Category: Jerry Jones

Anti-Jerry: NBA’s Mavs show Cowboys fans the flaws of a professional GM

Nico Harrison showed local fans of Dallas sports the downside of the GM conundrum this weekend. | From ReidDHanson

Dallas Cowboys fans have not been pleased with the front office of their franchise. In the minds of many, the frugality of the team’s top decision makers has led to too many missed opportunities over the years. It’s a trend that appears to be continuing into 2025, and a resentment that’s been unrivaled in the local DFW fanbase.

That is, until the Dallas Mavericks told Jerry Jones to hold their beer.

The Mavericks recently made news for all the wrong reasons this week. They took a generational talent, just entering his prime, and flipped him for a player who’s great, but, by most accounts, past his prime. Other side dishes were included in this smorgasbord of lopsidedness but for the most part it was a trade of Luka Doncic for Anthony Davis.

The Mavericks GM, Nico Harrison, defended the trade citing things like culture, fit, defense and conditioning as reasons why the trade was made. These issues may have very well existed, but to most fans, they hardly justified trading away a perennial MVP candidate. It was a move that made Jones and the Cowboys look good. Considering what’s happened for them over the past two seasons, that’s saying something.

Jones has been on a mission of austerity as of late. While he’s re-signed his must-have superstars, he’s been essentially asset stripping his roster by parting ways with costly second and third-tier players, rounding out the roster, coaching staff, and support personnel the cheapest way possible.

A reason why he would do such a thing is a fatal flaw within the structure of the team. Jones isn’t just the general manager and chief decision maker but he’s also the owner. What he doesn’t spend on players, coaches, and support personnel, he gets to keep in some ways. That’s not something any other GM in the NFL can say.

Other GMs are given a budget and are fairly determined to spend to the limits of that budget in the name of winning. Unlike Jones, they can be fired if they fall short of expectations therefore, they have to make every season count. The demand to win now is significant, so understandably the life expectancy of a GM is fairly low. Based on these same motivating forces, the Cowboys have no comparable urgency to win and every financial reason to save.

Up until this week, Harrison was regarded as one of the best GMs in the NBA. The former Nike executive has stacked the Dallas roster and made the 2024-2025 Mavericks one of the deepest and most talented teams in the league. He’s gone to the Conference Finals twice and the Finals once in a short time and done so with wildly different rosters. Even with Harrison’s success he feels the pressure to win now and has wasted no time making moves to achieve that goal.

Unlike Jones, Harrison doesn’t have the benefit of eternal job security on his side and that has presumably led to a highly controversial roster move. When asked about how the Doncic trade affects the Mavericks in the long-term Harrison showed why even a traditional GM structure has flaws.

“[Anthony Davis] fits right along with our timeframe to win now. And win in the future. In the future to me is three or four years from now,” Harrison clarified to reporters. “The future, 10 years from now, I don’t know. I think they’ll probably bury me and J [Kidd] by then. Or we bury ourselves.”

Harrison isn’t a fan of the Mavericks, but rather he’s an employee. He’s not married to the team like the fanbase is. There’s a good chance he’ll be gone in three or four years, making Doncic’s long-term value unimportant to him. Fans are critical of the move because they’ll still be Mavericks fans for the next 10 years. After Harrison is gone and Davis is retired, they’ll still be watching Doncic dominate the NBA and it will probably be extremely painful. That day could realistically be just five years away.

This kind of thing isn’t an issue for Jones and the Cowboys. Jones loves his Cowboys franchise and if anything, he cares too much about the long-term good of the team and not enough about the urgency of the here and now. He probably would have cashed on the Doncic brand in perpetuity. He probably wouldn’t have surrounded him the same depth of talent as Harrison has done, but he would have kept him.

If fans had to pick which is GM setup is better, most would probably point to the traditional type of GM like the Mavericks have. But as Harrison just showed everyone, even that has its problems because most GMs aren’t concerned about life after they’re gone. For universal Dallas fans, it’s the worst of both worlds this year. Guess it’s a good time to be a Stars fan.

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Cowboys’ Jones was fully prepared to repeat Garrett-Phillips fiasco before naming Schottenheimer HC

Jones admits his biggest priority in the hiring process was to ensure continuity in the offense, and that superseded the possibility there was a better head coach to be hired.

Jerry Jones admitted his biggest priority in the hiring process was to ensure continuity in the Dallas Cowboys offense, and that superseded the possibility there was a better head coach to be hired.

Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it. Sometimes, those who know the history, and caused the history, didn’t learn their lesson and return to the well when thirsty. That apparently was almost the case with the Cowboys, and seems to have led to the decision to make Brian Schottenheimer the 10th head coach in franchise history.

At Schotty’s introductory press conference on Monday, the conversation ranged from one topic to another, sometimes through three talking points and two wormholes, which is often the case when Jones gets in front of a microphone.

Towards the end of the hour-plus long affair, Jones let out some information about the coaching search that may stun some into silence.

When discussing why Schottenheimer was chosen ahead of others who might have more experience, Jones basically said that he was so enamored with having Schottenheimer as the offensive coordinator and playcaller (a duty he didn’t have as OC for Mike McCarthy), he was heavily considering pulling a “Jason Garrett on Wade Phillips” again.

For those that remember, Jones was so insistent on getting Garrett into his ecosystem, he hired him as offensive coordinator before he hired Phillips to be the head coach. That scenario seems to have been ridiculously close to playing out again.

“We wanted Brian to call the plays. We cherish his relationship with our players. We wanted him to call the plays. As my mind would drift around to alternatives,… I believe if he doesn’t want to call the plays, he’s probably not with the Cowboys.”

“I think Jerry (Jr.) said, You know something, if we went that way, as much as we’ve gone down the path, there’d be some heartbreak here. There’d be some ‘knock the slats out from under’…. I’m just giving you an idea of how the process was going as we were looking at alternatives of other people that might be coaching the Dallas Cowboys and Brian calling the plays.”

During the process, it was reported from many that Schottenheimer was under consideration for both head coach and offensive coordinator roles, and Jones decided to confirm those reports in the worst way.

Not only that, it seems based on his words that the decision to take the risk on making Schottenheimer the head coach came down to not wanting to walk away from the possibility of someone else designing the Cowboys’ offense, so he made him the head coach as well.

Which is a pretty interesting way to run a team, to say the least.

Cowboys’ Jones claims he’s constantly rolling dice, hiring Schottenheimer ‘as big a risk as you can take’

Jerry Jones is correct, but is woefully missing the point of all of the criticism levied at him over the process that led to hiring his new head coach.

The Dallas Cowboys held their introductory press conference of the 10th head coach in franchise history on Monday, bringing Brian Schottenheimer to the people. After Schottenheimer gave his opening statement, thanking the Jones family for the opportunity and giving his regards for his family’s support, the Q&A session began.

The first question lobbed to the panel, as expected, was of Jerry Jones and why he decided to hire Schottenheimer. Why him?

Jones took a deep pause of about 10 seconds before entering into a diatribe about how the decision was made. Jones cited how every Senior Bowl and scouting combine, he’d arrive early just so he can engage with potential coaches who might cross his path some time in the future. He spoke of his familiarity with the Schottenheimer family, Brian’s dad Marty and his mother Pat, from prior times on competition committees and basically saying Schottenheimer came from good stock.

He spoke of how Schottenheimer showed deference to coaches with more experience, like Mike McCarthy and Mike Zimmer, “biting his lip” when he disagreed with some of their decisions. And then he dropped the money quote.

Jones spoke on the accusations that he only operates within confines of people who have crossed his path. He believes the opposite, despite the evidence to the contrary.

“I get my proverbial a– kicked over needing people in my comfort zone. Without this thing being about me in any way, ifyou don’t think I can’t operate out of my comfort zone, you’re so wrong it’s unbelievable.

This is as big a risk as you can take… as big a risk as you can take. No head coaching experience.”

Jones somehow believes that Schottenheimer’s 25 years of experience in the coaching profession is unique, angling that it’s not normal for someone only 51 years old. He then spoke about several of the coaches he’s had in the past, how it wasn’t only about Xs and Os, but more about life experiences in bringing in Jimmy Johnson, Barry Switzer and Chan Gailey.

Jones has an unbelievable blind spot to the criticisms levied against his process.

“I’ve read where I don’t have a penchant for risk taking. If you really knew my score sheet, you’d see that I have taken more risks in the last five years than the rest of my life put together.”

In football terms, that’s a ridiculous statement to try to pass off on the general public. Jones’ team has signed no external risks in free agency. Taking risks is signing outside players to large amount of guaranteed money, something Jones has proven allergic to for over a decade. He’s taken really one noteworthy risk in the draft, gambling on the red flags attached to CB Kelvin Joseph in the 2021 draft, but that’s about it.

It’s been eons since Jones gambled in the draft, trading up to snare a top prospect.

Does he consider keeping Mike McCarthy to play out the final year of his five-year contract some sort of leap of faith? Waiting until the final year of CeeDee Lamb’s contract to offer him a near market-setting deal?

Perhaps he’s speaking about the first extension for Dak Prescott, where he allowed Prescott to reach free agency, twice, and having to give him both a no-trade and a no-third-franchise-tag clause. Granted, Prescott was coming off a gruesome leg injury when he signed that deal in 2021, so Jones does get credit for that, but he had backed himself into a corner where the only viable free agent QBs were Ryan Fitzpatrick and Jameis Winston,

Regardless, these are normal risks that every owner takes, and pretending like these decisions make him some sort of maverick is a confusing spin on the situation.

But yes, hiring Schottenheimer is a big risk due to his lack of head coaching experience, but this is the exception to the rule, not the norm, and it’s still a move that checks all of the boxes of an owner who doesn’t want to stray from what’s familiar.

This is hardly a knock on what Schottenheimer might do, he could be a fabulous coach and Jones knocked it out of the park. But pretending that in all of those casual interviews he bragged about hosting at the beginning of his soliloquy and there were only four coaches who interested him, and two of those had woefully bad records, is cap.

The real reason why Jerry Jones hired Brian Schottenheimer instead of a big-name coach

The Cowboys have retreated into their turtle shell, which continues to harden over the years and is now impacting every alligator-armed attempt to reach success. | From @KDDrummondNFL

I started the conversation three or four years ago, returning each year since, in explaining why the Cowboys don’t sign external free agents. They conduct football operations like a Fortune 500 business that is too big to fail financially, but still doing things woefully incorrectly. This philosophy appears to have leaked into the process that led to Brian Schottenheimer being hired as the latest head coach.

Follow the logic.

Big player contracts are seen as rewards for prior performance to the company. Players earn big deals as thank yous for outperforming their previous contracts, kind of like 9-to-5 workers getting promotions.

Despite his background as an oil guy, Jones has soured on speculation in his later years. Signing external free agents is all about what could be. Sure, a player could have proven his value for a different team, but there’s no guarantee he’ll be the same guy in a new organizational setting, under different coaching.

Signing a guy to a huge amount of guaranteed salary when they’ve never done it in the fishbowl that is Dallas is a gamble the Jones family is no longer willing to take. This is why the club no longer plays the market in the first few waves of free agency. As time goes on, Jones has been less inclined to tread in those waters.

That philosophy has now seeped into his coaching decisions and was on full display with everything that happened since Mike McCarthy’s contract expired at the end of the 2024 regular season.

Jones did not envision a world where McCarthy wasn’t returning as the head coach, reportedly. He wasn’t dutifully prepared for a coaching search, assuming that after backing McCarthy into a corner as a lame-duck for 2024, the bad season on his resume would limit his external opportunities and convince him to return under Jones’ parameters.

Those parameters allegedly included forcing a Jones “family member” (Jason Witten) onto McCarthy’s staff, and a shorter than normal contract length.

The Jones ‘family’ photo, circa 2017.

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— KD Drummond (@kddrummondnfl.bsky.social) January 25, 2025 at 2:11 PM

This was something Jones had done to Wade Phillips over a decade ago. Jones hired his guy, Jason Garrett, before Phillips was brought on board, letting the journeyman coach know his successor was already decided before working his first day on the job.

Accusations exist regarding Garrett potentially purposefully contributing to the unraveling of the 2010 season.

Jones also didn’t care how blocking McCarthy from interviewing with the Chicago Bears would come across to the outside world. When McCarthy balked at the offer, Jones was left scrambling for a solution.

That included a quick conversation with Deion Sanders, a Jones favorite from the 1990 heydays who has shined in the CFB coaching circuit. Sanders was never brought in for an official interview, despite there being a compelling case, but word of their conversation “about the head coach position” was quickly run through the media’s tentacles in what seems to be an effort in distraction.

It feels as if it was used as a cover while the brass formed an ad hoc process, while also attempting to give Sanders leverage in his discussions with his currently employer.

In the end there were only four men interviewed for the head coach opening after McCarthy walked. The two true candidates were Schottenheimer and Kellen Moore, Schottenheimer’s predecessor as offensive coordinator.

Moore is currently employed by the Philadelphia Eagles. He did a virtual interview last Friday, but the Eagles advancing to the NFCCG kept him from a follow up. The Jones family spent the week convincing themselves of Schottenheimer’s worthiness.

The two other coaches Jones interviewed felt out of place. Both were ex-head coaches with horrible records who just so happened to be minorities, thus satisfying the NFL’s Rooney Rule (which is a whole separation serious conversation that needs to be had).

Rober Saleh, 20-36, was fired midseason from the New York Jets and returned to San Francisco earlier Friday to be their defensive coordinator. That likely doesn’t happen if he feels he’s a serious candidate to be the Cowboys head coach. The other was Leslie Frazier, 21-32-1, currently an assistant head coach in Seattle currently.

Were they seriously under consideration? A team with the prestige of the Dallas Cowboys only interviews two candidates who lacked prior ties to the organization and they both had miserable records?

Jones never made a real effort to escape his comfort zone. Transitioning to Schottenheimer was literally the next-best thing to his original plan of keeping McCarthy on the cheap, furthering the idea that the coach’s exodus caught him off guard.

The expected hiring of Matt Eberflus as defensive coordinator supports the idea of Jones’ proclivity to favor those who have worked for him before, rather than outsiders. While it’s being walked back that he’s a sure thing to take over the DC job, most know what it is.

There’s a lot of scuttlebutt the team believes they satisfied the Rooney Rule for coordinators by claiming that Saleh and Frazier were considerations for both HC and DC, as they classified Schottenheimer’s initial interview as being for both HC and OC.

If one walked away from this as them looking to shirk the rules, it’d be tough to argue them down.

All in all though, things seem fairly obvious from the outside looking in. The Jones don’t trust their ability to look outside the organization for help. When it comes to players, there’s nothing that will convince them the risk is worth the reward. When it comes to head coaches, they will trust former champions, but even they could have conditions attached. It’s all a stressful existence for fans who have tied their sports happiness (and sometimes overall joy) to a franchise that has shrunk into it’s turtle shell.

ESPN cites Jerry Jones as why Cowboys aren’t clear-cut best HC opening in NFL

The Cowboys have a roster ready to win, but a front office ready to interfere.

The Dallas Cowboys are Jerry Jones’ team. There’s no escaping that fact, no matter how frustrated a very large fanbase seems to be with that fact. The long-time owner of the organization feels that he knows what is best for the club, and swears his approach to making the team into the most valuable franchise in professional sports does not interfere with his role as GM and that job’s edict to be the most dominant team in the NFL.

On Saturday, Jones watched his former defensive coordinator, in his first season, take a rival NFC East franchise to the conference championship for the first time in 33 years. Dan Quinn’s Washington Commanders now leave Jones’ Cowboys as the longest NFCCG drought.

The Cowboys, of course, have the opportunity to do similar, as they let Mike McCarthy walk after five years and are one of six teams with a head coach opening. Make that five. The Chicago Bears hired Lions OC Ben Johnson on Monday.

Jones, who had a week of exclusive negotiating rights with McCarthy at the end of the season, blocked McCarthy from interviewing with the Bears for that week, and also didn’t take advantage of the wild-card week to interview the assistants of No. 1 seeds with the byes. Detroit was eliminated Saturday and Johnson, who met with Chicago during that week, never interviewed with Dallas.

Again, Dallas didn’t take the opportunity to interview one of the best young offensive minds in the game, wanted to, but missed out on the opportunity to talk to a coach they did not retain.

That’s life for the organization under owner Jerry Jones, who it’s been reported had no semblance of a backup plan for McCarthy not wanting to return.

The Cowboys have key elements that make them an attractive destination. Recently (prior to this weekend’s games), ESPN’s savant NFL analyst Mina Kimes broke down all of the coaching vacancies in easy-to-digest nuggets for viewers. She ranked each of the (at the time) six openings based on QB situtaiton, overall roster and intangibles.

Dallas tied with the Bears as the most attractive jobs, despite being seen as having the best QB situation with Dak Prescott (tied with Jacksonville and Trevor Lawrence) and the best roster (tied with the Bears). The reason they don’t sit in first place by themselves is the third category, ‘et cetera’.

This category was pretty much an X factor of each organization, and for Dallas, the presence of a meddling Jones was theirs, getting a lowly score of two.

TL;DR, Dallas would’ve run away as the best of the 2025 openings, if it weren’t for how Jones runs the team.

Ouch.

ESPN suggests Cowboys legendary $81 million player could be shock head coach candidate

Crazier things have happened, but the idea that Jason Witten would jump from the high school to the NFL coaching ranks is a wild one.

Take all NFL insider reports with a grain of salt. There are two types of sources for those who trade in league secrets; ownership and agents. Both sides always have an agenda. When ownership is looking to negotiate through the media, the insider is the person they call to disseminate the information.

The real juice normally comes from the agent side of things, but that comes with a price for the insiders. Those weird intel tweets that sound like press releases? Nine times out of 10 that’s an agent having the insider prop up a client, as a payment for dishing the dirt in another scenario.

Feeling rightly warned? Okay, good.

On ESPN’s Monday Night Countdown broadcast, a big part of the conversation was the newly available head coaching gig of the Dallas Cowboys. During a segment ahead of the final wild-card game of the weekend, insider Adam Schefter was asked to give the scoop on who was in the early running to replace Mike McCarthy.

Schefter first mentioned how McCarthy is aligned with the Chicago Bears and New Orleans Saints openings. He then spoke how veteran coaches Bill Belichick and Mike Vrabel already have gigs and are off the table, and then mentioned how the delay in moving on from McCarthy cost them the opportunity to speak to playoff-bye Detroit Lions coordinators, Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn, and the Chiefs coordinators as well.

“A lot of names floating around out there. I think at some point and time they could have some interest in Eagles offensive coordinator Kellen Moore, potentially maybe Jason Witten, an all-time franchise great..”

Wait, what?

Witten, of course, is a legend as a Cowboys player. He holds the franchise records for catches (1,215), receiving yards (12,977) and is second in receiving touchdowns. Witten played 17 years in the league, 16 with the Cowboys, and is one of the most revered players of the Jerry Jones era.

He made over $81 million over the course of his playing career.

Witten has been a head coach for the last four seasons. In high school. He’s led Liberty Christian School to back-to-back state championships out of Argyle, TX. But that’s the extent of his coaching resume, which makes it an insane proposition that he’d be under serious consideration to take over as head coach of the Cowboys.

Stranger things have happened, but this smells like Schefter doing a favor to Witten’s agent, Tom Condon of CAA Sports, than a legitimate insider declaration. Witten could be looking to get himself into the NFL coaching ranks and bump his salary back closer to his playing days, but jumping directly to head coach of the Dallas Cowboys?

Imagine that uproar.

Breaking: Mike McCarthy will not return as Cowboys head coach in 2025

The Dallas Cowboys will be joining the NFL coaching search after all, parting ways with Mike McCarthy.


In a shocking turn of events from the momentum of the last week, it is being reported by NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero that Mike McCarthy will not return as head coach of the Dallas Cowboys. The Cowboys finished the 2024 campaign with a record of 7-10, and after five years, McCarthy’s contract has expired with a final record of 49-35.

The two sides had discussed the end of the season and last week it was reported that they had opened negotiations for McCarthy’s return. Apparently the two sides were not eye-to-eye on specifics of the contract length and compensation.

The team had won 12 regular season games for three consecutive years, but a blowout loss to the Green Bay Packers in the 2023 wild-card round took the air out of the balloon. Owner Jerry Jones allowed McCarthy to coach in 2024 with he and almost his entire staff on the final years of their deals, and the club did nothing to change the narrative that they were unable to put together post season success.

Dallas joins a group of six other NFL teams with openings now, with Chicago, New Orleans, Las Vegas, New York Jets and Jacksonville still having openings. The New England Patriots have already hired Mike Vrabel to replace one-and-done coach Jerod Mayo.

Is Mike McCarthy Cowboys’ top choice or just the best bargain?

The Cowboys aren’t looking for the best man for the job at HC and it’s hard to explain why, says @ReidDHanson.

The Dallas Cowboys’ strategy, which fans have begrudgingly accepted, targets “bang for the buck” rather than “best man for the job.” It’s frustrating and needless but at least it’s marginally understandable in the salary capped era of the NFL. But what if the Cowboys are applying the same bargain hunting strategy with their coaching staff as they are with their players?

In an offseason that features multiple highly regarded coaching candidates, the Cowboys seem perfectly content re-signing their head coach, provided, of course, their terms are met.

The Cowboys love themselves some bargains. The NFL’s most frugal free agent spenders have gained quite the reputation in recent years for keeping their purse strings tied tightly during the league’s most expensive event of the offseason.

At a time of the year when contenders and pretenders alike try desperately to lure the objects of their affection to their respective franchises, the Cowboys appear perfectly content sitting things out and waiting for the dust to settle. It’s a free agent strategy fans and local media have grown accustomed to.

Jerry Jones and son Stephen Jones, the top financial decision makers in Dallas, aren’t interested in bidding wars or top-of-the-market outsiders. Even if those types of players are the best ways to improve the roster, they’re costly and the Cowboys don’t like costly.

Following Dallas’ postseason collapse against Green Bay last winter, Mike McCarthy looked like a dead man walking. It was possibly the most embarrassing loss in Cowboys history, and yet another sign McCarthy offered Dallas zero strategic value as a tactician and play-caller. At the time, McCarthy’s departure wasn’t an “if,” but a “when.”

One seven-win season later and McCarthy’s departure suddenly isn’t so imminent. In fact, McCarthy and the Cowboys are said to be taking part in negotiations as we speak.  Whether he’s re-signed tomorrow, next week, or not at all, isn’t the point. The point is the Cowboys are willing to settle for McCarthy if the price and terms are right, assuming reports are correct. Once again, they aren’t interested in the best man for the job, they’re trying to get the best bargain.

Even McCarthy’s biggest supporters would have a tough time arguing he’s a better option than the likes of Ben Johnson, Joe Brady and others. Yet, the Cowboys are seemingly only interested in an outsider if McCarthy won’t meet their terms. It’s a baffling attitude to take since coaching contracts are unencumbered by cap restrictions, and inexcusable since enormously profitable teams like the Cowboys can afford the very best coach the market has to offer.

It’s hard to think of many big games McCarthy has won against an evenly matched opponent. He beat Washington in 2024 and Philadelphia in 2023 but for every one of those borderline big wins, are two or three bigger losses (to evenly matched opponents). If it wasn’t for an 8-9 Tampa Bay team sneaking into the playoffs in 2022, McCarthy would be completely winless in the postseason since coming to Dallas. It’s hard to make the case he’s the best man for the job in Dallas.

But he might be the biggest bargain and that might be all the Cowboys are looking for.

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Cowboys Crossroads: Coaching indecision again places franchise behind provervial 8-ball

The decision the Cowboys make at coach will dictate everything. Deciding on scheme maven or leader is the first step in fixing what’s wrong. | From @ReidDHanson.

The Dallas Cowboys are at a crossroads with their franchise. Much like the prior season, when they had to decide whether or not to re-sign quarterback Dak Prescott, the Cowboys need to determine which direction their team goes at head coach.

Will they re-sign Mike McCarthy to a new contract and stay the course, or will they bring in a new coach and start a new chapter in Dallas? If they choose the former and keep McCarthy, who will they add to the staff to make things better? And if they choose the latter and let McCarthy leave, what style of head coach will be replacing him?

Assuming Jerry Jones’ patience stays intact for the next hire, whoever the head coach hire is in 2025 is likely to be the head coach throughout the rest of the Prescott era. That’s a significant period of time because it coincides with the athletic peaks of players such as CeeDee Lamb, Micah Parsons and Trevon Diggs. As such, the importance of this decision cannot be understated.

The value of coaching has ebbed and flowed throughout the years but in today’s day and age it’s at an absolute premium. The parity in roster talent is extremely tight, often making scheme, strategy, and play design the difference between winning and losing. It’s an area the Cowboys have historically struggled in considerably throughout the last few coaching regimes and an area that’s repeatedly ended in embarrassment.

The importance of such factors has given rise to the Kyle Shanahan coaching tree. Nearly half the NFL now employs some branch of the San Francisco mastermind. His is a system that makes things easy for its signal callers. It simplifies reads, schemes players open, plays out of unpredictable formations and personnel groups and still values the big plays. Different product lines of the Shanahan brand lean on different strengths, but overall, it’s a system that seeks to make things as easy as possible on the offense and as confusing as possible on the opposing defense.

Master-schemers such as Shanahan are en vogue in the NFL right now but curiously so are their polar opposites. Running concurrently to the brainiacs of the NFL are the meatheads, so to speak.

Dan Campbell has taken the NFL by storm with his success in Detroit. The former NFL tight end embodies leadership and inspiration at the coaching ranks. Tough guys like Mike Vrabel and Campbell fit a completely different profile at the head coach position. Their ability to keep order, dictate culture and demand respect has real value in the NFL today, providing a very different alternative to teams looking for a new coaching direction.

The impending split in Detroit will be telling as to which brand of coach is worth more. Both of Campbell’s assistants fall under the scheme-master category. It’s been said it’s their ability to design plays and strategize that makes Campbell’s leadership style work so effectively. But a case could also be made Campbell’s firm position at the top of the flowchart is what allows these brilliant men to get in the weeds and be brilliant in the first place.

The Cowboys have to determine which direction they want to go. They may not even want to go a new direction and choose to stick with McCarthy.

McCarthy isn’t the disciplinarian Campbell and Vrabel are, but he falls under the leadership brand of head coaching rather than scheme master.

That’s not a problem, unless he’s the one left to design gameplans and call plays, as has been the case the last two seasons.

There haven’t been many games where an evenly-matched Cowboys team was able to outcoach the opposing sideline. Whether it’s playoffs or top tier regular season matchups, the Cowboys have been outcoached consistently during the McCarthy tenure. It speaks to the importance of the scheme-master coach and shows that leadership without a gameplan doesn’t amount to much.

There are a number of directions and combinations the Cowboys can go at coach this winter but the one direction they can’t go ignoring the importance of scheme and play design. If they prioritize leadership at head coach, they have to find a way to upgrade and empower a new offensive coordinator to design plays.

The Cowboys’ shrinking window of opportunity depends on it.

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Denied! Cowboys don’t grant Bears interview request for McCarthy, here’s what it could mean

Dallas isn’t ready to relinquish their rights to their head coach, but it doesn’t have to mean he’s returning in 2025.

According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, the Dallas Cowboys are not ready to get off the Mike McCarthy Express. The Chicago Bears, who fired head coach Matt Eberflus during the season, recently requested permission to interview the Cowboys’ head coach for their own vacancy. McCarthy is still under contract with the Cowboys for the next seven days, his five-year contract not expiring until January 14.

While speculation has run rampant over whether or not Dallas intends to retain McCarthy, until that day they have his rights and have to be asked by another franchise to speak to him. On Tuesday, they denied the Bears permission.

Many will speculate that this means a deal between the two sides is in the works, and while that may be the case, this isn’t an indication in either direction.

There are several potential reasons why owner Jerry Jones would not grant the permission, and several potential outcomes to the next week.

For one, Dallas isn’t obligated to play nice with any other team. Sure, it would seem to be the moral thing to do if they weren’t interested in retaining McCarthy and letting his contract expire, but professional sports doesn’t require friendliness.

The team could also still be evaluating their season and finalizing their assessment. While the Cowboys organization knows how to print money, their lack of playoff success over the last 30 years paints a picture of a club unable to conduct football business to fine effect. They moved ridiculously slowly in 2020, when then head coach Jason Garrett’s contract expired and they eventually hired McCarthy.

DLLS Sports’ Clarence Hill seems to indicate that is the case in a responsive tweet to the news.

At the same time, McCarthy may not want to return to the Cowboys and be looking for a fresh start. If Dallas wants him back and McCarthy wants to play the field, or outright be done with the organization, that could lead to the Cowboys wanting to make things difficult on him or a pursuing franchise.

Any of these is as likely a possibility that the two sides are negotiating the parameters around a McCarthy return. Compensation could be a factor, contract length could be a factor, assistant coaches and play-calling duties could be a factor. Negotiations happen on all of these fronts, and the Jones have meddled on such things over and over in their ownership history; there’s no reason to think this is any different.

It would be nice to be able to pinpoint exactly what this latest revelation in the Dallas soap opera means, but until the team actually signs a head coach, keep all options open.