Is Jerry Jones happy now? Return of top coaching staff was vital for Dallas Cowboys
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones was mad. Then he became content. And now he is happy again.
Those are the three stages of Jones’ early offseason, an arc that spans three weeks since the disappointing end to his team’s season on Jan. 16 to learning Sunday that he would be able to retain the Cowboys’ top three leadership positions on the coaching staff.
In the days immediately following the Cowboys’ bitter 23-17 loss in the first round of the playoffs, the acknowledgment that head coach Mike McCarthy would be allowed to return was not a foregone conclusion. But, eventually, he did receive that reassurance.
A week ago Jones called the team’s ability to keep defensive coordinator Dan Quinn with the club “a major coup” after six teams had sought to interview him for their head coach openings.
And on Sunday when the Miami Dolphins chose San Francisco 49ers offensive coordinator Mike McDaniel as its new head coach over Cowboys offensive coordinator Kellen Moore, it cemented the continuity of the team’s top three coaches.
Happy now?
Well, you should be.
Continuity is key to success.
Nearly a month of anger that began with Jones refusing to endorse McCarthy and saying he wanted to evaluate the staff, which led to rumors regarding former New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton coming to Dallas has ended with the status quo.
The threat of losing that with Quinn and Moore being courted for other jobs is likely what frightened Jones the most.
And so for the first time since 2017 and 2018, the Cowboys will have the same top leadership on its coaching staff in consecutive seasons.
Only receivers coach Adam Henry is not returning and he will be replaced by Richard Prince, who coached with Houston Texans last season.
No matter what you feel about McCarthy’s game management or Moore’s late-season play calling, their return can only be seen as a positive.
The Cowboys have a number of decisions to make regarding player personnel for 2022 with 21 unrestricted free agents and a possible restructuring of the contracts of receiver Amari Cooper and defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence.
But major changes are not on the docket for the coaching staff in the team’s quest to build on last season’s 12-5 record and finally end the 26-year gap of they not reaching the Super Bowl. A title is obviously the team’s main focus, but the Cowboys have not had back-to-back 10-win seasons in 25 years, and it’s been 14 years since they last made the playoffs in consecutive seasons.
As much McCarthy’s description of his team being nervous before the 23-17 wild card loss to the San Francisco 49ers may make you want to cringe, you would also have to agree that the team’s discomfort was rooted in its unfamiliarity in the moment combined with the pressure of past failures hanging over its head.
This recent habit of the Cowboys following up a good season with a bad one has to stop.
Certainly, teams can break through in one year as evidenced by the Cincinnati Bengals reaching the Super Bowl for the first in 33 years by winning as many playoff games in this postseason (three) as the Cowboys have won since 1996.
But the true key to playoff success is being a postseason regular and building on your experiences.
Having some staff consistency and continuity is part of that equation, and that’s what the Cowboys have as they head into 2022.
Now this doesn’t mean everything was perfect with the coaching staff and that they don’t have improvements to make — especially with Moore and an offense, whose late-season struggles belies their final ranks as the league’s top unit in terms of yards and points.
They need to be better in the red zone, against heavy coverage looks and on the ground.
But Moore is just in his third season as an offensive coordinator and play caller so improvement is expected.
That staff continuity should also pay dividends for quarterback Dak Prescott, who admittedly struggled at the end of a season in which he threw for a team-record 37 touchdown passes.
He will have a full offseason for the first time since McCarthy took over as coach in 2020.
Prescott was a holdout in McCarthy’s first season in a contract dispute, and he missed last offseason rehabbing from a fractured ankle that sidelined him for the final 11 games in the 2020 season.
None of this guarantees success but comfort, consistency and continuity are steps in the right direction and should prove more fruitful to super results than anger and rash decisions.
