Senior NFL insider Josina Anderson is a must-hear source when it comes to Cowboys information, and when we got the chance to talk to her at Super Bowl LIX Radio Row, we couldn't say no. She talked with the GBag Nation about the Cowboys' coaching search and how they landed themselves on Brian Schottenheimer, why they didn't end up hiring Deion Sanders away from Colorado, and other NFL coaching nuggets.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
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.