Jerry takes his lumps from the press and public for wearing so many hats at Valley Ranch, but it appears the M.O. among owners today is to copy Jerry. Let's look at the big-salary head coaches who retired or who were fired this offseason:
1. Seattle's Mike Holmgren, the highest paid NFL head coach, and big Kahuna of the Seahawks organization, walks away.
2. Denver fired Mike Shanahan, who had been their head guy since 1995. He's been replaced by 32 year old Josh McDaniels, who will have limited personnel say.
3. Tony Dungy, head coach of the Colts since 2001, retires.
4. Jon Gruden, the man who replaced Dungy in Tampa Bay, the coach for whom the Bucs surrendered two #1 draft picks, is fired today. Gruden had won a power struggle with former GM Rich McKay a few years ago, but the added responsibility proved too much for him.
5. If Jason Garrett is tapped by the Rams, he'll take a pay cut to move up in title and authority.
Let's recall that Joe Gibbs stepped down last year. Bill Cowher the year before that. We may be seeing the end of the do-it-all head coach. It may be cyclical and it may be brought on by the budget crunch, but teams are hiring younger, lower-cost head men and making them accountable to front offices.
The only head coaches who have anything approaching the authority Holmgren had in Seattle, Shanahan had in Denver and Gruden had in Tampa Bay are Jeff Fisher and Bill Belichick in New England. And Belichick's authority is newfound; he shared the personnel duties with Scott Pioli, who just took over in Kansas City.
It's a new world. It seems Jerry Jones may want to take another shot at that suddenly wide open coaching pool. If he goes for a grizzled veteran coordinator or head coach, he would buck his own trend.