Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones sounds ready for change.
During a Tuesday interview with 105.3 The Fan, Jones admitted that the Cowboys are “not playing very good football right now” after their 3-3 start and recent 47-9 blowout loss to the Detroit Lions.
“Well, we’re designing bad plays, or we’re designing bad concepts,” Jones said on what Dallas should be looking at right now. “The facts are that there’s some of that, but there’s also some of execution. There’s some of the talent.
“I like our talent. I really do like our talent. I like our young talent, but young talent has a few more mistakes associated with it than if you are dealing with a veteran player.”
The comments about bad plays and bad concepts are going to suck up the oxygen, as will the fact that Jones made all these remarks while discussing why the team didn’t sign Baltimore Ravens running back Derrick Henry in free agency.
However, it’s the comment about maximizing the team’s talent and limiting the mistakes of its young talent in particular that hint where Dallas might be going in 2025.
In what was purported to be a make-or-break year for coach Mike McCarthy, Dallas looks like one of the most mediocre teams in football. This is right after re-signing franchise pillars like quarterback Dak Prescott and wide receiver CeeDee Lamb to gigantic contracts, too.
The Cowboys sit at 29th in DVOA for their defense and 26th in offense. The team only has one good win this season against the Pittsburgh Steelers to match against two against the Cleveland Browns and New York Giants.
With a gauntlet schedule coming up (49ers, Falcons, Eagles, Texans, Commanders), it’s possible Dallas loses all five of those games if the team can’t play better than it has. A Cowboys team in free fall could inspire Jones to part ways with McCarthy midseason and signal he’s ready for new leadership. We all know who his first phone will probably be in January.
Jones just turned 82. He’s not the type of owner who can afford to tear the franchise down and build it back up again. Like he said, Dallas has talent. It has the pieces right now to at least make the playoffs. If Jones feels that his roster needs more discipline and his team needs an immediate jolt of proven coaching, he is going to hire Bill Belichick as his next coach.
Belichick has become a media darling this season, seemingly unbothered by even calling out the Patriots. However, everything points to him wanting to return to coaching in 2025. Belichick is chasing Don Shula’s all-time winning mark as a coach. Dallas hypothetically gives him as good a chance to do that as any other team that could make a coaching change.
Jones has said in the past that he thinks he could work with his “friend” Belichick, who recently empathized with the Jones family over how things are going in Dallas.
“Stephen and Jerry Jones have shelled out a lot of money to some very high profile players and have tried to give the team as many resources as they can to win and just haven’t had good results,” Belichick said on Sirius XM’s Let’s Go last week, per The Athletic‘s Jon Machota.
If you read between the lines on that particular quote, it sure sounds like a coach trying to butter up a franchise from afar for the team they’ve built. Remember what Jones said about talent. If you’re interviewing with the Cowboys in January about a possible vacancy, promising to utilize the talent available to you is one of the surest ways to get the job.
It’s really not hard to see Jones selling himself on a vision of Belichick riding in on a white horse to rescue his franchise from stagnation, to fix the defense himself and help guide the offense to more consistency. We’re sure Belichick brings Josh McDaniels with him, who was always one of the NFL’s better offensive coordinators with the New England Patriots.
Sure, Jones could always get lured into the direction of a hot-shot offensive coach like Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson. But consider the risk there. Attractive coordinators like Johnson who make the leap to head coaching fail all the time just as often as they succeed. Being a head coach is tough, much less being one who has seven Super Bowls under his belt.
Jones being in his early eighties will play a role in what he does next, as Father Time waits for no NFL owner. Hiring Belichick carries its own risks, from if his old-school approach to leading a team has grown stale to how much control he’ll want over a roster the Jones family has prized in maintaining. However, the risk it doesn’t carry is Belichick’s record.
For Jones, that might be enough to make this happen this winter. McCarthy’s days in Dallas feel numbered barring a major turnaround. Jones is not going decorate his franchise with dynamite for a multi-year turnaround. He will want results as soon as possible, and Belichick will be the best coaching free agent for which to envision a quick turnaround and a Lombardi.
It’s not necessarily that Belichick will be the best candidate, but he will be the one that helps Jones sleep easier at night. Don’t underestimate an owner who is clearly tired of being the butt of the joke going out and getting the 21st century’s NFL model of consistency to save his franchise from tepid results.
This inevitable union just makes too much sense for both sides. Jones would get the coach he’s dreamed of, the one who has already followed in the footsteps of Tom Landry and Jimmy Johnson.
Belichick would get a ready-made roster that he could bend to his will for those coveted all-time victories with full support from ownership the second he walks in the door.
Maybe it winds up with a Cowboys Super Bowl. Maybe it winds up a Texas-sized disaster. Either way, the big, neon arrows are pointing its direction.
