INDIANAPOLIS – As Brian Schottenheimer leads his first combine as an NFL head coach, his offensive coordinator Klayton Adams and defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus are using their respective experiences from past combines to get the Cowboys' brand-new staff all on the same page, and help Dallas positions themselves as best as they can for the future.
For Adams, who is in his first full-fledged NFL coordinator role, his time as a position coach around the league has prepared him for the increased responsibility that's placed on his now as a coordinator.
"Going from being an assistant o-line coach to being a tight end coach to then being the o-line coach has kind of been really a step up in responsibility in regards to the evaluation process each time that I've done that…" Adams said.
"Really, as the coordinator, you really kind of have to have more of an overview of 'Where are we looking to take this type of player? Okay., I better get a little bit more in the weeds there,' and then really just have kind of an overview and a feel for what each guy can give you."
For Eberflus, who spent the last three seasons as the Chicago Bears head coach in his first ever head coaching role, he knows the importance of a staff being on the same page, and everything has to be a group effort.
"It's really just working together," Eberflus said. "It's important that the scouting staff and the coaching staff are on the same page, so the coaching staff has to do a really good job of painting that vision for what we want the players to look like in terms of their position, and their disposition."
"The traits are always there and all that, but Mitch LaPoint does a great job in terms of the director of college scouting, and Will McClay does a good job as well of heading that group and the area scouts, they get all the credit because they're the guys out there looking for what we want to have on the football field. So it's really just a group effort."
So far, Eberflus thinks that Schottenheimer's doing a good job leading the staff in the right direction to make sure that they're all on the same page.
"It's been great," Eberflus said of Schottenheimer's approach to the combine. "We're all on the same page in terms of the formats for the formal interviews, the other coaches are working down there for the informals, and this is really the first contact for the coaches to be able to get there with the players… he's doing a great job just coordinating everything."
In order to get to that point, Adams added that when hiring a staff, you have to be specific as to what you're looking for from each coach that you hire. If everything is going to work, all the pieces have to fit together.
"I think the number one thing that you've got to do in order to get that right is that you got to be pretty deliberate and pretty specific about what you're looking for in regards to hiring the staff," Adams said. "That starts once the head coach hires the coordinators down all the way to the quality control guys.
"And then we've been able to spend a lot of time in the same room the last several weeks just kind of discussing these things and prioritizing what we want and prioritizing what we're looking for, and also talking about what are the pieces of the puzzle and the evaluation process in regards to getting that."
The evaluation process is obviously one of the largest points of emphasis at events like the combine, but for the Cowboys and any team, fit is a large part of it. In the 2025 class, Eberflus feels like they'll be able to find a lot of players that can fit and excel in Dallas.
"Paint the vision for what the player can do for us, and certainly players can only do so many things, but what can they do for us?" Eberflus said. "That's an important part of it as we evaluate these guys. It's a really good draft in a lot of areas for us, and we're excited about this one."
As the vision and pieces of the puzzle come together for the Cowboys, Adams is looking forward to continuing to work alongside the rest of the Cowboys staff and Schottenheimer, who he believes has the traits needed to be an excellent leader for this team going forward.
"I think what you see there that I'm really excited about is the same quality and trait that all really good leaders and good head coaches have is that he's the same guy every day," Adams said. "He shows up with the same attitude of 'We're going to work hard, we're going to have energy.' It's not fake. He's enthusiastic, but it's very authentic."
