There’s not much we know about Brian Schottenheimer’s plans for the 2025 Dallas Cowboys offense.
But wide receiver George Pickens offered some insight during mandatory minicamp when he was asked about what stood out the most from Schottenheimer in his first practices with the team.
And what he said is the kind of things fans get fired up for.
“A lot of motions, a lot of things that give you an indicator on what the defense is doing before you say hike,” Pickens told reporters on Wednesday. “A lot of coaches don’t do that.”
For years now, Cowboys fans have pleaded for the offense to feature motion. Kellen Moore and Mike McCarthy offered flashes of it throughout their tenures as playcallers in Dallas but it was never consistent enough and disappeared at times. A big part of the frustration with the playoff loss to the Green Bay Packers in Jan. 2024 was how static the offense became after consistently finding success with motion.
Now granted, not because you use motion means you’re maximizing it. First of all, pre-snap motion is different than motion at the snap, and the latter has been less common in Dallas.
Though Pickens focused on pointing out how motion can help identify what the defense is doing (by checking if it’s zone or man defense), the best play callers in the league manage to gain leverage for their receivers’ routes. Andy Reid is a master at this. If all Schottenheimer is doing with motion is doing coverage ID, then this really isn’t that big of a deal, though it would at least be something.
For now though, it’s something to look out for and will say a lot about Schottenheimer as a play caller. In the meantime Pickens continues to get ready for the 2025 season by connecting with Dak Prescott and learning the offense.
“It’s getting better and better every time—learning the plays the more I’m here, and then getting the minutiae of how he wants to run his plays,” Pickens said about his relationship with Dak. “We’re connecting for sure.”
