Dallas Cowboys address their coaching staff’s contracts
By Nick Ziegler
With the offseason underway for the Dallas Cowboys, owner Jerry Jones has begun to throw his money around, and that started officially on Thursday with the re-signing of some of their coaches.
Obviously the big news was that head coach Jason Garrett re-signed with the team for a very lucrative deal that caused a stir. Garrett, who led the team to a 12-4 record with a playoff win and a NFC East Division title this season, will be the Cowboys’ coach for the foreseeable future.
Garrett signed a five-year $30 million contract to remain the coach of the Cowboys thru the 2019 season. In a little over four years as the Cowboys’ head coach, Garrett has a 42-34 record since taking over as the interim coach for Wade Phillips in 2010. Although the Cowboys have only had one season above .500, three seasons of going 8-8 isn’t the worst thing in the world for a team or its fans.
Still, the three straight seasons of missing the playoffs all came with losses in Week 17 when the team had a chance to win the NFC East. But few teams in the NFL can say that they haven’t had a losing season in that time span and that certainly adds some value to Garrett as a coach.
One thing that certainly helped Garrett this season was a very good coaching staff around him. Although the Cowboys’ front office was busy keeping coaches, one did slip through their fingers.
Offensive line coach Bill Callahan has signed with the Washington Redskins to take over the same position with them. The Cowboys offensive line was one of the best in the league under Callahan, but last season despite being the offensive coordinator, did not call the plays for the Cowboys’ offense.
Replacing Callahan as the offensive coordinator in Dallas will be the Scott Linehan, who was Tony Romo’s play-caller in 2014. Linehan was given a three-year contract to remain as the play-caller for Dallas and now has the official title of coordinator.
The move to make re-sign Linehan is a great one for the Cowboys. Romo was a league MVP candidate in 2014 and also had one of the most successful seasons of his career. The former undrafted free agent set a personal high with 34 touchdown passes and threw only nine interceptions in his 15 appearances. Romo also set a career-high with a 113.2 passer rating and he and Linehan worked very well together this past season.
In addition to re-signing Garrett and Linehan, the Cowboys also were able to re-sign Rod Marinelli to a three-year deal. In his first season as the defensive coordinator in Dallas, Marinelli took over what looked to be one of the least-talented and worst defenses of all-time and did a very admirable job.
With Marinelli leading them, the Cowboys’ defense ranked 19th in the NFL in total yards allowed. Going into the season, that seemed impossible. Against the run was where Dallas really excelled, finishing eighth in the league in that department. Hence, re-signing Marinelli was a no-brainer.
Retaining most of their coaching staff was certainly a good start for the Cowboys in the offseason. Now the real challenge will begin for Cowboys’ ownership as Dez Bryant and DeMarco Murray are both potential free agents and will likely want long-term and big contracts.