Brian Schottenheimer? Kellen Moore? As Cowboys coaching search continues, here are the biggest questions

Ten days have elapsed since the Dallas Cowboys announced they were moving on from head coach Mike McCarthy.

The franchise has yet to name a successor.

Dallas has interviewed four candidates, engaging in informal conversations with at least two more. One candidate, 2023-24 Cowboys offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer, appears to be furthest along the road to a job offer. But where do all the moving parts stand? Let’s break it down, with some of the biggest questions you might be asking.

Who are the Cowboys talking to?

The Cowboys have formally interviewed Philadelphia Eagles offensive coordinator Kellen Moore, former New York Jets head coach Robert Saleh, former Minnesota Vikings head coach Leslie Frazier and Schottenheimer. Team owner and general manager Jerry Jones has also engaged in informal conversations with multiple NFL-adjacent names.

Jones called University of Colorado head coach Deion Sanders the same day he parted ways with Mike McCarthy, though that seems more like a brilliant public relations stunt to shift the conversation from his belated firing than it does a formal courtship. Jones never formally interviewed Sanders, whom he has been close with since Sanders’ time playing for the Dallas Cowboys. Thursday, Jones also engaged in a conversation with former Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll. The team did not announce it formally interviewed Carroll, as it had the four candidates above. But at the very least, Carroll’s conversation opened the door for more questions about the Cowboys’ proximity to the end of this road.

Are they taking forever, or does it just seem like it?

Yes, and yes? Sorry for the cop-out, but both are true. The NFL season ended 2 1/2 weeks ago and the Cowboys remain coachless. This has proven costly in their pursuit of a head coach as well as in retaining some top assistants.

On the head-coaching level, three teams beat the Cowboys to the punch: The New England Patriots hired Mike Vrabel before Dallas even parted ways with McCarthy; the Chicago Bears hired Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson on Tuesday; and the New York Jets hired Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn on Wednesday. Johnson and Glenn each interviewed virtually with their future employers during their wild-card bye week, when the Cowboys were still in conversation with McCarthy. So the Cowboys “fell behind” if they wanted to recruit any of those three top candidates.

They’ve lost multiple members of their coaching staff to other jobs, including special teams coordinator John Fassel to the Tennessee Titans.

But on a more macro level, Dallas joins the New Orleans Saints, Jacksonville Jaguars and Las Vegas Raiders as teams still interviewing candidates. Dallas was the latest one to this game and won’t necessarily be the last to exit. The Saints fired former head coach Dennis Allen on Nov. 4 and have yet to fill their role, though McCarthy could be a top candidate.

The league office has urged teams to slow down the hiring processes, both to decrease the number of quick firings and associated costly buyouts, as well as to increase playoff coaches’ ability to focus on their postseason game-planning. Drawn-out searches could increasingly become the norm.

OK, so you say Schottenheimer is the favorite. Why?

Schottenheimer did not formally interview with Jerry and Stephen Jones until after Frazier, Saleh and Moore’s rounds. The Jones family’s interest in exploring further hints at a desire to find something other than what they’d already heard. Schottenheimer is the only candidate whose conversation continued to a second day, though a source said whether that formally constituted a second interview or extended the first is semantics for a candidate already in town.

Moore is not available for further (or in-person) conversation right now as his Eagles prepare to host the Washington Commanders in the NFC championship.

What does Schottenheimer offer? The son of longtime head coach Marty Schottenheimer, Brian spent 14 years as offensive coordinator for the New York Jets, then-St. Louis Rams, Seahawks and Cowboys. He has coached in the NFL for 25 of the last 28 seasons. He joined the Cowboys in 2022 as a defensive consultant helping then-coordinator Dan Quinn anticipate opposing defenses’ trends. He was promoted to offensive coordinator before the 2023 season, though McCarthy called plays in the two years that followed.

With McCarthy, Schottenheimer helped install a version of the West Coast offense that the Cowboys deemed the “Texas Coast” offense. Precision replaced creativity, with receiver route depths now tied to quarterback footwork with less room for improvisation. Protection schemes shifted, too.

Results varied. The Cowboys led the lead in scoring in 2023, ranking fifth in total offense. Prescott finished second in MVP voting to Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson. But the following year with the same staff and similar personnel, Dallas’ offense fell to 17th, scoring to 21st.

Prescott suffered a season-ending hamstring injury in November but the problems — with protection, establishing a run game and generating consistent passing — predated his injury. A year after throwing a league-best 36 touchdowns to just nine interceptions, he passed for 11 to eight interceptions in eight games.

Schottenheimer did coordinate top-10 offenses each of his last three seasons as a play-caller in Seattle from 2018-20. His pulse of the Cowboys’ interpersonal dynamics, understanding of Prescott’s strengths and, quite frankly, availability seem to be catching the Jones family’s attention.

If the Cowboys don’t roll with Schottenheimer, who seems to be the next likeliest option?

Carroll appears to be making a push for it. But Moore seems to check more boxes even if he wouldn’t return with the Super Bowl (yet?) and NCAA championship lore that Carroll would.

His Cowboys’ familiarity runs deep: Moore was Prescott’s backup quarterback, quarterbacks coach and then offensive coordinator from 2016-22. Moore has called plays in the NFL each of the last six years, leading the Cowboys to top-six offenses three of his four years and top-11 in scoring during those campaigns. The Cowboys ranked first overall in both marks in 2021 under Moore.

In Philadelphia this season, Moore coordinated the seventh-best offense and eighth-best scoring attack. Quarterback Jalen Hurts’ passing game has been inconsistent, but Moore has responded by tipping his play calls toward a run game anchored by Saquon Barkley and one of the league’s best offensive lines.

Moore is less extroverted than Schottenheimer but more widely regarded as a play-caller who is adapting to league trends with his creative uses of tempo and personnel-specific game plans to stress opposing play-callers. An AFC GM and an AFC executive from two teams who interviewed Moore in recent cycles each told Yahoo Sports they would not be concerned about his ability to command a room. The executive cited Moore’s emotional intelligence as strong enough to motivate the team; the general manager said leadership comes in multiple forms, and multiple cerebral offensive coaches in the league have succeeded. Often, those coaches hire a fiery defensive coordinator to balance out the energy.

Are there any dark-horse candidates still in the mix?

Seventeen-year Cowboys tight end Jason Witten hasn’t yet coached beyond the high school level. But he piqued Jones’ interest enough to warrant buzz around Witten’s candidacy as a head coach, much less a member of the next coaching staff. Jones has strong-armed candidates onto Cowboys staffs before, including Moore sticking around as McCarthy’s offensive coordinator in 2020. Witten’s move isn’t a done deal, but think of it like Jones views him as a valve to pull if it makes sense — perhaps because the head-coaching pick isn’t as dynamic a presence as the Cowboys seek.

While Sanders is unlikely to meaningfully resurface for several reasons, including the cost of his Colorado buyout, don’t be surprised if Jones spends time with him at next week’s East West Shrine Bowl. Sanders’ son, Shedeur, will compete at quarterback in a series of practices taking place at the Cowboys’ facility. Be prepared for Deion Sanders and Jones to converse…and generate speculation, warranted or not.

What does all of this mean for Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott?

The top two candidates are coordinators intimately familiar with Prescott. That shouldn’t be a surprise. The Cowboys’ biggest salary-cap investment, by far, is the record-setting extension they awarded Prescott in September hours before their season opener. Prescott is set to earn $240 million over four years, or $60 million per year. Any coaching candidate without a vision for his success should not seriously be considered.

That vision could differ; multiple successful NFC teams, from the San Francisco 49ers to the Philadelphia Eagles, have recently maximized their quarterback with strong run games and offensive line play rather than an insistence on a highly paid player throwing the ball across the board.

The 49ers represented the NFC in the Super Bowl last year. The Eagles enjoyed the honor the year before. And with the Cowboys’ NFC East rivals facing off in the conference championship, the franchise’s 30-year NFC title game drought — much less Super Bowl victory drought — stings even more.

With the Commanders snapping their 34-year streak since advancing past the divisional round, every NFC team but the Cowboys have qualified for the conference title game since the 2010 season.

The Cowboys’ last season in that position: 1995.

They hope their next coach will change that.