Will Grier is coming back to the Cowboys for a third time, but this time he won’t be competing for a roster spot. Nine days after retiring as a player, the former backup quarterback is joining Brian Schottenheimer’s staff as an offensive assistant, surprising almost no one who has followed his relationship with the organization.

ESPN’s Todd Archer broke the news first.

“Former QB Will Grier is joining the Cowboys coaching staff as an offensive assistant, according to a source,” Archer reported. “Grier retired on July 15 after signing with Carolina before the draft. Before joining the Panthers, he contemplated joining the Cowboys coaching staff earlier in the offseason.”

That timeline captures just how close Grier came to taking this job months earlier. Dallas actually offered him the coaching position after he spent last season on the practice squad. However, his father, Chad, pushed him to give playing one more shot instead.

“Man, there’s not a huge chance you’re gonna play in Carolina this year,” Chad Grier said at the time. “But there’s zero chance you get to play if you’re coaching. So I would say you stay in that league as a player as long as you possibly can. You have the rest of your life to coach.”

That closeness with Prescott and the coaching staff is exactly why Dallas wanted him in the building in the first place. Grier will officially start when training camp opens July 29 in Oxnard, California, working specifically in the quarterback room alongside Prescott, Joe Milton III, and Sam Howell, reporting to both Schottenheimer and offensive coordinator Klayton Adams. Dallas will hold joint practices with the Rams and Saints before playing preseason games against the Seahawks, Cardinals, and Saints again.

That immediate trust traces back to years of history most assistant coaches don’t walk in with.

Grier was a third-round pick out of West Virginia in 2019, after transferring from Florida, and started two games as a rookie with Carolina, completing 28 of 52 passes for 228 yards, no touchdowns, and four interceptions. He bounced through six organizations over parts of seven seasons, Carolina, Dallas, Cincinnati, New England, the Chargers, and Philadelphia, including a Super Bowl ring won on the Eagles’ practice squad in 2024. Across his two prior stints with Dallas, he never appeared in a regular-season game, playing only in the preseason while cycling between the active roster and practice squad. The Cowboys brought him back on a reserve/future deal in February before releasing him a month later once they signed Sam Howell in free agency.

He knows this offense, this staff, and this quarterback room well enough that Schottenheimer believes he can contribute immediately rather than needing time to learn the system, fitting a pattern the head coach has leaned on since taking over, building his staff around potential and internal trust rather than established coaching résumés.

Is playoffs on cards for Brian Schottenheimer’s team?

Grier’s hire is a small piece of a much bigger question hanging over this Cowboys season. Dallas has missed the playoffs the last two years, and a third straight miss in 2026 would be the franchise’s longest postseason drought in more than a decade, something that hasn’t happened since Jason Garrett’s Cowboys finished 8-8 in three straight seasons from 2011 to 2013.

Schottenheimer isn’t hedging about where he thinks this team is headed.

“I feel very, very confident and believe we’re going to find a way to be in that game and win it,” Schottenheimer said, referring to the Super Bowl.

The offense gives that confidence some real backing. Dallas ranked second in the league in total yards and seventh in points last season, and returns most of its core weapons in Prescott, CeeDee Lamb, George Pickens, and Javonte Williams. The bigger swing came on defense, which finished near the bottom of the league in 2025. Dallas hired Christian Parker as its new defensive coordinator and added Quinnen Williams, Rashan Gary, Caleb Downs, Jalen Thompson, P.J. Locke, and Cobie Durant, an overhaul aimed squarely at fixing the unit that cost them the most last season.

Whether any of that, Grier included, actually moves the needle starts getting tested in less than a week, when the Cowboys open training camp July 29 in Oxnard.