Jerry Jones says Jason Garrett would be a “very sought after” coach if he was on the open market

There is no question that 2019 is one of the biggest years of Jason Garrett’s professional life.

This season is the last one on Garrett’s current contract with the Dallas Cowboys and how the remaining 10 regular season games go is going to be of serious consequence to his future with America’s Team. This has been known for some time and it remains true today, it’s obviously highlighted by the fact that Garrett’s team has lost three games in a row.

Of course, there is no opinion that matters more with regards to his future than that of Jerry Jones. Jerry appears on 105.3 The Fan every Tuesday morning and on this particular Tuesday you can bet your bottom dollar that the status of his head coach was one that he was asked about quite a bit.

Jerry defended the man in charge of his team, and he even went a step beyond that. While Jones has said this before, he made sure to mention that Jason Garrett would be highly sought after by other NFL teams if he were an available coach on the open market.

“I want to talk about our team, talk about our coach. I have felt that we’ve got a lot invested in Jason Garrett. He’s had a lot of years that he’s been a part of the Cowboys. And he’s evolved into what I think is a top coach. He would be a very sought-after coach if he were out here in the open market. So there’s a lot of pluses there. He brings a lot to the table. And I can genuinely say that that is not a thought that I’m having so it would be unfair to our fans for me to have any indication bout what I may think the future is as far as head coach. Everybody’s aware this is the last year of his agreement but that really just means that we can all sit down and take a look at things at the end of the year. That was the case when he won the first three ballgames and still the case today after losing the last three.”

It doesn’t sound like Jerry is anywhere near a point of considering moving on from Jason Garrett, although this will of course invoke the classic response of, “well what do you expect him to say?”. It’s true that it wouldn’t make a lot of sense for Jerry to come out and publicly acknowledge that his coach is on the proverbial hot seat, but he’s also never been one to shy away from voicing his true thoughts.

The most important thing here is something else that Jerry said. Everybody knows that 2019 is the last year of Jason Garrett’s contract. The Cowboys made a decision to see this through a year ago and to see if the head coach is able to capitalize with his back against the wall. Obviously this particular week isn’t a good one, but it makes sense to see the process through to completion.

While they’re losers of three straight games, the Cowboys can still be a legitimate challenger in the NFC this season. That’s how football goes. We’re definitely learning more and more about each and every team, but being 3-3 is hardly a death sentence when we saw this team climb out of a self-induced 3-5 hole a year ago. Many will scoff at this, but the Cowboys have a larger chance of success in 2019 specifically with Jason Garrett as their head coach than with any interim steering the ship.

It appears that this is the point that Jerry Jones is at. We’re six games through with a lot more time left to see what happens. At this point it’s all on Jason Garrett. How will he respond?