New report makes it unlikely that Ben Johnson would take Cowboys head coaching job

It seems really unlikely that Ben Johnson could be an option for the Dallas Cowboys.

There have been a lot of rumblings in Dallas lately to suggest that Mike McCarthy receiving a contract extension after the year isn’t completely out of the realm of possibility, but the smart money is still on the Cowboys hiring a new coach in just over two months time.

One of the most commonly suggested names for the theoretical vacancy in Dallas is Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson. In the last two hiring cycles, Johnson has been one of the hottest names out there for his role in turning the Lions into an offensive juggernaut, and that seems likely to be the case again this year.

However, on Thursday night ahead of a prime time showdown between the Packers and Johnson’s Lions, Albert Breer shared a report of what Johnson is supposedly looking for in a head coaching gig this year.

The most notable piece of Breer’s report concerned the two sets of criteria Johnson is looking for in his next team.

“Number one: he’ll be looking for organizational alignment, in particular between the GM and the head coach. And then he’ll be looking for a recognition from the organization of the things that have gone wrong and a willingness to fix them.”

To many outside spectators, this criteria would seemingly eliminate the Cowboys from contention before they even have an opening for Johnson to consider. Much of this season has been filled with sharp criticism of the way the Cowboys have handled their roster, whether it be a lackluster performance in free agency or how long they waited to extend both Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb, or even the decision to make McCarthy coach into the final year of his contract as a lame duck.

Through all of the criticism, Jerry and Stephen Jones have refused time after time to admit any mistakes or any fault of their own. Instead, they have doubled down and insisted that the roster is built to win now and that they’ve been “all in” on winning games in 2024.

Jones infamously received some backlash over a particular radio interview where he responded to a question about the shortcomings of the roster by threatening to fire the radio hosts.

“Let me tell you what I’ll do about it. I will let us sit down and look at the decisions we’ve made over the last several years,” Jones said. “Now, if you think I’m interested on a damn phone call with you over a radio and sitting here and throwing all the good out with the dishwater, you have got to be smoking something over there this morning.

“This is not your job. Your job isn’t to let me go over all the reasons that I did something and I’m sorry that I did it. That’s not your job. I’ll get somebody else to ask these questions.”

Jones also wasn’t willing to admit his mistake in opting not to put up curtains over the windows in AT&T Stadium even after his highly-paid star receiver strongly endorsed the idea.

“It’s the largest air conditioned space in the world.” Jones added. “Every venue has certain things that at certain ways and times can create an advantage. That really goes under the category of home field advantage It should be an advantage to the home team…. It has been advantage for us to know where the sun is. I don’t want to change that.”

In thinking back over all the comments Jones has made throughout this trying season, not one of them seems to suggest that the owner and general manager is willing to sit down with any coaching candidate and admit that he’s made mistakes in running his team. That would seem to suggest that any dreams of Johnson coaching the Cowboys next year are just that: a fantasy.