00:00Yeah, Will McClay on why he continues to not pursue leaving the Cowboys for a real GM job.
00:23Basically getting the opportunity to pursue a championship, a Super Bowl and work with
00:27these people is extremely important to me.
00:30I think it's good news.
00:31I think for Cowboys fans might not remember how bad the talent got at times on the run
00:36post Jimmy Johnson to Will McClay, you know, 15, 18 years somewhere in there.
00:42It was wheels off and unpredictable and McClay has stabilized, improved the organization
00:47and really the only bad years that you have are quarterback injury years.
00:51You know, there's no sustained losing.
00:53I think Will McClay gets a lot of credit for that.
00:55So I think it's a big dub to hear that and, you know, maybe I imagine Will McClay continuing
01:00in a very important role with the Cowboys.
01:03Not unlike a Gil Brandt or something like that, Brian, just a long, long type of deal.
01:07Absolutely.
01:08You know, I'd like to see Will have his own opportunity to hire his own coach and to pick
01:14his players and kind of navigate that.
01:16I think he would do a really a fine job with that.
01:19If I was a fan of another team and I needed a general manager, I, you know, Will McClay
01:23would be a guy I would surely look at.
01:25Yeah, you're absolutely right, Gavin.
01:27The stability that he's brought, his ability to marry the Joneses with the scouts, with
01:33the coaches is something that a lot of these, you know, my old boss, Larry Lacewell, he
01:40was able to do it because he was friends with Jerry Jones.
01:43You know, people knew that, listen, you mess with Lace, you're probably messing with the
01:48Joneses.
01:49You're probably, you know, Will seems to have that ability to kind of not put himself on
01:55with one group.
01:56You know, he puts himself with, you know, you feel like talking to Will that like he's
02:01for the coaches, he's for the scouts, you know, he's for the Joneses.
02:05You don't get the feeling that he's going to always side with the scouts.
02:09Because it was often contentious before.
02:11Very, very contentious, you know, and Lace was a former coach.
02:16And so the coaches always felt like, you know, that they were going to get their way here.
02:22And then the scouts kind of resented that because, well, wait a minute, you run our
02:27side of the building here.
02:28Why are you siding with the coaches over here and stuff?
02:31So, yeah, it's, Will has done a great job of just making sure that all parties involved,
02:38and they're really, as we know, they're really involved with consensus.
02:43They want that consensus.
02:44And to a point, it sometimes is a detriment, but other times it helps them with how they
02:50get their players on board.
02:53And to build on that idea, I think that's something important to note if, you know,
02:56somebody might be disgruntled or discouraged by the job that their personnel department
03:00is doing because of their last two first round picks.
03:04It's not Will McClay's vision like it was, you know, or it could be for other, you know,
03:09pure GMs.
03:10So he's just gathering consensus.
03:11I would love to see him have the opportunity to create the vision and be like a final say
03:16type of guy.
03:17Yeah.
03:18We've talked about this before.
03:19There's that clip of him standing up and basically being the tiebreaker of Mozzie Smith, you
03:25know, whether it was Bergeron, the tackle guard from Illinois, or Mozzie Smith.
03:33And there was that discussion on the clock.
03:35Man, I'd love to go back and see what this team could look like right now.
03:38No, exactly.
03:39But so, hey, there's times you're going to stand on that table and be absolutely wrong.
03:44And I think Will has eliminated a lot of that being wrong.
03:47Well, I mean, he just, he nailed Tyler Smith three years ago, you know, a pick that came
03:52out of nowhere.
03:53Yep.
03:54But Leofow and Overshown were good.
03:55Cooper Beebe is probably going to be good.
03:58Marshawn Nealon is going to be good.
03:59So it's not like a total waste of the loss.
04:01No, not at all.
04:02Not at all.
04:03And that's where I think that, you know, the Joneses really do appreciate Will, that he's
04:09able to smooth over all the rough spots that the Joneses might create.
04:15And I don't even know where they would go for a replacement for him.
04:18You know, that's a very special set of skills, what you talked about, getting all these different
04:22departments involved and feel like they have ownership and importance without being alienated.
04:27Plus a guy with his skill level of team building and the ability to have the relationship with
04:32Jerry is huge here.
04:33You just can't replace him.
04:34No, they would probably go with on staff like Mitch Lapointe or somebody like that would
04:38get an opportunity.
04:40If you remember when Lacewell left, you know, myself and Tom Suskowski were there and Tom
04:45looked at me one day and goes, you getting this job?
04:47And I'm like, no, you getting this job?
04:48And he goes, no.
04:49And then it was Jeff Ireland.
04:51Like he'd backdoored us to get to Parcells and that's how he got the job.
04:55Yeah.
04:56So it's, but they're going to, they're going to likely hire people within it.
05:00It's not something that they went out and got Lionel Vital.
05:04And I've known Lionel for a long time.
05:05He was an absolute disaster as a player personnel guy.
05:08And so, you know, when they, when they, and that was on a recommendation from Bill Belichick,
05:13you know, Hey, Lionel Vital, you know, come and bring him in.
05:15But that was an, and they, and they haven't really gone outside that sense.
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