Brian Schottenheimer isn’t chasing a Super Bowl for himself. He’s chasing it for his dad.
The Dallas Cowboys head coach opened up recently about his motivation entering his second season leading the franchise, and it keeps circling back to his father, the late Marty Schottenheimer, who won more games than almost anyone in NFL history but never got to a Super Bowl.
“It’s always something I’ve always dreamed of, you know,” Schottenheimer said on The Twins Take Podcast. “I want to win a Super Bowl. I don’t want to win it for me.”
He wants it for the locker room. Dak Prescott. CeeDee Lamb. Quinnen Williams. The whole roster that absorbs the physical toll of an NFL season.
“I want to win it for the people under my leadership,” Schottenheimer said. “I want to win it for Dak Prescott. I want to win it for CeeDee Lamb, for Quinnen Williams, for your players that put in so much hard work and the sacrifice that goes into what we do.”
He didn’t stop there. Schottenheimer named a date.
“I make no qualms that that’s the goal. The Super Bowl next year is Feb. 14th, 2027. We plan on being there.”
According to Yardbarker, which cited comments Schottenheimer made to Tommy Yarrish of DallasCowboys.com, the coach has pointed to the team’s defensive overhaul and locker-room culture as the foundation for that confidence heading into training camp.
An Extra Ring for Marty
Then Schottenheimer got personal. Asked what winning it all would actually mean, he said he already has a plan for the hardware.
“I’ve said this from the very beginning,” Schottenheimer said, “when we get our Super Bowl rings, I’ll be getting an extra one for my dad.”
He held back emotion while saying it, which tracks with a coach who has talked about this before. He’s said it in press conferences. He said it as a Jets assistant back in 2009. The line isn’t new. But it hasn’t lost weight, either — not for a family whose name is tied to one of the most respected coaching careers to ever come up empty on the league’s biggest stage.
Marty Schottenheimer finished with 200 regular-season wins, seventh all time, and 205 including the playoffs. Nobody who never made a Super Bowl won more games than he did. He coached the Cleveland Browns, Kansas City Chiefs, Washington and the San Diego Chargers, and outside of an 8-8 season in Washington, he posted a winning record everywhere he went.
The postseason is where it got cruel. In Cleveland, Marty’s teams lost back-to-back AFC title-game heartbreakers to the Denver Broncos, remembered now simply as “The Drive” and “The Fumble.” Marty died in 2021 at 77, following a battle with Alzheimer’s. He never got the ring.
Building Toward 2026
Brian Schottenheimer got into NFL coaching in 1997 at age 24. He didn’t land his first head-coaching job until January 2025, when the Cowboys hired him at 51. Year one wasn’t kind: Dallas finished 7-9-1, a season defined more by inconsistency than any signature win.
The roster construction this offseason suggests the front office is betting on a turnaround. Dallas brought in Christian Parker, 34, as defensive coordinator in January — the youngest DC in franchise history, arriving after two seasons as the Philadelphia Eagles’ defensive pass-game coordinator and defensive backs coach. The unit he inherited finished dead last in the NFL in points allowed per game in 2025, according to ESPN. Parker has installed a base 3-4 look, something the Cowboys haven’t run since 2012, and used two first-round picks this spring specifically to retool that side of the ball.
Prescott, Lamb and the rest of the offense return largely intact, giving Dallas a floor to build from as Parker’s defense tries to find its footing under a new scheme.
| Category | Marty Schottenheimer | Brian Schottenheimer (entering Year 2) |
|---|---|---|
| Regular-season wins | 200 (7th all time) | N/A (first HC season: 7-9-1) |
| Teams coached | Browns, Chiefs, Washington, Chargers | Cowboys |
| Super Bowl appearances | 0 | 0 (goal: Feb. 14, 2027) |
| Years as NFL head coach | 21 seasons | 2nd season |
Why This Matters Now
Coaches talk about Super Bowl aspirations every July. Most of it is noise before pads even go on. What separates this from the standard training-camp bravado is the specificity — Schottenheimer naming the date of Super Bowl LXI and framing the entire pursuit around a debt he feels he owes his father, not his own résumé.
It’s also a bet the organization is making with him. Jerry Jones handed Schottenheimer the job in January 2025 in part because of that relentlessness, the same trait that defined Marty’s career in Cleveland, Kansas City, Washington and San Diego. Whether Dallas has the roster to back up the words is a separate question — one that starts getting answered when training camp opens and Parker’s retooled defense faces live reps for the first time.
For now, the goal is stated plainly, and so is the reason behind it.
