tyler Guyton has been in the weight room every day. He's working his ass off," Schottenheimer said. "To me that's really exciting, I think the influence of Klayton [Adams], the influence of Conor Riley, I think that package was so important for us, and I think we hit a home run."
Speaking of Beebe, one question that was posed when the Cowboys hired Riley, who was the offensive coordinator at Kansas State during Beebe's college days, would be whether Beebe would move from center out to the guard spot, where he spent a majority of his college career.
"Yeah, I mean we'll see it," Schottenheimer said when asked if Beebe could move out to guard. "We are always going to play the best five. It'd be hard to move a guy that had that much experience playing center this year at a high level, but anything's on the table depending on playing the best five."
All of that goes to show what Schottenheimer and his staff have emphasized from the beginning: this is a team that wants to be strong in the trenches, run the football, and conversely stop it defensively.
"The way I say it is when teams know that you're going to run the ball, you have to be able to run the ball and conversely stop the run," Schottenheimer said. "But again, depending on how the roster is built and how it's constructed, we want to be able to feature our guys and what they do well, and we want to be multiple."
A big piece of the puzzle for constructing Schottenheimer's inaugural roster as head coach is whether defensive tackle Osa Odighizuwa, an unrestricted free agent, returns to the Cowboys. It appears that a deal could be coming on that front, and Odighizuwa is a player that Schottenheimer wants on his side in 2025.
"Obviously Osa has done a terrific job for us," Schottenheimer said. "He's a terrific young player, he does everything right and as those communications keep going, it's never done until it's done, but he'd be a guy we'd love to have back."
Odighizuwa isn't the only in-house free agent that the Cowboys have the option of retaining, as Jourdan Lewis, DeMarcus Lawrence and others also are UFAs. As Schottenheimer continues towards building the team in his image, keeping the guys that Dallas has already developed in town is a point of emphasis.
"We're always going to start with our guys, We know them, right? We've got history with them. We've developed those guys. We understand their strengths, their weaknesses, what they bring to the table from a culture standpoint," Schottenheimer said.
"It all depends on how things go. It's a very competitive business. It's a very competitive time of year. There's incredible dialogue going on all day every day here in Indianapolis. I've learned that. And so I think that's the exciting part about this time of year is you really are competing with these other teams that want to come in and acquire your players, and we're going to make it very tough to let those guys leave."
