It is hard to not wonder what could have been with Deion Sanders.
The Dallas Cowboys hired Brian Schottenheimer as their new head coach. The team spent a few weeks turning over every rock they wanted to turn over and then enthusiastically deciding that it was Schott’s time to shine. Only time will tell whether or not that ends up being a good decision, but for now, he’s their guy.
Over the years, the Cowboys’ organization has struggled to find the right guy to lead this team. They caught lightning in a bottle when Jerry Jones hired his old roommate Jimmy Johnson in 1989, but have been firing blanks ever since. In the Jones era, he’s had seven coaches take a shot at it with the mid ‘90s team the only group with any real postseason success.
One might say that Jones isn’t very good at finding a head coach. It’s not that all of his choices have been terrible per se, but it’s been a long time since the Cowboys have made it past the divisional round. Whatever they’re doing, it’s not working. Jones has approached it several ways, but nothing has worked. Breaking them down into categories, which types of coaches have had the most success?
Former Coordinators
Scottenheimer was an offensive coordinator for 14 years between the Jets (six years), Rams (three years), Seahawks (three years), and the Cowboys (two years). He joins three other former coordinators who were promoted to head coach of the Cowboys.
Jason Garrett is the most notable, spending three and a half years as the team’s offensive coordinator from 2007 until Week 10 of 2010 when Wade Phillips was fired. He is the longest-tenured head coach of the Jerry Jones era spending nine-plus seasons at the position.
Dave Campo spent five years as the team’s defensive coordinator from 1995 to 1999 before being promoted to head coach in 2000. Campo lasted three seasons, finishing 5-11 in each one.
Chan Gailey spent four years as an offensive coordinator between the Broncos and Steelers. He was hired to replace Barry Switzer in 1998 but only lasted two seasons despite making the playoffs both years.
Retreads
Mike McCarthy was the Green Bay Packers coach for 13 seasons, making the playoffs nine times, including a Super Bowl win (in AT&T Stadium) in 2010. He was fired after Week 13 in 2018 and took the 2019 season off to regroup. The Cowboys hired him in 2020 where he coached the team for five years, three times advancing to the playoffs before Jones moved on from him a couple of weeks ago.
Wade Phillips spent most of his coaching career as a defensive coordinator, but at different times his success would lead to head coaching opportunities. He was the head coach of the Broncos for a couple of years (1993-1994), the Bills for a few years (1998-2000), and then the Cowboys for almost four years (2007-most of 2010). Phillips got off to a hot start his first year, but in fairness, he inherited the team that Bill Parcells built and couldn’t duplicate that strong first season. The Cowboys moved on from Phillips in Week 10 of 2010 after being embarrassed by McCarthy’s Packers.
Bill Parcells is likely the best non-Jimmy hire of the Jones era. Parcells was a seasoned head coach with 15 years of experience between the Giants (eight years), Patriots (four years), and Jets (three years). He won two Super Bowls with the Giants and took the Patriots to the big game in 1996. It looked as if Parcells was on to something in Dallas turning the team around, but left with unfinished business after the 2006 season.
Former College Coaches
Jimmy Johnson was Jerry’s first hire and boy was it a good one. Johnson started coaching in college at a young age and spent 23 seasons at the college level, including five years each as the head coach of Oklahoma State and then Miami. In 1987, his Hurricanes won the National Championship, a team that featured Michael Irvin. He joined a Cowboys team that was one of the worst in the league in 1989, but surprisingly turned them into a Super Bowl winner in just a few short years. The Cowboys won back-to-back Super Bowls in 1992 and 1993. Unfortunately, Texas Stadium wasn’t big enough for both the egos of Jimmy and Jerry resulting in Johnson walking away from the team in 1994.
The quick success of the Cowboys led Jerry to believe that anyone could coach the Cowboys and win. After Johnson left, that anyone was Barry Switzer. A lifetime college coach, Switzer spent time at Arkansas and Oklahoma with his last 17 years as the Sooners head coach. Twice Switzer won the National Championship with Oklahoma. His second win was in 1985 over Johnson’s Hurricanes. Switzer’s collegiate success and friendship with Jones made him an easy choice as Johnson’s successor in Dallas. The Cowboys continued to be one of the best teams in the league under Switzer advancing to the NFC Championship his first year and then back on top as Super Bowl winners the following year. Many will credit Johnson’s team-building skills as the reason for the Cowboys’ continued success and as many of those players left, so did the wins. Switzer was fired after the 1997 season when the team finished with a 6-10 record.
When you look at this data, the hot college coaches are the clear winners. This is largely due to Johnson and then whatever residuals were left over from his team during the Switzer era. It’s hard to draw too much from this, but when you group Jerry’s hire into categories, the college guys win, and it’s not even close. They finished with the better regular season win percentage and ran away with the postseason win percentage.
That is not to say that a hot college coach like, let’s just randomly pick one, okay… Deion Sanders would duplicate this success, but there are some interesting similarities. Besides the strong connection with Jones, Sanders is a hot commodity who is brash and offers huge risks/rewards. It could turn out to be special. But it also could blow up in their face and make the circus even more circusy.
Of course, there are some big differences too. As well as he’s done in Colorado, Sanders’ coaching experience is dwarfed by the extensive coaching of both Johnson and Switzer. While he’s in the college coach category, they are quite different.
Unfortunately, the former coordinators come out on the bottom with the worst regular season winning percentage and a poor playoff showing. Does that mean Schottenheimer’s chances aren’t good? No, but until now, the Cowboys haven’t been able to find the success they’ve been looking for when going this route. Hopefully, Schottenheimer can buck the trend.
