A loss on Thursday at the Bears was always going to amp up the pressure on Jason Garrett, and it hasn’t taken long for his potential replacements to come into focus.
The NFL Network reported early Friday morning after the Cowboys’ 31-24 loss in Chicago that America’s Team has “very real interest” in former Florida and Ohio State coach Urban Meyer. The report — which said Garrett would remain the Cowboys’ coach for the time being — also named Oklahoma head coach Lincoln Riley and Clemson offensive coordinator Tony Elliott as names in the mix.
The loss dropped the Cowboys to a frustrating 6-7 in a season that opened with three straight wins. The Cowboys remain a half-game ahead of the Eagles in the awful NFC East.
The 55-year-old Meyer is a three-time national champion and serial winner at the college level, with an absurd 187-32 record across four different programs.
Under Garrett, the Cowboys have posted a respectable 83-66 record, but the coach has failed to get the best out of talented rosters that have included stars such as Dez Bryant and Ezekiel Elliot. Dallas has failed to advance to an NFC Championship Game since Garrett took over in 2010 and that feeling of wasted talent reared its head again during Thursday’s listless loss. The Cowboys trailed by 17 in the fourth quarter before racking up some points in garbage time.
Dallas has now dropped seven of its last 10 games, and it won’t be surprising if Jerry Jones pulls the plug on the Garrett era.
Earlier in the week, Jones gave a lukewarm endorsement of his current coach, saying Garrett “will be coaching in the NFL next year.”
Jones was even angrier on Friday, cursing twice during a local radio interview in which he took responsibility for the team’s current three-game skid.
“When you have as many things that were off-kilter as we had (Thursday) night, you’ve got a nice litany of places to start to correct,” he said.
One place to start would be hiring Meyer.