How one summer phone call led to Dallas Cowboys having top NFL offense in 2025
Years before Brian Schottenheimer would be the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys, even before he stepped into the building for the first time in 2022, he sat down and made some phone calls one summer afternoon.
Early in his career, Schottenheimer had made a habit out of dedicating some time every summer to calling coaches, executives and players around the league that he had relationships with to get a pulse on some up-and-coming names around the NFL. It was a way for him to know as many people as possible so that when the day came for him to build his coaching staff, he would have a head start.
On that summer afternoon — Schottenheimer theorizes it was in 2020 or 2021 — one phone call brought up the name of a young tight ends coach for the Indianapolis Colts, Klayton Adams.
“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 ... 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 — and his name came up.”
Whoever it was, the recommendation was so sound in its approval that when the Colts made the trip to AT&T Stadium for a game in 2022 when Schottenheimer was in his first year as a consultant with the team, he had to go introduce himself.
“I met him before the game,” Schottenheimer said. “We just kind of tried to do that. I’m not a big pregame talker, but he was a guy I actually looked for and wanted to go say hello and introduce myself. We just kind of stayed in touch after that.”
Three years later, the two coaches find themselves leading the top offense in the NFL through five weeks at 406.6 yards per game for the Cowboys — Schottenheimer as head coach and Adams as his offensive coordinator.
Since Schottenheimer was always going to handle play-calling responsibilities when he took the job, he wanted to find a run game specialist as his coordinator who could complement his prowess as a pass offense specialist. Adams was one of the first names he landed on and was someone he wanted to immediately bring in for an interview.
“I wanted to get Klayton in front of the staff,” he 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 the other guys, he did a great job of separating himself. He fit what we were looking for.”
And it makes sense as to why Schottenheimer felt that way. The Cowboys have one of the most successful run offenses in the NFL behind a running back in Javonte Williams who is experiencing a career resurgence in his first year with the team. This is all while Dallas has had to replace at least one starting offensive lineman in three of its five contests so far, including four of the five starters up front in a 37-22 win over the New York Jets.
As a former offensive line coach with a deep understanding of run game concepts from his time as a college player and graduate assistant at Boise State with head coach Chris Petersen, Adams has brought his philosophy of always remaining multiple in gap vs. zone and inside vs. outsize zone concepts in his first coordinator job.
“That’s how I look at the game,” Adams said. “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 and do enough of what they do well.”
For the Cowboys, it has blossomed into a perfect marriage where Adams has earned “full autonomy” in Schottenheimer’s words to build the run game plan each week.
“I’ve seen him do it,” Schottenheimer said. “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 ... He and I have had a lot of great football conversations, a lot of great conversations about life, and that’s what I trust.”
Through five weeks, the Cowboys have a top-eight rush offense for the first time since 2019. They are one of only five teams to be averaging more than five yards per attempt, and their running back is third in rushing yards and second in rushing touchdowns.
And again, it’s with an offensive line that couldn’t even buy full health from a dollar store right now.
Any coach would give anything for that kind of success, especially when it’s something that Adams hangs his hat on such as the run game. But for him, he’s not even close to being satisfied.
“I think when you take the litmus test and you just watch it,” Adams said. “I just think there’s a lot of improvement that needs to be made for us to be operating on the level that we want to be operating on. I think the guys are playing hard for sure. I just think there’s a lot of intricacies of things that you watch and you go, ‘Gosh, that block, we need to figure that one out, or our path is off here.’ It’s a constantly evolving thing.”
Regardless, from the man who had never been a coordinator before this season with Dallas, he does try to remember the good moments even when he expects more out of his already successful group.
An avid reader, Adams likes sticking to reading that focuses on bringing potential out of himself and the people around him, noted by his current reading list that includes “Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things” by Adam Grant. The book details how to unlock full potential, even when things are going right.
It makes sense for it to apply to Adams’ personal goals, but it makes even more sense why Adams wants that for his offensive group too.
“I go back to something that I read in a book seven or eight years ago that there are different degrees to fun,” Adams said. “There’s like roller-coaster fun where you enjoy it for a second and then you kind of forget about it. And there’s things that you don’t know that are fun until like 10 years later, where you look back and go, ‘That was a lot of fun.’ Sometimes, that’s how I feel on game days, like, ‘Man, this is really stressful’ and maybe it’s not going the way you want it to all the time. But then you look back a year or two later and you’re like, ‘Man, that was an awesome experience.’”
With the way his offensive style has succeeded through five weeks, Adams is living one of those awesome experiences right now -- whether he knows it or not.
This story was originally published October 9, 2025 at 6:43 PM.
