The NFL world was thrown into a frenzy on Monday night when multiple reporters confirmed that the Dallas Cowboys had spoken with Colorado coach Deion Sanders about their head coach vacancy.
The Cowboys job became available early Monday when Jerry Jones was unable to reach an agreement with Mike McCarthy, who has coached the team for the past five seasons. With McCarthy in the rearview mirror, Jones called Sanders, who spent five successful seasons with the Cowboys as a player in the late 1990s.
“Hearing Jerry Jones is really exciting, and it’s amazing,” Sanders told ESPN’s Adam Schefter on Monday night. “I love Jerry and I believe in Jerry. After you hang up, and process it, and think about it, it’s interesting. But I love Boulder and everything about our team, the coaches, our student body and the community.”
Sanders has coached the Buffaloes for the past two seasons after a successful run as the head coach at Jackson State. To his credit, he turned Colorado from a college football laughingstock into a bowl-worthy program.
But without the comfort of his star quarterback son, Shedeur Sanders, and Heisman Trophy winner, Travis Hunter, both tipped to be top-five picks in the NFL Draft, there has been speculation that Coach Prime could be out of Boulder soon.
Back in November, when rumors started swirling about Prime’s interest in the NFL, he assured everyone that his “kickstand is down,” indicating that he’s excited about life in Boulder.
But what should he say? At the time, the Buffaloes were ranked, among the Big 12 Championship and even a crack at the new 12-team College Football Playoff.
Now that the dust has settled, it’s clear that Sanders at least heard Jones’ call about coaching the Cowboys. But here’s the kicker. That would be a disaster waiting to happen.
Jones refuses to go out of his way. Every season, he somehow extricates himself from the last stupid thing he did. Losing McCarthy because of an inability to agree to terms is the latest example of that, and it comes on the heels of civil contract disputes with quarterback Dak Prescott and star wideout CeeDee Lamb.
Sanders and Jones may have a lot of respect for each other right now. Some might even call it friendship. Sanders is a legend who played for Jones’ organization. Obviously there’s a lot of overlap between the two, but that’s completely different than when you have to work with someone day in and day out.
Jones is calling the shots in Dallas. It is what it is. Unless he had some sort of epiphany, that’s probably how it will play out next season and years to come.
Prime has always had his own pride—but to his credit, it’s served him well after his playing days.
Many pundits mocked Sanders when he spoke to a group in Colorado and told them he “brings his baggage, and it’s Louis Vuitton,” suggesting they were ready to enter the transfer zone because he was bringing his own. your players.
He really brought his players, and it worked. It worked because he did it his way. Less than a year into his gig with the Buffaloes, Sanders flipped offensive coordinator Sean Lewis from the program and replaced him with Pat Shurmur. That clearly worked, too.
There is no way to say that Sanders would be a good NFL coach. The 2011 Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee has played at the highest level for years. He had immediate success everywhere he went in the college ranks.
The pro game is different. It’s very different when you work with Jerry Jones, who only wants things his way. It would be interesting to find out if he can coach in the NFL at some point in the near future, but not in this environment.