NFL Takeaways: Why Brian Schottenheimer Could Succeed As Cowboys Coach

It’s summer in the NFL (for most teams)! But that won’t slow down the Takeaways, at least for this week. We’re going to focus on a few of my big-picture feelings coming out of the OTAs and minicamps …

Dallas Cowboys

I think Brian Schottenheimer has a good shot to make it as Dallas Cowboys coach and, to me, the Micah Parsons situation is a great illustration of why. There’s a very real Father’s Day tie-in to it that’s apparent on the walls of Schotty’s new office.

There are two pictures of his dad prominently displayed. One is of the legendary Marty coaching the Kansas City Chiefs’ quarterbacks in 1994—they were Joe Montana and Steve Bono at the time—even though Schottenheimer was a defensive coach. In the other, Schottenheimer was having an in-depth conversation with future Hall of Famer Derrick Thomas.

“They were very, very close,” Brian told me on Sunday.

The elder Schottenheimer has been gone for more than four years, but his impact on his son lives on every day in Dallas. It has, of course, for a while—the younger Schottenheimer got to the Cowboys in 2021. But it’s magnified in ’25, for sure, since the son now has the ability to touch and impact every person with a working key card in Frisco.

And that’s where Parsons comes in.

While Schottenheimer had plenty of challenges to conquer upon getting the job in January, there’s little question that the lingering contract situation surrounding Parsons was way up the list. The sides didn’t make much headway toward a deal in 2024 when he was first eligible to land an outsized second contract. Then, as ’25 talks started in March, owner Jerry Jones saying he’d never heard of agent David Mulugheta, which certainly didn’t help matters.

Things easily could’ve gotten icier. Sometimes, coaches will distance themselves from players in these spots. Sometimes, players will respond by staging some sort of wildcat strike internally.

Instead, Schottenheimer took the basis of his program (we’ll have more on that later in the week), and put it to work on a smaller scale with Parsons himself. He’s already deployed exercises to get the players to know each other and their coaches on a more intimate level. He went the extra mile with the star linebacker.

That, by the way, wasn’t about getting Parsons to show up for OTAs or minicamp. It was about getting to know Parsons like he was everyone else on the roster, or even more so. So early in the offseason, Schottenheimer went to a charity event the fifth-year pro was staging. The two carved out one-on-one time together. He already knew Parsons, having been around. He made every effort to get to know him better.

He took a lot of ideas on how to accomplish that from working alongside now-Commanders coach Dan Quinn for the past three years in Dallas. But on a deeper level, the root of it was what he learned from his dad.

“To me, it was all about connections,” Schottenheimer says. “Being someone that was a coach that had been in the building, not just as a coordinator but as a consultant, I wanted to get back to the feeling where everyone wanted to get to know each other on a deeper level. Everyone was going in the same direction, and the best way to go in the same direction is to know everybody’s why and know everybody’s heartbeat for why they do what they do, why they make the sacrifice that they do.”

As a result of that approach, Parsons’s rapport with Schottenheimer only grew, and so the two were in touch when the All-Pro was missing OTAs. Then, last week, to the surprise of many, Parsons showed up for minicamp.

“This relationship I’ve developed with Micah is very evident in the fact that anything I’ve asked him to do, he’s done,” Schottenheimer says. “He’s been great.”

Now, that doesn’t mean he’ll be there for every day of training camp. Business is, of course, business.

It does mean that something that could’ve been a sideshow during Schottenheimer’s first offseason as a head coach hasn’t been. The coach and Parsons trust each other, they’ve had good talks, and, as such, everyone can compartmentalize the contract talks months after Jones seemed to make it personal.

Ultimately, that gives the Cowboys the best shot to get the deal done. This relationship, as one of many Schottenheimer has cultivated or furthered over his first five months in charge, is also a good example of where Schottenheimer is taking the team.

As those pictures show, it’s to a place where his dad once had the Chiefs.

If Schottenheimer can get his Cowboys there, they’ll have a real shot to navigate the landmines that come with being America’s Team. It should also give them a better chance to go after the franchise’s first Super Bowl title in 30 years. Or, at least, that’s what the new man in charge is shooting for.

Having Parsons on his side won’t hurt in that cause.

Cleveland Browns

The Browns left some clues about their quarterback competition. The biggest one has come out in the distribution of reps—or lack thereof—to 40-year-old veteran Joe Flacco.

To me, even more so, it’s about how Flacco has digested his limited dose of them.

“I’m not expecting to get priority and a million reps out there,” Flacco told me in late May. “It is my 18th year, and I think at this time of the year, it’s not necessarily a priority to get me the most reps.”

So the Browns expect he’ll know what to do?

“Listen, you gotta ask them that,” he answered. “Like I said, I don’t think there’s a huge priority to make sure that they’re getting me a ton of reps.”

In poking around, my rough translation is that Flacco is on the same page as Kevin Stefanski. He’s not coming back at his age to hold a clipboard. There are some changes to the offense, with new coordinator Tommy Rees (who wasn’t on Stefanski’s staff when Flacco was there two years ago), but the bones of it remain the same. Thus, the staff had a lot more to learn about Kenny Pickett, Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders this spring.

Doing it this way requires some trust on Flacco’s part, but he and Stefanski have had a good rapport, and that’s why I’d regard this almost as a first-round bye in the Browns quarterback derby. It’d be hard to enter the summer with all four guys on level ground and let them compete while also getting the other 10 guys in the offensive huddle ready to play an NFL season. So, spring evaluation brought a shot to thin the herd.

I don’t know if Stefanski will come out and say it before camp. But my guess is that the team will have to show its hand in how reps are divided in late July and August, when you’ll probably see a more defined pecking order. In a way, I think it’ll be a little like the Steelers’ derby last year—where you have a veteran (in this case, Flacco) in pole position and opportunity for others to overtake through the summer and even into the fall.

Minnesota Vikings

The Vikings’ decision-making at quarterback is a move forward with the initial plan—and that’s not just about J.J. McCarthy. When coach Kevin O’Connell and GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah arrived in the Twin Cities in 2022, they found a roster with a nice base of talent but with some age and plenty of cap debt that was a product of accumulating that talent.

They wanted to gradually retool and reset the team, and part of that was drafting a QB in 2024.

Whether that was Caleb Williams (who wanted to play for Minnesota back then), Drake Maye (whom the Vikings tried to trade up for) or McCarthy, the idea was to get a young quarterback on a rookie contract that would allow for the Vikings to build more aggressively. Losing Kirk Cousins last year—partly because of being upfront with him on the plan to draft a quarterback—only accelerated the plan.

I’m not sure people notice it playing out. Last year, they landed Jonathan Greenard and Andrew Van Ginkel to replace Danielle Hunter with their growing financial flexibility, and added Aaron Jones to the offense. This year, with a charge to get tougher in the middle, they augmented the offensive line with Colts veterans Ryan Kelly and Will Fries and the D-line with former stalwart Commander Jonathan Allen while extending Byron Murphy.

That’s with a young core made up of Justin Jefferson, Christian Darrisaw, Jordan Addison, T.J. Hockenson, Dallas Turner and, they hope, McCarthy. If Sam Darnold or Daniel Jones had come back (the Vikings tried on both), those would’ve been, essentially, one-year deals to give the team some insurance with a 14-win group returning. The reason they didn’t go after Rodgers was that getting him, conversely, would’ve been hitting the pause button on making McCarthy their quarterback for a year.

Which underscores the most important part of this—they won’t be asking the world of McCarthy. He can just go play quarterback, which is the way you usually see young guys at his position win.

Tennessee Titans

Barring something unforeseen, Cam Ward will be a Week 1 starting quarterback—and I’d set the over/under for the total number of rookies doing so at his position league-wide at 1.5. Yes, the Titans are holding a competition at the position. But the reality is it’s a competition in name only.

The reps between Ward and Will Levis are two-to-one. Ward’s progress has been steady. If things keep going the way they have been, the No. 1 pick will start Sept. 7 in Denver.

This is a reversal for Tennessee coach Brian Callahan after he handed the job to Levis last year without a competition. Doing it that way in Cincinnati with Joe Burrow in 2020 worked out perfectly. After how that went with Levis, I certainly understand why Callahan would want to give Ward the chance to earn the job and for Ward’s teammates to have the opportunity to see that before getting behind him as they did Levis last year.

We had more last week, too, on how Ward’s doing just that.

But after Ward? I’d say Saints rookie Tyler Shough has the best chance to start, with only Spencer Rattler in his way in New Orleans. Jaxson Dart, Gabriel or Sanders may eventually get real work with their teams but probably not from the very beginning of the season. A rookie QB starting anywhere else would signal disaster.

Which affirms what we already knew: This wasn’t a great draft year for quarterbacks. That said, it is interesting that having a low number of rookie QBs starting in Week 1 wouldn’t be unusual. If Ward is the only rookie QB to start Week 1, this will mark the seventh time in the last 10 years (with 2021 and the past two years being the outliers) that either one or zero rookies started opening weekend at the position.

Cincinnati Bengals 

The Bengals are legitimately doing business differently, but the Trey Hendrickson and Shemar Stewart situations cast a certain pall over their offseason. The Ja’Marr Chase contract broke previous Cincinnati financial precedents (though, interestingly, the Tee Higgins deal didn’t). And after losing scout Christian Sarkisian to Northwestern, where Sarkisian became GM, the Bengals also quietly added three new personnel guys—two scouts and an analytics/scout hybrid—to the league’s smallest scouting staff.

All of it, to me at least, points back to what Burrow said to me a bunch of times during his second year in the league. As he saw it, the old Bengals were dead. By the end of that season, he and his teammates had a Super Bowl appearance to show that.

However, perception has been slower to change, and carrying contract disputes into this offseason, after consecutive 9–8 seasons that left Cincinnati on the couch for the playoffs, didn’t help. To their credit, and with Burrow putting a little pressure on, the Bengals worked aggressively this offseason to move the needle for what most believe should now be a perennial Super Bowl contender with the aforementioned contracts and hires.

Chase got a deal some thought the Bengals wouldn’t ever give. The personnel group, which had executives Trey Brown and Steve Radicevic doing 35 school calls and all the free agent work last year, got resources that took a while to arrive.

With camp coming and so much done, those loose ends remain. Hendrickson’s got 35 sacks over the last two years and is in his third straight offseason looking for a contract after doing a COVID-19-affected, discounted free-agent deal in 2021 (they did a Band-Aid one-year extension in 2023). Stewart just carried out the rare spring rookie holdout.

Is Hendrickson taking advantage of the leverage created by Burrow’s words and the spot the Bengals are in? He’d be smart to do that. Is Stewart piggybacking on the Hendrickson situation to get favorable contract terms? It wouldn’t be the dumbest thing to do—though, as a rookie, it’ll be vital that he’s ready to go. Also important? That the Bengals, after their healthiest offseason in a few years, are ready to roll when they report to camp.

The stakes are high. The battle lines are drawn. We’ll see what happens.

Kansas City Chiefs

Many people think the Chiefs might take a step back—I think they could wind up being better than last year. I saw what you all saw. Kansas City didn’t just get beat by the Eagles in the Super Bowl. Andy Reid’s crew got run off the field. In case you forgot, the score was 40–6 with three minutes to go.

I understand if people think this was a last stand for this iteration of the Patrick Mahomes dynasty.

I don’t agree, and I think the spring brought indications of what the Chiefs were looking to become last year on offense. Injuries short-circuited this vision, and an offensive line collapsed under the weight of not having a real answer at left tackle.

Rashee Rice is back. Hollywood Brown and Isiah Pacheco are healthy. Jaylon Moore was signed and Josh Simmons was drafted at left tackle. That doesn’t mean everyone will stay healthy (or in Simmons’s case, be healthy to play a lot as a rookie). It does give hope to the idea of Brown and Xavier Worthy getting downfield and unlocking Mahomes’s deep ball again. Plus, Rice and Travis Kelce running free in the space vacated underneath by defenders chasing the burners.

Those guys, remember, never got the chance to play as one unit last year. But Rice looked like one of the best receivers in football before he got hurt, Brown showed why the Chiefs took a flier on him, Worthy grew and Pacheco’s physical edge was missed late in the year.

If those elements come together, and Moore or Simmons shore up the left tackle spot, it sure feels to me like Mahomes could have another MVP season. If that happens, with a Steve Spagnuolo defense that should be really good again, the Chiefs will be in the running to become the second team to make it to four consecutive Super Bowls.

Denver Broncos

With that in mind, I think the Broncos might be emerging as the Chiefs’ top threat in the AFC West. That’s with all due respect to Jim Harbaugh’s growing Chargers and to Pete Carroll’s ability to turn the Raiders around.

Bo Nix had an offseason that only steeled belief in Denver that he will take another leap in his second year with a young ascending group of wideouts and ancillary pieces Evan Engram and R.J. Harvey Jr. added around him. The defense, in my mind at least, might be the NFL’s best, with a young core of edge rushers (Nik Bonitto, Jonathon Cooper) and corners (Patrick Surtain II, Riley Moss and rookie Jahdae Barron) in place and middle-of-the-field-thumpers Talanoa Hufanga and Dre Greenlaw coming aboard from the San Francisco 49ers.

So there’s a lot to like, and there’s Sean Payton calling the offense and Vance Joseph calling the defense for a third year.

Beyond just that, I’ve seen the way Payton’s Broncos work and the culture built in Denver. I saw the gassers they ran and the two-and-a-half-hour practice they scheduled, and it’s hard for me to see a group that’s bought in the way this one is to backslide after a breakthrough 10-win season last year.

I’d buy on Denver.

Pittsburgh Steelers

Aaron Rodgers is off to a good start in Pittsburgh. Last week, in addressing his teammates, he did let them know that he’s now all in with the Steelers for 2025. A big part of the timing in all this was Rodgers’s desire to compartmentalize his life and take care of his much speculated-on personal matters before diving in on a 21st NFL season after last year's experience with the Jets.

So where are they after a week?

Rodgers has smoothly assimilated into the Steeler culture. Different than with the Jets, he isn’t being asked to take a group of young players to another level. He’s jumping on a moving train, with the team’s veteran leadership very much already in place.

He and Arthur Smith got off to a good start, too, getting him up to speed on the offense’s nomenclature. Because the two share some background—Rodgers had ex-Smith staffmates Matt LaFleur and Todd Downing as play-callers—most of the concepts Rodgers was seeing last week were familiar. But the language has changed enough to where that’s probably where the steepest learning curve lies for him.

Even that is relatively light lifting for the quarterback, given the amount of coaching changes and shifts Rodgers has been through over the course of his career.

Now, obviously, it’s easy to say things are great in June. We’ll see if Rodgers can stay healthy at 41. We’ll see what happens when the rough patches of an NFL season hit. To this early point, it does feel like the match has been what they were hoping for.

Philadelphia Eagles

The Eagles have, for the most part, had a drama-free offseason. That’s not always easy for a reigning Super Bowl champion, especially one that plays in that city. They lost Milton Williams, Darius Slay, Josh Sweat, Mekhi Becton, Isaiah Rodgers and Kenneth Gainwell in free agency. They traded Kenny Pickett and Chauncey Gardner-Johnson. They re-upped Cam Jurgens and Lane Johnson, gave Saquon Barkley a raise, and had Jihaad Campbell fall into their laps in the draft. They replaced Kellen Moore with close Nick Sirianni confidant Kevin Patullo.

None of that was far off script. And that’s great news for a team that always attracts headlines.

It’s been such a quiet offseason for the Eagles that Gardner-Johnson saying last week that he feels “highly disrespected” by the team after being traded to the Texans qualifies as one of the bigger story lines to emerge involving the champs over the past few months.

I feel like that’s a credit to the team, as it’s constructed. First and foremost, it’s a good sign of where Sirianni’s program is heading into his fifth year in charge, with two Super Bowls, a Lombardi Trophy and a bunch of staff turnover under his belt. Second, it’s an illustration of the team’s leadership carrying through locker room losses such as Jason Kelce, Fletcher Cox and, this year, Brandon Graham.

The Eagles are in good shape heading into camp.

Quick-hitters

Let’s get into the summer break with some quick-hitting quick-hitters …

• It’s interesting to hear Bradley Chubb say “we were lying” about last year’s culture change in Miami. Especially with leaders such as Terron Armstead and Calais Campbell now gone and team captain Jalen Ramsey on the block.

• All the best to the legendary Barry Sanders, who revealed last week that he had a heart attack last year. It’s heartening to see him using his misfortune to educate others and get folks to get themselves checked. Keep going, Barry.

• And also to Alaric Jackson, with the Rams’ left tackle facing another battle with blood clots. That’s scary stuff, and it’s good to see the team giving him all the support he needs.

• Daniel Jones has had a really nice spring, by all accounts, in picking up Shane Steichen’s offense in Indy. Even if Anthony Richardson is cleared for the start of training camp, he may be chasing Jones for the Colts’ starting job.

• I hope the Chiefs stay in Missouri, if only because I want football to be played outside in cities like Kansas City (but know we’ll keep seeing less and less of that).

• I wouldn’t be surprised if Sauce Gardner has a new megadeal before the next time the Jets practice—it’s one I know they’ve been planning for through the offseason.

•  I don’t even know where to go with the latest twist in the Antonio Brown saga.

• Tyreek Hill running a 10.15 100-meter dash without much preparation is remarkable. I still can’t shake the feeling that if I were a contender, I’d be tempted to call the Dolphins, who are going through a not-so-subtle retooling process and could use the extra picks to help rebuild the roster.

• The Bears are the latest team to explore selling off pieces of their franchise, and I wouldn’t underestimate the estate-tax implications as a factor (not for Chicago, specifically, but in any of these cases).

• Finally, we can now say, once and for all, the Falcons weren’t kidding about their willingness to hang on to Kirk Cousins.