Cupcakes for everyone! Wade Phillips will be back next season!

IRVING -- As pathetically predictable as Coach Wade and his Dallas Cowboys were in Saturday’s sorry sendoff to Texas Stadium, a small consolation existed.

No way Coach Cupcake survived after this mess.

A 33-24 gutless joke of a loss to Baltimore had to spell the end of Wade and his cupcake era, and not a second too soon. Bring on Bill Cowher, or The Redheaded Genius, or really Anybody Not Named Wade for a chance.

“Absolutely not, absolutely not,” Cowboys owner Jerry Jones when pressed on Coach Wade’s chances of imminent unemployment.

Talk about your buzz kills. Not only did Coach Wade help ruin a huge party for fans and legends assembled to bid farewell to Texas Stadium on Saturday, he now apparently has another 16 games to bring his special brand of “ish” football to JerryWorld.

“I don’t have any inclination as I stand here, after this ballgame, about any coaching changes. … And I don’t see (coaching) as an issue,” he added. “And it’s not that fragile. It’s just not that fragile.”

And it isn’t a coaching issue -- if discipline is not important, if an emphasis on special teams is not deemed necessary, if December struggles are OK, if playoff victories are no longer expected, if playoff berths require luck and must be backdoored into with help.

Saturday ensured the Cowboys no longer control their playoff destiny. They need help, most immediately an Atlanta loss to Minnesota to keep them viable. And what then, what if a team Owner Jones had Super Bowl expectations for and dumped Super Bowl money into fails to even qualify for the tournament?

“Let’s try again, if we don’t make it,” Owner Jones said.

He was not being a smart ass. He was being dead-on serious, like another year of Coach Cupcake really actually has a chance of yielding a better finish. Or like selling PSLs to watch this train wreck has mass appeal.

“You don’t think for one minute Bill Parcells Jr. is going to come in here and do any better, do you? He didn’t,” Owner Jones said. “I don’t think (a coaching change) is a cure all. … Do we want to go to college and get one?”

I don’t know. It seemed to work pretty well once.

“But what a price to pay. We were 1-15,” he said. “By the way, he went down to Miami and got run on.”

You know things are ugly when Owner Jones finds himself taking shots at Jimmy Johnson and Bill Parcells in an attempt to bolster Wade. And he pumped him good.

His theory on Wade goes something like this: He is an outstanding defensive coordinator which makes him better as a head coach. The defense is finally fixed and, yes, he is disregarding those two huge touchdown runs by Baltimore to seal the game. Those were a result of a failure to tackle not Mr. Fix-It’s scheme, Jerry explained.

What this seems to underline is Owner Jones obviously has lost faith in his head coach in waiting, the redheaded genius, Jason Garrett. He was always the safety valve. With the offense struggling and possibly even regressing, Owner Jones seems more comfortable sticking with Wade who as a head coach is a really good defensive coordinator.

“As I stand here now it, just doesn’t make sense,” Owner Jones said. “He’s only been here two years.”

And what a two years this has been with bye-week victories and 13 Pro Bowlers and being able to claim that the better team lost last year in the playoffs. Of course, Owner Jones admitted none of this is the goal. He is still a Super Bowl guy.

“The point is, in no way, does this cause me to think or make me think we need to do something different so we’ll switch the coaching staff. That is not a consideration, just not a consideration.”

Apparently neither is winning.

So cupcakes for everybody, let’s all celebrate at least 17 more games of mediocrity.

So while I ponder how the last two real defensive plays at Texas Stadium were 77 and 82-yard touchdown runs, let’s chow down on a special edition of Sunday Morning Musings:

1. How did assembled Cowboy legends feel about Saturday’s loss? &*%& and ^&*(%.

Oh my, did I hear a few naughty words.