Texans TE Dalton Schultz glad focus is 'just football' in Houston after time with Cowboys

Dalton Schultz re-upped in Houston on a three-year contract after spending one season in DeMeco Ryans’ operation.

Joining The Pat McAfee Show on Wednesday, Schultz praised the Texans’ staff and said that the atmosphere around the team was a main reason he wanted to remain in Houston.

“This place is a well-oiled machine,” Schultz said, via the Houston Chronicle. “The coaching staff — the coaching changes, I can’t speak to the previous stuff — but the strength staff is phenomenal, the training staff is unbelievable. This has been the most trainers that I’ve ever seen on a staff and they take really amazing care of the players. The nutrition staff is phenomenal.”

Shultz spent his first five seasons in Dallas, where players live in a veritable fishbowl on the most popular team in the NFL. The 27-year-old said he was a little worried about changing teams last offseason because he wasn’t sure how other clubs operate, but was glad how things worked out.

“The focus is just football, you know what I mean?” Schultz said of playing in Houston. “I’m going back and telling some people about being around the Cowboys practice facility and game day and describing some of the interactions and stuff that you see on a day-to-day basis and it surprises a lot of people. They’re like, ‘Holy crap. That actually happens at a practice facility?’ You think it’s normal, and then you come to a place like this.”

One example Schultz shared of his time in Dallas was fans taking tours of the facility while players were working out.

“It’s literally a zoo, dude,” Schultz said. “There’s people tapping on the glass trying to get people’s attention while they’re doing power cleans or whatever. It’s different. That’s the brand that they’ve built, that’s what (owner) Jerry Jones likes, that’s the way that they run things and there’s nothing wrong with that. You don’t realize how many eyeballs and how much that can maybe distract in the locker room, just being in the facility until you go somewhere else and you’re like, ‘Holy crap, there’s none of that.'”

There’s more than one way to skin a cat. The Cowboys have built a big brand, and Jones and many players have reaped the rewards of the swaths of attention on the club. Other places don’t have the same attention grabs, and for some players, that’s a more comfortable approach to the job of football.

Schultz has found a comfort zone in Houston as a security blanket for C.J. Stroud and will continue in that role for the next several seasons.