The Cowboys had an unprecedented dismissal of a head coach. It took a week before the team moved on from Jason Garrett, beginning the search for a possible replacement first.
Cowboys executive vice president Stephen Jones explained Friday that Garrett “wasn’t in any hurry” for the team to make a decision.
Garrett believed he had a chance to return, according to a source, with hopes that the Cowboys wouldn’t find a better option. The Cowboys, though, fell in love with Mike McCarthy, hiring him Sunday.
Thus, Garrett is out of work, or officially will be in four days when his contract expires.
“We had open conversations with Jason, and he knew that we were obviously looking probably to make a change,” Stephen Jones said on 105.3 The Fan. “But at the same time, he wasn’t in any hurry, and it was his preference for us to not be in any hurry, to make an announcement or to move forward. And we really didn’t feel the urgency as long as he understood, and we didn’t want to hide anything that we were going to be contacting coaches, not just the two we interviewed, but the others about what their thoughts were on this job and what they would be thinking about it as we decided who we were going to bring in to have official interviews. And as Jerry and I discussed, we discussed with other people in our organization we really felt like it was in our best interest to find a head coach that had had deep NFL coaching experience, had success as a head coach going to the playoffs, winning in the playoffs, and that’s why we started with Marvin [Lewis] and Mike is they had had success in this league, been to playoffs. In Mike’s case, had a lot of success in the playoffs. We wanted to start with that. We had certainly had a path that if we weren’t totally at peace at that point, then we could move into maybe make an exception, whether it’s a college head coach or whether it’s a coordinator that’s on the up and coming or whatever that may entail. There were other options we looked at. But we wanted to start with that, and then of course when Mike came in there as the day went, it just became obvious that he was the right guy and the right fit for us.”