Why the Dallas Cowboys opening is the best coaching job on the market
Jason Garrett is finally, mercifully out as the Dallas Cowboys head coach.
Make no mistake, this is a lifetime achievement award, not a reaction to the team’s disappointing 8-8 season. The Clapper was consistently the league’s most uninspiring coach. No one did less with more.
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Whether Jason Garrett is reallocated or terminated remains to be seen. The latest reports indicate that after a face to face meeting this week, the Cowboys are letting Garrett’s contract run out on 17 January rather than firing him outright. Why that distinction matters is anyone’s guess. The result is the same: Garrett is out, and the search for a new coach is already underway.
The Cowboys haven’t won a Super Bowl since January 1996, and yet they remain the most talked about team in the league. They are the most valuable franchise in American sports. To some, that comes with unusual pressures. Jerry Jones is cast as a villainous figure who wants to win now, restore the Cowboys as America’s Team and in doing so claim some of the plaudits for himself.
But are those expectations any different than with other franchises? Would you rather work for Jones, who flashes competence but speaks to the media multiple times a week, or the silent Daniel Snyder, who only ever opens his mouth to remind us just how dumb he is?
How you respond that goes a long way to determining whether the Dallas opening is the best on the market or the worst.
Rarely are coaches as good or bad as they are in the moment. Garrett could argue that he’s been hard done by, that the expectations set for him were unrealistic, based as much on the team’s history (built in an era before the salary cap) than anything else. In the past five seasons, the Cowboys are 44-36, a solid if unspectacular record. In the Dak Prescott era, the team is 40-24, a remarkable record. Dig deeper and the numbers are more impressive: Dallas has had a top 10 unit (offense or defense) each of the past four seasons, with the offense topping out as the second-best in the league, and the defense as the ninth best. Only the Patriots and Seahawks can match that.
Talent is littered throughout the roster. And that, more than the overall record, is why Garrett is out. The talent has been there. But something about their deployment has always felt stodgy, outdated, unimaginative.
2019 was a season too far. It was the umpteenth consecutive year the Cowboys preached cultural and stylistic change and the umpteenth consecutive year in which they finished with one of the league’s most predictable records. Good, but not good enough – talent dragging Garrett and his staff to a blah record.
Where they turn next is an interesting question. Across the NFL it seems we are seeing a correction to last year’s overreach for young offensive assistants. More guys with head-coaching experience are being considered, and defensive coaches aren’t being dismissed. The one hire confirmed so far (Ron Rivera in Washington) is proof of both. More are coming.
College hotshots Lincoln Riley (Oklahoma), Matt Rhule (Baylor), and Urban Meyer (ex-Ohio State and Florida) have been mooted as fits in Dallas, but there doesn’t appear to be much traction. They could look internally again, with defensive coordinator Kris Richard an ever-present name on the soon-to-be-head-coaches lists, and Kellen Moore, the young pup offensive coordinator who dazzled early in the year with an offense built around motions and shifts, both alien concepts under Garrett. Dallas is expected to interview all of the NFL assistants who’ve been tagged with this year’s “guru” label – offensively and defensively.
Will coaches with such resumes be drawn to Dallas? Or somewhere where they’re given more influence, real or perceived?
To answer those, you have to answer two further questions: Does Jerry Jones really interfere? And if he does, has it been so bad?
Jones has routinely claimed he does not overrule his coaches, a claim we take about as seriously as OJ Simpson’s pledge to find the real killers. In Jones’ world, he acts like any other general manager: he picks the players, makes suggestions, and lets his coaching staff go to work. That he’s also the man who controls whether or not a coach can pay his mortgage seems lost on Jones, though not his staff.
But Jones does cede some control. Like any owner, he signs off on a franchise’s biggest decisions – top draft picks, free agents, contract extensions – but vice president of player personnel Will McClay handles the day-to-day running of the team. Jerry is not scouring the tape of potential practice squad candidates.
And the Cowboys recent dips into the draft and trade markets have been excellent. The team’s offensive line remains one of the best in football. They found their starting quarterback in the fourth round. The front seven is good, led by DeMarcus Lawrence, a superstar, and Robert Quinn, who looked cooked in LA but rebounded this year with 11.5 sacks in Dallas, all for the cost of a sixth-round pick. All this a year after trading for Amari Cooper, which effectively gave Garrett a stay of execution.
If you take the coaching job in Dallas, you must concede that Jones and McClay are picking the players. But based on their track record, that should probably inspire more confidence. Dallas has 15 Pro Bowlers on its rosters (with the obvious caveat that fan votes make up a portion of Pro Bowl selections). Jason Witten and Sean Lee are cooked at this point. But there’s plenty of juice left to squeeze out of the roster:
Dak Prescott
Ezekiel Elliott
Amari Cooper
Michael Gallup
Tyron Smith
Zach Martin
Travis Frederick
La’El Collins
Byron Jones
DeMarcus Lawrence
Robert Quinn
Jaylon Smith
Leighton Vander Esch
Michael Bennett
Xavier Woods
Not all of those players can hang around long-term. Dallas is due to give Prescott a mega-money extension, one that by dent of him being next in line will likely make him the highest-paid player in the league – until the next quarterback is due an extension. That will cap out this current roster. Which makes the swirling Prescott question even more important.
Most head coach candidates are agnostic to team preference. That this is the team of Tom Landry and Jimmy Johnson means little. Instead, they ask themselves one question: Is the team’s quarterback great? If not, what capital does the team have to acquire a great quarterback this offseason through the draft, free agency or a trade.
Prescott is emerging as the ultimate stats-v-eye-test guy. The eye test paints Prescott as a high tier-two quarterback who flashes tier-one moments. Stats say otherwise; stats say he is already a top-eight pass, right among the best of the best. Prescott is one of only 21 players since the merger to throw 30 or more touchdowns and 11 or fewer interceptions. Here are the eleven active players: Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Russell Wilson, Drew Brees, Ben Roethlisberger, Matt Ryan, Kirk Cousins, Lamar Jackson, Cam Newton, Carson Wentz and Prescott himself. Not bad company. The first five will all make the Hall of Fame; who knows how many of the rest will (the over-under set at two). Prescott finished first in total value in 2019, sixth in efficiency, third in average air-yards, and fourth in QBR. Those are elite numbers, no matter your definition of that ever-evolving word.
Prescott is the kind of quarterback any coach wants to work with: an efficient passer who’s mobile enough to break the pocket and create offense by himself. Which job opening has a more proven, young quarterback? Cleveland with Baker Mayfield? Nope. Carolina with Cam Newton? It’s no certainty he will even be there.
Everything about the Cowboys job suggests it’s the very best on the market. “You know what you are going to get from Jerry Jones,” an executive told SI.com this week. “He is going to talk (to media) once or twice a week, he’s going to be involved in everything, but you’ve got superior talent and really no cost restrictions. They will do whatever it takes.”
Restoring a glamorous franchise to the top of the pyramid – leading the Cubs or Red Sox to the World Series or ending Liverpool’s league title drought – will appeal to a certain kind of coach. There is not a microphone Jerry Jones will run from, but like anywhere else, win enough and there won’t be a problem.
