Surprisingly, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones didn’t upstage the Packers-Eagles playoff game by announcing that Mike McCarthy won’t return as head coach. Not surprisingly, Jones upstaged Monday night’s Vikings-Rams playoff game by arranging for the leak of the news that Jones has spoken to Colorado coach Deion Sanders.
The disclosure provides a mutual benefit to Sanders and the Cowboys. It helps him possibly get more money from Colorado, it legitimizes him as a potential NFL coach in the future (even though he insisted during the 2023 season that he would never coach in the NFL), and it gives the Cowboys’ job cache up the ying yang.
Jerry surely will look for even more sizzle, with more strategic leaks of big names. On Sunday, for example, a story might emerge during the Rams-Eagles playoff game on NBC and Peacock that Jones has spoken to North Carolina coach Bill Belichick.
There’s another name to keep an eye on. Former Cowboys tight end Jason Witten. Some with knowledge of the dynamics of the organization believe he will at some point (not necessarily now) be the Cowboys’ head coach. And if McCarthy had agreed to proceed with a short-term contract, Witten might have joined the staff for some NFL coaching experience before ascending to the top job.
With McCarthy gone, maybe Jerry Jones takes a page out of the Jim Irsay playbook. After foolishly firing Frank Reich early in the 2022 season, Irsay even more foolishly hired former Colts center Jeff Saturday, who had limited coaching experience exclusively at the high-school level.
Witten has been the head coach at Liberty Christian School in Argyle, Texas for the last four years. He has no other coaching experience. At the end of the day, that might not matter to Jones.
Another possibility would be for Jones to hire someone like Pete Carroll, who would take the job with the understanding that he will groom Witten to take over, at the right time.
Regardless of how it plays out, and now might not be the right time for Witten to move to the NFL level, watch for his name to at least be mentioned, if for no other reason to make Witten’s possible future arrival in Dallas less stunning that Saturday’s was in Indianapolis.