The Dallas Cowboys' decision to hire Brian Schottenheimer as their new head coach remains puzzling, and team ownership hasn't done much to inspire the fanbase with the hire.
Schottenheimer's introductory press conference on Monday was dominated with weird quotes and rants from Jerry and Stephen Jones, despite several opportunities to expand upon why they believe Schottenheimer to be the man for the job. The days since haven't provided much clarity, either, and on Wednesday Stephen Jones yet again muddied the waters by awkwardly trying to compare the rookie head coach to Andy Reid.
Jones, the executive vice president of player personnel and co-owner of the franchise, was asked by Yahoo!'s Jori Epstein why he had confidence in Schottenheimer despite the fact that he last called plays in 2020 and hasn't shown much in the way of scheming up a modern offense. Here's how he responded.
"All coaches, if you wanna stay above, I mean, Andy Reid's— wow, what a career, but you know he's a guy who did it differently in Philadelphia and he's evolved," Jones said.
It is unclear why Jones brought up Reid and his subsequent sound bites didn't shed much light on that.
"One of the things that we really saw that made us feel good is Schotty brought a combination of continuity in terms of our young line and not having to start from scratch and the things we're doing with Dak and also change," Jones continued. "The continuity and the change, we want a combination. The more we sat there and talked about it, yeah, we want to freshen it up, we want a change, but we also don't wanna throw out all the good that went down. We're not excuse makers, but we had some challenges from the injury standpoint and I don't ever wanna underestimate what Mike did here."
There's some logic in there as to why the Cowboys hired Schottenheimer but nothing to support his Reid comparison. Perhaps Jones was referencing the fact that Reid stopped calling plays for the Eagles near the end of his tenure, but has done so throughout his time with the Kansas City Chiefs. And in that instance, it's safe to say Jones was reaching.
Schottenheimer may end up a quality head coach but Jones is doing him no favors by trying to cram in a comparison with one of the best coaches in NFL history.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Stephen Jones Awkwardly Tries to Compare New Cowboys Coach to Andy Reid.
