When Cowboys owner Jerry Jones assessed the future of coach Mike McCarthy by saying “we’ll see how each game goes” in the playoffs, my own mind went back to the notion that, if McCarthy doesn’t deliver at least an NFC Championship, McCarthy could be out — and Bill Belichick could be in.
It’s not as crazy as it sounds. Belichick, by saying he’d be willing to surrender some power to stay in New England, was also sending a message to potential future employers. And if Belichick is willing to defer to anyone when it comes to shopping for the groceries with which Belichick would cook the meal, it’s Jerry and Stephen Jones.
Here’s what Belichick said about the Joneses before the Patriots played the Cowboys during the 2023 regular season: “I have a ton of respect for Jerry and Stephen, and the way they run the organization down there. They’ve had decades of success. They were really the team of the ‘90s with Jimmy [Johnson] and they’ve been good. They’ve been competitive every year, obviously more than competitive. They’ve had a lot of great players down there. Tony [Romo] had a great run.
“Those are great years there with Tony, Coach [Bill] Parcells. We played them here in the early 2000s, but I always keep an eye on them, just the way they do things. They’ve gotten a lot of players that they’ve gotten a lot of production from that I’d say aren’t big-name players — free agents, guys that they dig out down there. I think their scouting staff does a good job. They’re very experienced. Almost all of their scouts have been with the Cowboys their entire career, so they home-grow them and they learn their system. I think they manage their personnel really well. Stephen kind of runs that with their personnel department, but, I mean, very consistent organization. They show up every week, every year pretty good. So, I have a ton of respect for them, definitely watch what they do and how they do it and try to learn from it.”
More than four years ago, as the Cowboys and Patriots prepared to square off in the regular season, Jones shared a story about an interaction from a bygone year with Belichick. Here’s the tweet from Jon Machota of TheAthletic.com: “After Bill Belichick was fired by the Cleveland Browns in the mid-90s, he ran into Jerry Jones at a ski resort. Jones said Bill told the Cowboys owner not to forget about him if he had an opening in the future. Jones says he still thinks about that from time to time.”
Said Belichick in 2019 when asked about that anecdote: “I have all the respect in the world for Jerry. He’s totally committed to winning. That organization is committed to winning. . . . The Cowboy organization is obviously one of the premier franchises in all of sports, National Football League. They’ve done so much for the game, so much for the league, since they’ve come in the league in 1960. Of course, Jerry, Stephen, the entire organization down there has had a tremendous amount of success, and been a very exemplary organization in terms of running a football team and being competitive through the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s, now, they’re just, they string a lot of good years, a lot of championship seasons together. So, I have a ton of respect for what they’ve done, how consistent they’ve been, the way they do things.”
Really, what makes more sense for Belichick, going to a non-playoff team in need of a rebuild? Or going to an organization with a playoff-caliber roster that simply needs a great coach?
It all could come down to whether McCarthy can at least get the Cowboys back to the NFC Championship, for the first time since 1995. Who knows? It might even take a Super Bowl appearance to get Jerry to resist the temptation to cast his lot with the GOAT of coaches.
