INDIANAPOLIS – As the Cowboys enter the beginning of the Brian Schottenheimer era, it'll be the sixth different head coach that vice president of player personnel Will McClay has worked alongside since joining the Cowboys as a pro scout in 2002.
In the early goings of their time together, McClay has noticed that Schottenheimer's staff has a different buzz to them compared to prior groups.
"We've been very fortunate to have a bunch of good coaching staffs, I just think this one brings in a different energy," McClay said. "They bring their own little splash."
That unique energy has gotten everyone in the room excited to get to work on building the roster for 2025. In their early meetings together as a staff, McClay feels like everyone is working well together and heading in the right direction.
"At the end of the day, we're looking for good football players and continuing to build the depth on that," McClay said. "They're telling us the fine parts of what we're looking for, and it's been fun because we're all sitting around talking about it and understanding what each other does and I think it's going to make us better."
Another aspect of the staff that excited McClay is how they're approaching player development, and McClay and his personnel and scouting team have a good track record of finding players that can be developed. McClay feels that this staff's plan to do just that in the offseason is one that will make everyone better.
"We identify them and then develop and coach and teach," McClay said. "That's the thing that I'm also very excited about when listening to what they're going to do in the offseason, leading up to the season, you can see when you get a player, we're going to develop that player and we're going to do things to make that player better."
McClay and Schottenheimer have spent the last three seasons together on the Cowboys staff, but now he's getting to see a different side of Schottenheimer in his first head coaching position. In terms of how Schottenheimer approached building his staff, McClay thinks that Schottenheimer got all the pieces that he needed.
"Most coaches when they assemble a staff, they got a bunch of their friends and people that they know," McClay said. "He went out to find the best for what he was looking for, ideas, and new guys to bring new things and make it his way."
So what does the Brian Schottenheimer way look like?
"He's very humble, but very hungry…" McClay said. "He's going to be confrontational with the communication but respectful with that, and test your conviction, and he's very, very clear with what he wants and what he wants to do, and getting everybody on the same page."
In the construction of his staff, the Cowboys have a mixture of guys with a lot of NFL experience like Matt Eberflus, as well as an influx of former collegiate coaches like Junior Adams and Conor Riley. The mixture of the two gives Dallas an advantage in both the draft and free agency given where, and who these coaches have been able to see in their previous experiences.
"We had coaches from six different teams to give us input on players that have been on their teams that are free agents, so that's a leg up for us," McClay said. "The college coaches coming in and understanding the college game, how it relates to the NFL game, some of the things that they bring there, their knowledge of players that have been recruited and the recruiting game, so that brings more depth to what we do."
Since his introductory press conference, a big point of emphasis for Schottenheimer has been building a strong culture. That's an important part of the player evaluation process too, and will ultimately be a determining factor in who gets to wear a star on their helmet going forward.
"We can see them on tape, we'll see them run around a little bit, but our whole objective is to find out who the player is we're looking for," McClay said. "Everybody's looking for the same thing, we're just digging a little bit further to see if they have that intangible stuff that we're looking for."
"We can all value the football stuff, but it's the intangible stuff, it's who they are, it's inside and that's most valuable to us and the organization as you build, it's not just about how fast they are, how well they play football, but it's the people that you're bringing in the building."
