00:00What were you hearing about the Cowboys situation, not only with the hiring of Brian Schottenheimer,
00:20the process which we were all kind of, what in the world are the Cowboys doing, but then
00:24the weird divorce with Mike McCarthy?
00:27So I'm going to go back after Mike McCarthy was let go and then I can go before that.
00:33So I would say after everything didn't get finalized in terms of extending McCarthy and
00:39things like that, I think the big thing that people were talking about relative to the
00:43Dallas Cowboys was what was going on with Deion Sanders.
00:46And I would say relatively early on in that situation, I knew that all of the talk and
00:52the hype and the questions that people were having and putting out there and Deion Sanders
00:56camp himself, I would say, quite frankly, that I knew that wasn't happening pretty early.
01:04That's what people were telling me behind the scenes.
01:06I think sometimes as an insider, yes, I can put things out there and it's like, oh, I
01:10have this information, right?
01:12But at the same time, when you've been doing it a long time, there's not one story that's
01:15going to make me or there's not one story that...
01:18So I don't feel this pressure to put out anything, especially if I feel like I knew putting that
01:24out there at that time that it would probably not look well, so I just left it alone.
01:30But I knew that that's not the direction that they were looking at.
01:34Is Jason Witten a candidate in the future, you think?
01:36Well, I think that you guys know covering the Cowboys that Jerry Jones is always going
01:40to have affinity for familiarity and people that he knows and respects.
01:44And clearly the way that he's dealt with Jason Witten in the past, you can tell that he has
01:47that respect there.
01:48I think that at the same time, Stephen Jones has tried to do his best to balance Jerry
01:54at times when maybe they don't agree, or just even internally with the Four Horsemen
01:59or just even people that are below that in the structure.
02:03And so I do think that there is a placement of value on not only just trying to make sure
02:09that you have experience, but someone that really does fit.
02:13I think you even saw that with the Jets this year in terms of the necessity of not only
02:17having someone know what they do X's and O's wise, but I think part of the reason why it
02:22didn't work out with Kellen Moore is because he wanted someone that has that aura that
02:28commands the room more.
02:29That is something that I did hear behind the scenes.
02:31Now we can have a debate about whether that's Brian Schottenheim or not.
02:34I think that's another conversation.
02:37But even with the Jets, even with some of these vacancies, you were hearing, let me
02:43just say this, some of the candidates were saying they were grumbling behind the scenes
02:47because they felt like the owners were just focusing on wanting people who could win the
02:50press conference.
02:51That's something I was hearing over and over again.
02:53And so whether you had someone that was like a true leader, especially when you're looking
02:57at, for example, like the Jets organization, which I feel like has years of trauma that
03:01really needs to be addressed outside of just the dominance of knowing X's and O's.
03:05I do feel like some of the owners were paying attention to that and really more so than
03:09I would say in the past, because I've been doing this over 20 years.
03:14Are you a leader?
03:15Can you command the room or what have you?
03:16And I do even think, and sorry to talk about the Jets, but I'm trying to make that parallel
03:20is that I do think that that had an impact on even Lance Newmark's candidacy as GM for
03:26the Jets as well.
03:27So I think in y'all's instance with the Dallas Cowboys, at least behind the scenes with the
03:31conversations, there was some balancing of trying to achieve that, whether they did achieve
03:36that with Brian.
03:38And I think I feel like that with the Cowboys a lot, because I do think they get some flack
03:42where people like, I feel like they feel like they're doing it.
03:46But the question is whether everyone else agrees.
03:49If that makes sense.
03:50It's not like this, oh, we're going to go against the fan base or whatever.
03:55I do believe just in talking to my sources behind the scenes that you can tell that they
03:59really believe that that's the solution.
04:01You know what I mean?
04:02It's just that you guys might not agree.
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