As Hall of Fame cornerback Deion Sanders prepares to parlay his success at Jackson State into a bigger college job at Colorado or Cincinnati, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones thinks Sanders can go even higher than that.
“Deion is very capable of being a head coach in the National Football League,” Jones said Friday on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas, via Clarence E. Hill Jr. of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “You couldn’t be talking to anybody that knows him any better than I do.”
Sanders spent five season with the Cowboys, from 1995 through 1999.
“Deion has such a positive enthusiasm about him, and a real genuine ‘one and one is three,’” Jones said. “It’s a positiveness about him. He has a real understanding of what a player’s mentality can and should be. Of course, he’s actually been around and gotten the benefit of some of the greatest people in sport, and look what he brings to the table.
“Deion Sanders has a little bit going for him when it comes to being able to be a coach. He is an outstanding -- I’m just going to say he’s a great communicator and he’s a real leader of men.”
Sanders took the Jackson State job in 2020. A year earlier, he was a candidate (or at least he wanted to be one) for the Florida State job. Sixteen years before that, he openly aspired to succeed Dan Reeves as head coach of the Falcons.
“I can make them a better team, and I know that, because I know the things that really need to be done there,” Sanders said at the time. “I put so much time into preparing every week for my Sunday job [in broadcasting], watching tape and talking to players and coaches, that I still live football. It’s still a big part of me. I talk to head coaches and assistants, guys with whom I’m close, every week. I know what the job involves, believe me, and I know I can do it.”
It’s now been 19 years since Sanders made those comments. He has shown in his time with Jackson State that he can get it done. If he does the same at Cincinnati or Colorado, who knows? Maybe the NFL will come calling.
Maybe even Jerry Jones will come calling.