The Dallas Cowboys took their time choosing whether to part ways with head coach Mike McCarthy. Now, they’re working quickly to find his replacement.
Sources tell CBS Sports the top Cowboys decision-makers took part in inclusive hiring training early Monday afternoon, a step mandated by the NFL for any team to begin its search for a head coach or general manager.
News broke Monday around noon ET that McCarthy and Dallas had parted ways after the two could not agree to the contract length of a potential McCarthy extension. Less than two hours later, according to sources, the Cowboys brass took part in the virtual training.
The league introduced the training in 2022 as part of its multi-step hiring process. Any decision-maker involved in the hiring process must take the training, though clubs and people are excluded from the training if they have taken it in the past two seasons.
The training lasts about an hour, and it’s unclear who all with the Cowboys took the training other than team owner/president/general manager Jerry Jones.
Now the search will begin for a new head coach after five years with McCarthy. Sources say Jones and McCarthy couldn’t agree on the length of a contract extension, and that was the driving force in the parting of ways.
Bill Belichick could be near the top of Dallas’s wishlist, according to multiple sources. Belichick and Jones have had a good relationship over the decades, and sources last month indicated Belichick had interest in the Dallas job should it come open.
Belichick is now the head coach at North Carolina, where he signed a contract that has a $10 million buyout if he were to leave the Tar Heels before June 1 of this year. Multiple sources have cast doubt on that eight-figure buyout stopping any NFL team owner — or Belichick himself. The buyout goes to $1 million after June 1, 2025.
Due to NFL rules, unless the Cowboys are willing to potentially wait a while, one candidate that may not be available to them is Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson. As reported on The NFL Today postgame show Sunday night, Johnson took his four interviews with the Patriots, Jaguars, Raiders and Bears over the weekend and then shut it down, according to sources. He is now solely focused on the Lions divisional matchup on Saturday against the Commanders.
Technically, the Cowboys have until the conclusion of Monday night’s game between the Vikings and Rams to interview coaching candidates with the Lions or Chiefs. Because those teams got their conference’s top seed, coaches could interview virtually through tonight’s game.
That window closes as soon as the game ends, though, and the Cowboys cannot conduct an initial interview with a candidate on the Lions or Chiefs after tonight until the conclusion of that team’s season. So if the Cowboys have their eye on a coach on the Lions or Chiefs, and if Dallas doesn’t talk to that coach tonight, the Cowboys won’t be able to until the team either loses in the playoffs or wins the Super Bowl.
For coaches whose teams made the playoffs but did not have the bye — including the teams that already lost — they can interview virtually with the Cowboys three days after their wild-card victory. Those interviews would have to be concluded by the evening of Sunday, Jan. 19.
For all other coaches currently employed by teams who did not make the playoffs, the Cowboys can interview them virtually as soon as possible.
And clearly Jerry Jones is looking to move quickly.
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