Jason Witten could have been an heir apparent plan in Jerry Jones’ eyes.
Tuesday marked the first full day in which the Dallas Cowboys were officially looking for a new head coach and little progress was made in terms of officially-reported things.
It would stand to reason that the Cowboys are busy working the phones and formulating a plan for who their leader (aka the one who reports to their ownership) will be in the near future. At this point in time the closest thing there has been to a report of someone being legitimately connected was Deion Sanders.
While it has not reached even the level that Deion’s name did relative to reports, another name that has been thrown out by various insiders so far in this experience has been one that Cowboys fans know well – Jason Witten.
Interestingly, the last time we saw Witten affiliated with the Cowboys was right before the Mike McCarthy era began. He was not retained when Mike took over and left to play a season for the Las Vegas Raiders before getting into coaching. He has been at the high school level and has had success by way of winning a state championship recently, but with all due respect that is obviously not the NFL.
Still though the idea of Witten continues to be floated out in an apparently-serious way and we have offered some thoughts on that in a general sense.
Tuesday evening brought with it quite the report from NFL Network’s Jane Slater on the matter. After speaking on the Deion front and saying she has been trying to find out information on other names like Texas’ Steve Sarkisian, Pete Carroll and Jon Gruden… she noted that it is possible that the Cowboys wanted Witten to be some sort of heir apparent to Mike McCarthy.
A lot to unpack here. Been on the phone non stop here is what I’ve gathered from Deion to Witt to Kellen. Jerry is currently on a solo mission. No official interviews or calls even placed to some. Here is what I have gathered for you. #CowboysHCSearch pic.twitter.com/9OzVVwy7Cz
— Jane Slater (@SlaterNFL) January 15, 2025
“It’s been my understanding that Jerry has talked to Jason in recent weeks and I do believe that he was part of a plan that Jerry initially had when he was going to bring back Mike McCarthy. I think the plan there was to make him an heir apparent of sorts. Mike McCarthy sort of surprised him by deciding that he wanted to end these conversations, pursue something else, we can call it negotiations, contract conversations… whatever you want to call them. Now we’ll see if Jason Witten will still be in play here. I just don’t know if that would be in a head coach role, but I do believe that he thinks very strongly of Jason Witten and his future as a coach. I just don’t know in what capacity that would look like.”
This is… something. As noted Witten does not have any coaching experience in either the collegiate ranks or the NFL. In that vein it makes sense to bring him in as someone who could learn at the foot of a different head coach, but it is also fair to understand Mike McCarthy not wanting to do that if that is ultimately what happened.
It will be somewhat telling if Witten does ultimately wind up on the Cowboys staff, whether as the head coach or as the “heir apparent” to someone else. That would seemingly signal that the plan is in fact for Witten to ultimately take over.
We will see.
