The Dallas Cowboys can only hope that their new head coach, Brian Schottenheimer, is as good as his dad, the late Marty Schottenheimer, was for the Browns, Kansas City Chiefs, Washington and San Diego Chargers.

Marty Schottenheimer’s highly-emotional departure from the Browns just a few days after the 1988 season, when, ironically, he did the best job of his 4-1/2 seasons in Cleveland, still ranks as the second-most controversial exit of a head coach in the entire history of the Browns, behind only that of Paul Brown, who was fired three weeks after the end of the 1962 season.

Schottenheimer guided the Browns to the playoffs four straight seasons, including making it to the AFC Championship Game in back-to-back years (losing both times in excruciating fashion) and winning three straight Central Division titles. 

Other than the Paul Brown era and that of his successor, Blanton Collier, Schottenheimer’s tenure was far and away the best in Browns history. If it had come in the expansion era, then they would be canonizing Schottenheimer and building a statue of him outside Huntington Bank Field.

But instead, it happened when the Browns — legitimately so because they had that good of a team — had their sites set on not just getting to a Super Bowl, but also winning it. Those tough losses in the AFC title game took a lot out of the organization, and that, mixed in with the frustration from 1988 when the Browns lost their starting quarterback to injury five times yet made it into the postseason as a wild card, caused the blowup that ended the Schottenheimer era.

Did the Browns do the right thing in moving away from Schottenheimer, who, in the eyes of management, had proven he could get the club to the doorstep of the Super Bowl but not any further, and trying another avenue by hiring Bud Carson? Or would it have been better to stick with Schottenheimer in the hopes they could figure out how to take the next step and get to the big game? 

That will continue to be debated forever.

Every time I see Brian Schottenheimer on the sideline coaching the Cowboys, I will think of his dad and those highly successful but, in the end, unfulfilling seasons in Cleveland.

And think of this, as a cool aside to tale: Two of the last three head coaches of the Cowboys have been sons of fellow assistant coaches under Sam Rutigliano with the Browns’ Kardiac Kids teams of 45 years ago. From partway through the 2010 season until the end of the 2019 season, when Mike McCarthy took over, the coach of the Cowboys was Jason Garrett, a product of University School in the Cleveland suburb of Hunting Valley and the son of former Browns running backs coach Jim Garrett. The elder Garrett died in 2018, almost exactly three years to the day before Marty Schottenheimer, who was defensive coordinator of the Browns before being promoted to head coach, passed away.

Steve King