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The Dallas Cowboys have their man, as they have hired former Green Bay Packers head coach Mike McCarthy to try and get the team where Jason Garrett couldn’t. For 10 years, with multiple offensive and defensive coordinators and a litany of position coaches, the Cowboys tried to find the right formula to operate under the ownership of Jerry Jones.
Garrett’s coaching career seemingly ended in Dallas the way he began it; with an offensive coordinator forced on the head coach. Garrett was hired as OC before the Jones’ settled on Wade Phillips. Garrett spent 2019 as the head coach while Kellen Moore called the offense. Now, with McCarthy in the building, the questions once again swirl around the staff that will be in place.
There are well-reasoned rumors that McCarthy may have to follow in Garrett’s footsteps and have some of his staff chosen for him. Moore, wide receivers coach Sanjay Lal, quarterback coach Jon Kitna and offensive line coach Marc Colomobo are all reported to have a year remaining on their respective contracts.
Whether or not those guys, as well as other positions such as the strength and conditioning coaches are retained are part of the interesting (chaotic?) nature of the next order of business for the franchise.
How much control over these choices will McCarthy have?
Was he able to convince the Jones’ to allow him to do things his way? Is he able to fire any of the assistants he doesn’t think will be able to coach the way he wants things coached, or will he be saddled with pieces that he doesn’t get to control?
Jones runs his football operations as he does what some would consider a routine business. He sits atop the organizational and day-to-day totem, though over the last half decade he’s ceded some of that control to his son, executive VP Stephen Jones.
It hasn’t resulted in the ultimate on-field success in 25 years, though the team’s value has skyrocketed thanks to Jones’ direction. Most other NFL organizations, both successful and middling, have a structure where the head coach is seen as the end-all be-all for the players and they are allowed to construct the makeup of the coaching staff on their own. Jones, in nearly every head coaching situation he’s been a part of, refuses to see it that way. The coaches all work for him and report to him.
How much he demanded that be in place with McCarthy remains to be seen. When Bill Parcells was hired, the only other head coach Jones has employed who had a Super Bowl victory on his resume, he was allowed to bring in his own coaches, but Jones asked him to consider retaining Mike Zimmer on Parcell’s new staff.
Is he requesting the same consideration now with any of the current coaching staff, or demanding it, the way he did with Garrett and Phillips? Do the Joneses want him to be a walk-around coach, allowing the coordinators to manage the scheme and playcalling duties?
It’s an interesting dynamic that will likely determine the fate of the hire in the long run.
Here’s a run down of several open-ended questions about the makeup of McCarthy’s staff.
Offensive Coordinator
As mentioned above, Moore is under contract for the 2020 season. He brought about imaginative playcalling for the most part, though the offense sometimes bogged down and was unable to score a single touchdown in two different games, including the de facto NFC East championship game against the Eagles in Week 16. He did, however, construct an offense that was near the top of many statistical categories, both basic and advanced analytics.
Moore ran a version of Air Coryell’s offense in 2019, though how much of that is him and how much was Garrett’s is a big unknown, and McCarthy is a West Coast guy, through and through. This reminds of when Parcells was hired, he kept Zimmer and then asked his DC to run the 3-4 defense instead of the 40 front.
Defensive Coordinator
Rod Marinelli and Kris Richard are both out of contract. There’s plenty of potential, high-powered names that can be considered here, including the only other coach Dallas interviewed, former Bengals HC and Ravens defensive savant Marvin Lewis. Also to be considered are Jim Haslett, who McCarthy had on his think tank during his time off in 2019, when he re-evaluated how he coached and studied the league through and through to determine trends and analytical advantages.
The possibility of an impact name here is very high.
.@TomPelissero on @nflnetwork says the name to watch for the Dallas Cowboys defensive coordinator under Mike McCarthy is Mike Nolan.
— RJ Ochoa (@rjochoa) January 6, 2020
Will the Cowboys remain a 4-3 defense like they have since Parcells and Phillips left the building? If they make a transition back to the 3-4, how much of the current personnel match that?
Dallas has a healthy amount of free agency questions and this decision, more than anything, will determine how March goes.
Offensive Line Coach
The Packers ran a zone-blocking scheme under McCarthy, so there shouldn’t be much shift as far as what Dallas has been doing with their vaunted offensive line. The question is whether McCarthy has his own man or will be looking to keep Colombo.
Special Teams Coach
The Cowboys’ special teams play has been an abject disaster after the club lost Rich Bissacia. They ranked 30th in teams’ DVOA in 2019, failing on coverages and having the worst place kicker the league has seen in half a decade.
Other Vacancies
The Cowboys do have a QB coach (Kitna) and WR coach (Lal) in place, but even if those guys return McCarthy will still need to decide on a running back coach, tight ends coach, defensive line coach, linebackers coach and a secondary coach. Those decisions will steer the direction of the Cowboys in 2020 just as much as the hire of McCarthy will.
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