Why Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones will not make an in-season coaching change

On his weekly radio show on 105.3 The Fan on Tuesday morning, Dallas Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones was asked about the status of head coach Mike McCarthy.



With the context that Jones has made one in-season coaching change during his 35-year ownership with the Cowboys when he fired Wade Phillips after a 1-7 start to the 2010 season, the Cowboys owner talked whether he’d make a change this season.

Even though he was adamant after the Cowboys’ 47-9 defeat to the Detroit Lions on Sunday that there would not be any change with the coaching or personnel, the questions still remain about the status of McCarthy as his team sits at 3-3 in the final year of his five-year contract with the Cowboys.

On Tuesday, Jones spoke with certainty about how he will never make another in-season coaching change similar to how he did in 2010.

“I won’t be making any others during the season,” Jerry Jones said.

What about that experience in 2010 has him feeling that an in-season change will never work for his team again?

“We were one-and-seven at that time, one-and-seven,” Jones said. “And I think as I recall, we had gotten beat the week before for about the exact same score [as the Lions’ defeat Sunday]. We were on the road but not at home but about the exact score that we got beat Sunday. We got beat and so I made the change and we had one win. A little bit of difference there.”

Phillips would go on to be the defensive coordinator for the Houston Texans before winning a Super Bowl as the defensive coordinator for the Denver Broncos in 2016. Seeing Phillips move on and have that kind of success has Jones regretting the in-season move he made 14 years ago.

“At that particular time, I did think it was the thing to do,” Jones said. “I think it did produce a positive effect, but we’ll never know. All Wade did was move over to Denver. He didn’t become the head coach. He became the defensive coordinator.”

“It was one of the few times in my 35 years in the NFL that I heard throughout the league that the one coach was responsible for them having the team, and that was Wade Phillips running the defense for Denver when they won the Super Bowl. Now, that was the coach I’d let go out of here just a few years earlier. So, so much for knee jerking on one-and-seven.”

At least as it appears, McCarthy will have the full season to add to his body of work with the Cowboys that includes three consecutive seasons of 12-5 records and just one playoff win with home-field losses in two of the last three postseasons. Six weeks in, the Cowboys sit outside of the playoff picture with 11 games remaining.

This story was originally published October 15, 2024 at 11:03 AM.