FRISCO, Texas -- The Dallas Cowboys won 37-22 last week at the New York Jets despite being down All-Pro wide receiver CeeDee Lamb and four offensive line starters. That's a coaching win. Entering Week 6, head coach Brian Schottenheimer, Dallas' offensive play caller, and offensive coordinator Klayton Adams have the Cowboys leading the NFL in total yards per game (406.6) and first downs per game (15.0) while ranking fourth in scoring (30.2 points per game).
"The energy, not every day is going to be bright, but when you got a guy like Schotty who comes in with good energy every day, [it] makes you want to get forward to the next day and get better," Cowboys wide receiver George Pickens said on Wednesday. "Klayton is super good. He's always, mostly with the offensive line, but definitely his gap [blocking] schemes. He knows a lot about gap schemes and the o-line and where guys are supposed to be up front in the trenches. So I feel like Klayton is doing a great job."
At the end of Dallas' mandatory minicamp on June 12, Schottenheimer claimed he and his staff were going to win so much that the rest of the league was going to "raid" his staff and promote his assistants to coordinator and head-coaching roles. The way things are going through five weeks, that just might happen with Adams.
"One of the things that we pride ourselves in doing as a staff, and when I say the staff, talking about myself and the coordinators, we always want to coach the coaches. We look for opportunities for the younger coaches to get up in front of position groups and lead meetings and do things. We give them projects all the time because we're going to win. And when we win, our coaching staff is going to get raided and people are going to come after our coaches because we're going to win," Schottenheimer said on the last day of Cowboys minicamp on June 12. "The thought is you develop your guys in the building that you believed in enough to hire and bring here and talk about your culture and your vision and things like that. ... For example, Klayton today, he's not a young coach. But him calling plays today at the other end of the field, he's never called plays before. So I asked him how it went. He said, 'Man, did good. I got messed up on one. Would have been a timeout. Would have been a timeout.' I think we're always trying to develop everybody. You've got some tremendous young coaches. And what they bring in energy and juice, we want to reward that energy and juice that they bring every day by giving them valuable football knowledge that makes them a better coach more seasoned in fundamentals better with scheme better understanding. I think that's a huge part of the position I sit in is to make sure you're always developing your staff from top to bottom."
A year ago, Dallas' run game struggled with quarterback Dak Prescott injured and rotating between Ezekiel Elliott and Rico Dowdle to begin the year before settling on Dowdle at the tail end of the season. Today, Cowboys running back Javonte Williams is making an early All-Pro case despite offensive line personnel inconsistencies and battling his way back from a knee injury that took years to recover from. Part of that is Williams playing phenomenal football. The other part of that, the offensive line maintaining a strong blocking integrity no matter who is on the field, is coaching -- especially with Adams previously working as the Arizona Cardinals' offensive line coach as recently as last season.
"Klayton, number one, is an excellent football coach. He has a tough job. When you're the coordinator for a guy that's the head coach and the play caller. I've lived it with Mike, that could be hard," Schottenheimer said on Monday. "Because there's things that you think and you believe and you're kind of like, 'no.' Sometimes we sit there, and you're like, 'no, we're not doing that.' But he is so easy to work with, and he loves it. He loves coaching o-line. He's in there every chance he gets."
While Adams doesn't call the team's offensive plays, Schottenheimer does give him full autonomy to put the run game portion of Dallas' game plans together each and every week.
"Klayton really drives the run pod. I drive kind of the pass pod, and then he and I usually get together on Monday night for a few minutes and kind of talk about some stuff getting ready for Tuesday," Schottenheimer said. "Tuesday we come in early and go back to our pods; we get ideas from other guys; then he and I kind of get together for about an hour to make sure there’s some marriage in stuff [pass game and run game]. Then we bring first/second down run game plan to staff; they shoot holes in it; challenge us on things—which is great! You know me—I love hard conversations! Then we tweak it a little bit more; finish pass game; that’s kind of how it comes together."
Schottenheimer had been doing research on young, up-and-coming assistant coaches in the NFL for years in the event that he became a play-calling offensive coordinator or NFL head coach ever since he was let go from his role as the Seattle Seahawks offensive coordinator at the beginning of the 2021 offseason. One of his deep background searches led him to chatting with Indianapolis general manager Chris Ballard since Schottenheimer spent two seasons with the Colts as their quarterbacks coach in the 2016 and 2017 seasons. That's when he first heard of Adams, who was Indianapolis’ tight ends coach at the time.
"Might have been [Colts GM] Chris Ballard," Schottenheimer said. "I don't [remember], per se. I talked to a number of people around the building. Matt Turpening was a guy I talked to about Klayton, a big personnel guy there ... It's probably weird. 'Hey! Brian Schottenheimer; how are you doing? Nice to meet you! Hey; just wanted to talk to you.' But that's the kind of guy I am. I cold-call people all the time....I don't have much better to do than check in and see who some of the coaches are that maybe you don't know; his name came up."
Early in the interview process, Schottenheimer arranged for Adams to meet the entire Jones family following the recommendation from Ballard and Cowboys defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus since he overlapped with Adams when working as the Colts defensive coordinator from 2018 to 2021.
"I wanted to get Klayton in front of the staff," Schottenheimer said. "I wanted to get Klayton in front of Jerry [Jones], in front of Stephen [Jones]. [Defensive coordinator] Matt Eberflus was a huge proponent of Klayton; they had been together. Tyler Boyles; my chief of staff; was with him. When Klayton came in here along with a couple of other guys; he did a great job of separating himself. He fit what we were looking for."
What Schottenheimer was looking for was a mixture of outside zone rushing schemes and gap rushing schemes, and that's exactly what Adams has provided.
"One of the things that I found really attractive about the NFL when I made the jump from college football to the NFL was when I got to Indy; I was like: ‘Oh; we do everything. Awesome.’ Because it always felt like everywhere else I was at; it felt like: ‘We’re an outside zone team. We’re a gap scheme team;’” Adams said on Thursday. “Going back to my playing days in my formative years at Boise State and kind of learning some of this stuff; we just did everything. Whatever fits best that week; that’s what you tried to do. To me; that’s how I look at the game. There’s going to be opportunities based on the style of front and the coverages that you’re seeing; and whoever the elite players you need to figure out ways to block or stay away from. Can you do enough of that to be successful? Also; get your players to understand those things. Also; do enough of what they do well.”
The trust between Schottenheimer and Adams has evolved to where Adams has total control over the run game thanks to hours spent together in the offseason program.
"I've seen him do it. Again, you got to remember that we sat here in the spring from 7 a.m. until 11 o'clock at night building this thing. There were really hard conversations, and there were things I was like 'yeah, I like that. It makes perfect sense.' There’s things I'm like 'no, I would never call that.' He is very humble, in a good way," Schottenheimer said."I think you have to be [as a] coordinator for an offensive-minded head coach.Man,we’ve had so many real conversations....A lot of great conversations about life,and that’s what I trust."
Dallas has run for more than 100 yards in each of their first five games of 2025 with Adams on board, something the team has achieved for the first time since 2016 -- when rookie Ezekiel Elliott burst onto the scene to lead the NFL in rushing yards (1,631) and Prescott won NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year while helping lead a 13-3 regular season.
"Huge. He's the OC, for one. Just the way that he installs plays when he stands in front of the team, the confidence that he shows, that he portrays, he exudes. The professionalism that he expects. It's contagious and everybody feels it," Prescott said of Adams."He's a hell of a dude.I feel like as much as anything obviously the plays and all of that that he's installed are working.Its a little bit of his personality that this offense has taken from him: moving forward each and every game of just going to get it done at all costs whatever it takes."