It’s time for a shake up in Big D.
The Dallas Cowboys have become a broken franchise struggling with the last fleeting whispers of hope. Jerry Jones and CeeDee Lamb are bickering, nobody can agree on whether Dak Prescott is the future at quarterback, Micah Parsons has an astronomical extension on the horizon, and Mike McCarthy is still Mike McCarthy, for better and worse.
It’s a pivotal moment for this franchise, and it’s become clear that the status quo is not the path forward. For all the wins and promise, the Cowboys feel further away from a Super Bowl than a year ago, with current and future cap issues that seem destined to push the franchise’s trajectory towards mediocrity and not success.
When this situation presents itself you have two options: Play scared, sticking to the status quo while hoping it all works out — or you can make the bold move, shake things up, and swing for the fences. With Jerry Jones yearning for the halcyon days of early-90s success he needs to turn to a pivotal member of America’s Team to bring it back.
It’s time for Coach Prime and Shedeur Sanders in Dallas
Anyone who thinks Deion Sanders wants to be the long term coach at Colorado is delusional. This is a man who is obsessed with status, and he’ll move on as soon as a better job presents itself. To this end there’s no job in football that carries more gravitas than the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys.
Would it work? Probably not. In fact, no ... there’s no scenario in which Deion Sanders would be a good NFL coach. That’s not really the exercise here. We’re not trying to fix the Cowboys, but rather present a possibly timeline that has enough grains of plausibility to see it happen — while also being one of the funniest things to happen in modern NFL history.
At this point Dallas has tried the slow, sensible reset at head coach. In fact, we’re almost 20 years into the Cowboys making coaching decisions which made sense at the time. Bill Parcells gave way to Wade Phillips, then Jason Garrett (who was seen as a future HoF coach at the time of his hire), then to Mike McCarthy. The shared DNA is guys who were decidedly un-sexy winners, establishing their brands of un-sexy football.
Promoting Deion straight out of Colorado would have serious shades of Jimmy Johnson to it. Sure, Sanders hasn’t brought the level of success to Boulder than Johnson did at The U — but the shared DNA is the style, swagger, and bravado that Jerry Jones craves. It also really helps that he’d more or less get a handcuff at QB as well to kickstart it all.
Jones has been hesitant to the point of stupidity when it comes to committing to Dak Prescott long term. Now he might as well be forced to cut bait, rather than pay Prescott what he’s worth in the open market without really being in love with him as the Cowboys’ quarterback.
Shedeur Sanders will be one of the first quarterbacks off the board in 2025. It’s a very weak draft for passers, and someone is going to fall in love with his abilities, so long as Shedeur doesn’t completely fail this season. With the Cowboys you have so much in-build romanticism. Here was a kid born IN Dallas one decade after his dad was winning Super Bowls with the team, and now he’s returned as the prodigal son, with pops at head coach.
This would allow the Cowboys to move on from Dak, use the money to ensure CeeDee Lamb and Micah Parsons get paid, while Deion does what he does best and builds hype around the organization to get free agents to come and play for him.
Perhaps more importantly than anything to Jerry Jones it would mean everyone is talking about the Dallas Cowboys again. Not just fans of the team, not just haters of their failings. It would ensure the Cowboys get wall-to-wall coverage on every network from the second the season ends, to the first time Shedeur takes a snap under center.
Jones’ entire ethos was built as the owner willing to make bold decisions nobody else would. Now in his golden years he repeats the formula in an effort to turn everything around, or at the very least swing for the fences and hope it works out.
We need to will a Sanders x Sanders future in Big D. It would be amazing for all the right (and wrong) reasons.
