Mike McCarthy is clearly assembling a coaching staff full of experience

Mike McCarthy has only officially had the Dallas Cowboys job for a short while, but he’s not wasting any time putting together his staff. In terms of new faces, we know that Mike Nolan is going to be his defensive coordinator. It was reported on Tuesday night that John Fassel is set to be his special teams coordinator. He reportedly wants Jim Tomsula as his defensive line coach. He is also looking to add Joe Philbin as the offensive line coach. Those are some big names.

What’s more is that all of those names, McCarthy included, know what it’s like to be head coaches in the NFL. Both Nolan and Tomsula served as the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers at one point in time, and Philbin was the head coach in Miami for three years. While Fassel has never had a head coaching job full-time (his father has though), he was the Los Angeles Rams interim coach at the end of the 2016 season (the team’s first in LA) when they fired Jeff Fisher.

That’s a lot of experience.

Mike McCarthy clearly wants experience and leadership in Dallas

McCarthy has had a lot of time to envision what a new staff would look like with his year away from the NFL, but obviously not all of it can be pre-planned. A lot of who you are able to hire depends on availability and what not.

Still, McCarthy is clearly filling the Cowboys staff with leaders that know what it’s like to run an entire team. This type of experience should theoretically work well with a group of players in the Cowboys that have been noted for needing discipline.

Yahoo’s Charles Robinson was a guest on a recent episode of The Ocho and the news of some of these potential hires broke while we were recording. He offered up his perspective which was very valuable.

Listen to the episode right here

(Jump to the 30-minute mark to hear Robinson’s thoughts on John Fassel and Jim Tomsula potentially joining Mike McCarthy’s staff in addition to Mike Nolan).

“You’re talking about a significant amount of experience. Not only, you’re talking about guys who have experience, like years worth of experience with their back to the room and their face to the room. They’ve stood at the front of the organization, they’ve been seated in an organization.”

“To me that dovetails with what you’ve heard about Jerry. He wants like... let’s go. There’s no, we’re not screwing around with a re-tooling process. Jerry believes in that roster, rightfully so, and he knows there’s going to be a lot of money sunk into a handful of players which is going to put them in a situation where, you know you’re going to have to lean on some youth so you need as elite-caliber coaching as you can.”

“But then I think there’s also an element to... I think there were times on the staff where maybe last year you had, I don’t want to say camps develop, but you had guys who were emotional, you know really emotional coaches. Sometimes when you have really emotional coaches certain players are like ‘I’m going to follow that guy versus this guy.’ You see coaches are maybe arguing or they have a disagreement about a player or whatever.”

“The names that you just mentioned [John Fassel and Jim Tomsula potentially with Mike Nolan] are all pretty straightforward guys, but they’re also people who know how to, I think manage personalities and then work out their beefs behind closed doors.”

It’s certainly exciting to consider a Cowboys staff with this much experience and leadership. They have had staff members that we have all liked before, but sometimes change is necessary.