We are a society of great publishers. And the strange thing is that, very often, the loudest agitators and agitators of the mob have a fact-based past that is the very antithesis of the ideals they claim to have and the ideas they profess. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is a person that contains a multitude of good and bad. This is also the kind of person I’m referring to.
In Jones’ case, it’s the self-proclaimed rich man persona. He said just a few months ago that there was nothing more dangerous than an old man with money. Besides car keys and a Facebook account, Jones is right about his views on the elderly. These are very dangerous resources that older people have access to. The mistake is to associate yourself with the kind of man who spends “dangerously” on his football team. It is that’s just not true. Jones’ statement Tuesday that there is no correlation between paying a head coach a lot of money and winning football games is also factually inaccurate. This one came after Jones was challenged by hosts of a weekly radio spot on whether the Cowboys had applied the appropriate resources to an uncapped area of the football team where Jones could theoretically display that wealth.
After conversations with industry veterans, it is estimated that Jones is most likely in the bottom five in the NFL when it comes to coaching expenses, taking into account both head coach and coordinators. A third industry source felt Dallas wasn’t that low in coaching spending, but not that far off. The Most Expensive Coaches in the NFL Right Now are three-time Super Bowl winner Andy Reid; John Harbaugh, former Super Bowl winner, now reviving the Giants despite losing more talent between offseasons; and former Super Bowl winner Sean Payton, who took one of the NFL’s most cash-strapped teams to the playoffs and then the AFC title game in subsequent seasons.
Also in this conversation are perennial contenders such as Kyle Shanahan and Sean McVay. Mike Vrabel, who cost significantly more than his Patriots predecessor, Jerod Mayo, took a team to four wins in the Super Bowl the following season.
Since 2023, coaches who have generated some degree of bidding war or multi-team interest that led to an above-average contract include: Payton, DeMeco Ryans, Jim Harbaugh, Ben Johnson, Liam Coen, Mike Vrabel, Kevin Stefanski, John Harbaugh and Jesse Minter. Jones, I suppose, draws on examples like Aaron Glenn and, to broaden the scope of what we’re looking at, Matt Rhule. Both of these coaches represented significant and costly changes for their respective organizations that did not pan out.
But, as many experts in the field will tell you, the amount of intellectual property in coaching is currently very limited, which inflates the cost and ultimately legitimizes the benefits over the cost. This is especially true when it comes to having a steady hand in the role of point guard who can also lead an organization from a leadership perspective. McVay, Shanahan, Reid, Payton, Johnson, Coen, Kevin O’Connell and Matt LaFleur are golden geese in that sense. This helps make what many NFL relay thinkers believe to be the modern NFL’s most definitive advantage: continuity. (Especially in a NIL era where players are coming out of college less capable of immediately diving into the complexities of an NFL offense.)
These coaches can evolve the nuances of a program from year to year and delve deeper into the difficulty of their preparation, while building an ever-expanding bank of material on which to draw. Jones views his team and the drama he creates around the organization, as well as its sprawling ancillary shops, hotels and restaurants, as the destination rather than the performance of the football team itself. It’s very easy to draw a line between the Cowboys’ lack of success and Jones’ shift from a win-hungry fan/owner to an ideologue more concerned with the overall financial growth of the product.
Jones tries to start a conversation that has no basis in reality. When Cowboys part ways with McCarthy at end of annual layoff cycle— also with money at the root of the issue — league sources were hesitant to pair Jones with high-profile candidates at the time for two main reasons: Jones tends to skimp on this, and Jones has a type when it comes to his head coaches (i.e., ones who won’t cut into his air time or share of the credit).
The Cowboys weren’t even in the conversation for Johnson, the runaway success story of the 2025 coaching class, despite having a perennial top-10 quarterback in Dak Prescott. The existence of a proven quarterback position, or the ability to select one very quickly, is one of the primary prerequisites for a sought-after coaching candidate who is not simply grateful to have “one of 32 jobs.” While Brian Flores and the defensive coordinator position are a completely different case – sources close to the coach paint a picture of an ideal setup in Minnesota that allows Flores to be a true “head coach of the defense” and that Flores wouldn’t pass up his chance for a lateral move, thus making him a very unlikely candidate to step in and save the Dallas defense this offseason, even with a blank check – the feeling is that Dallas wasn’t looking for the financial barriers at the coordinator position defensive was probably true and that Flores was well, far from Jones’ price range is accurate. (A second caveat: I loved Parker’s hiring, and he is considered an ascending coach in this league with experience under one of the best defensive coordinators of all time, Vic Fangio.)
The only line that can be drawn between Jones’ business success and his football success is that Jones is a buyer of distressed assets. His best quarterbacks after Troy Aikman were an undrafted free agent (Tony Romo) and a fourth-round pick (Prescott). His best pro personnel moves — see: 2025 George Pickens — are the result of another team incredibly tired of dealing with one person. His best coaching decision was hiring Dan Quinn, who had recently been fired as head coach of the Falcons, as defensive coordinator. Jones takes these swings because he is invincible as a de facto general manager and takes no responsibility when they don’t work out, or if the player becomes exactly who his former team made him to be. McCarthy was coming off a Packers firing and year off, during which many legitimate questions about his success tied to Aaron Rodgers and Brett Favre percolated. Brian Schottenheimer, one of the most astonishing coaching hires of the last two decadeswas quintessential Jones: an attempt by Temu to get the benefits of a consistent signal-caller and men’s-leading head coach without paying one. Jones, during Schottenheimer’s opening press conference, conflated experience and lineage with the fact that Schottenheimer had 16 seasons as an offensive coordinator or head coach. Nine of those seasons saw his team finish outside the top 10 in points scored, five of them outside the top 20 in points scored, 10 of them outside the top 10 in rushing yards per attempt and all but two of them outside the top 10 in net passing yards per attempt.
Some NFL teams are so far ahead of the curve in terms of hiring head coaches that they have refined analytics that can determine a coach’s individual effectiveness as a player, isolate their individual accomplishments, and use them during the hiring process. Jones, it seems, refused to even watch Pro Football Reference.
This creates an interesting thought: it is quite likely that the only way for Jones to go after a coach suspected of being the guy this is if the coach had a significant amount of compensation money from a currently active contract. While this example is my thought and my only thought, former Cowboys quarterback and OC Kellen Moore would be a classic Jones hire because he is both a predictable personality who runs around Jones like the sun and, if the Saints were to move on from Moore after this season, would likely cut some of those costs.
That is, of course, if Jones could even bear to pay the remainder of an existing contract (Schottenheimer’s). While I don’t believe Schottenheimer should be fired just yet — I think Jones has noticed Schottenheimer’s endearing personality and consummate likability, which can sometimes save teams struggling with high expectations, and Schottenheimer has brought in some of his own recruits like offensive coordinator Klayton Adams — Jones must, at some point, take ownership of a mess that is entirely his own. Its budget team and its budget coach are, like many products on promotion, the reflection of a world that no longer wanted them.
The only thing more dangerous than a rich old man, it seems, is one who is blinded by pride.
Add us as your favorite source on GoogleFollow
Gn sports
