I started the conversation three or four years ago, returning each year since, in explaining why the Cowboys don’t sign external free agents. They conduct football operations like a Fortune 500 business that is too big to fail financially, but still doing things woefully incorrectly. This philosophy appears to have leaked into the process that led to Brian Schottenheimer being hired as the latest head coach.

Follow the logic.

Big player contracts are seen as rewards for prior performance to the company. Players earn big deals as thank yous for outperforming their previous contracts, kind of like 9-to-5 workers getting promotions.

Despite his background as an oil guy, Jones has soured on speculation in his later years. Signing external free agents is all about what could be. Sure, a player could have proven his value for a different team, but there’s no guarantee he’ll be the same guy in a new organizational setting, under different coaching.

Signing a guy to a huge amount of guaranteed salary when they’ve never done it in the fishbowl that is Dallas is a gamble the Jones family is no longer willing to take. This is why the club no longer plays the market in the first few waves of free agency. As time goes on, Jones has been less inclined to tread in those waters.

That philosophy has now seeped into his coaching decisions and was on full display with everything that happened since Mike McCarthy’s contract expired at the end of the 2024 regular season.

Jones did not envision a world where McCarthy wasn’t returning as the head coach, reportedly. He wasn’t dutifully prepared for a coaching search, assuming that after backing McCarthy into a corner as a lame-duck for 2024, the bad season on his resume would limit his external opportunities and convince him to return under Jones’ parameters.

Those parameters allegedly included forcing a Jones “family member” (Jason Witten) onto McCarthy’s staff, and a shorter than normal contract length.

The Jones ‘family’ photo, circa 2017.

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— KD Drummond (@kddrummondnfl.bsky.social) January 25, 2025 at 2:11 PM

This was something Jones had done to Wade Phillips over a decade ago. Jones hired his guy, Jason Garrett, before Phillips was brought on board, letting the journeyman coach know his successor was already decided before working his first day on the job.

Accusations exist regarding Garrett potentially purposefully contributing to the unraveling of the 2010 season.

Jones also didn’t care how blocking McCarthy from interviewing with the Chicago Bears would come across to the outside world. When McCarthy balked at the offer, Jones was left scrambling for a solution.

That included a quick conversation with Deion Sanders, a Jones favorite from the 1990 heydays who has shined in the CFB coaching circuit. Sanders was never brought in for an official interview, despite there being a compelling case, but word of their conversation “about the head coach position” was quickly run through the media’s tentacles in what seems to be an effort in distraction.

It feels as if it was used as a cover while the brass formed an ad hoc process, while also attempting to give Sanders leverage in his discussions with his currently employer.

In the end there were only four men interviewed for the head coach opening after McCarthy walked. The two true candidates were Schottenheimer and Kellen Moore, Schottenheimer’s predecessor as offensive coordinator.

Moore is currently employed by the Philadelphia Eagles. He did a virtual interview last Friday, but the Eagles advancing to the NFCCG kept him from a follow up. The Jones family spent the week convincing themselves of Schottenheimer’s worthiness.

The two other coaches Jones interviewed felt out of place. Both were ex-head coaches with horrible records who just so happened to be minorities, thus satisfying the NFL’s Rooney Rule (which is a whole separation serious conversation that needs to be had).

Rober Saleh, 20-36, was fired midseason from the New York Jets and returned to San Francisco earlier Friday to be their defensive coordinator. That likely doesn’t happen if he feels he’s a serious candidate to be the Cowboys head coach. The other was Leslie Frazier, 21-32-1, currently an assistant head coach in Seattle currently.

Were they seriously under consideration? A team with the prestige of the Dallas Cowboys only interviews two candidates who lacked prior ties to the organization and they both had miserable records?

Jones never made a real effort to escape his comfort zone. Transitioning to Schottenheimer was literally the next-best thing to his original plan of keeping McCarthy on the cheap, furthering the idea that the coach’s exodus caught him off guard.

The expected hiring of Matt Eberflus as defensive coordinator supports the idea of Jones’ proclivity to favor those who have worked for him before, rather than outsiders. While it’s being walked back that he’s a sure thing to take over the DC job, most know what it is.

There’s a lot of scuttlebutt the team believes they satisfied the Rooney Rule for coordinators by claiming that Saleh and Frazier were considerations for both HC and DC, as they classified Schottenheimer’s initial interview as being for both HC and OC.

If one walked away from this as them looking to shirk the rules, it’d be tough to argue them down.

All in all though, things seem fairly obvious from the outside looking in. The Jones don’t trust their ability to look outside the organization for help. When it comes to players, there’s nothing that will convince them the risk is worth the reward. When it comes to head coaches, they will trust former champions, but even they could have conditions attached. It’s all a stressful existence for fans who have tied their sports happiness (and sometimes overall joy) to a franchise that has shrunked into it’s turtle shell.