Jerry Jones has said that the size of the check he would write to guarantee another Super Bowl win would be “embarrassing.”
Yes, it would be embarrassingly small.
Jones, when it comes to the resources he is willing to invest in the team, is cheap. He won’t fire coaches who have buyouts. And he won’t pay top dollar for new coaches.
The owner and G.M. of the Cowboys defended his approach during his latest visit to 105.3 The Fan in Dallas by making the nonsensical claim that there’s no connection between coaching pay and winning.
“In the NFL, this is after years of looking at all the teams and all the coaches, there is no — there is zero correlation between how much you pay a coach, or how many coaches you have, as to winning,” Jones said. “There is no correlation. And that’s a random sample of years and all 32 teams involved. So put that in your hopper and smoke it.”
He’s just wrong. Hiring a proven coach, and paying him accordingly, can change everything. We’ve seen it, time and again.
Andy Reid instantly turned the Chiefs into consistent contenders, and three-time Super Bowl winners. Sean Payton has made the Broncos into an annual contender, positioning him to become the first coach to win a Super Bowl for two different teams. Most recently, John Harbaugh has immediately changed everything for the Giants.
Harbaugh’s success will result in his former rival, Mike Tomlin, fending off teams willing to pay him upwards of $30 million per year to swap out his earpiece and microphone on the NBC sideline set for the Sony headset along the white stripe.
Jones prefers to speculate, when it comes to coaches. In lieu of paying for a coach who has proven that he can win, Jones wants to roll the dice on an unproven commodity in the hopes of maximizing the return on his investment.
“You can be pretty creative in hiring your coaches,” Jones said. “You can be creative sometime when you don’t even know you’re hiring the coaches. And so I’ve had some good experience of hiring people who have never been in the NFL. I’ve had some experience of hiring young coaches, older coaches, and so, of course, you constantly remind me, as you should, of what my record is. And I understand that. But I also know that the next time you throw the pick, if you were the old California gold miner, you may hit the Comstock Lode. And then it is gloryhole.”
“Creative” is another way of saying “cheap.” Buy low, and reap the benefit when the less expensive option yields results. And stick with him until his contract expires, to avoid having to pay two coaches at the same time.
It would be different if there truly was no correlation between quality (and cost) of coach and winning. But there ABSOLUTELY is a connection.
Still, Jerry prefers to dig through the bargain bin in search of an abandoned Botticelli. His own twist on “if you have to ask you can’t afford it” is “if you have to ask I don’t want it.”
It’s no surprise. In the early days of the salary cap, members of the media often pointed out that there’s no cap on coaching pay. In time, the NFL realized, “Oh shit, there’s no cap on coaching.”
That has led to what some believe is an effort to collectively keep coaching pay from growing at the rate that it should. And some in league circles are convinced that Jerry Jones is the ringleader of what is, as a practical matter, an effort to collude.
Even if he’s not going to pay top-of-market money for a coach, the higher the market goes, the more expensive it gets across the board. The rising tide, in other words, raises all dinghies. And Jerry would much rather spend his money on his aircraft carrier that has been retrofitted into a luxury hotel.
That’s his prerogative. But Cowboys fans — who fork over their money and who devote their time and attention to watching games on TV and consuming Cowboys content — should understand what’s going on. Jerry Jones is pinching pennies when it comes to paying coaches. As a result, he’s often getting what he isn’t paying for.
His mindset is highly relevant to the looming wreckage of the 2026 season. If coach Brian Schottenheimer has guaranteed money left on his contract for 2027, he will not be fired. And if Jones can avoid owing Schottenheimer a buyout, Jones will resist joining the pursuit of Tomlin, who admitted on the most recent edition of Football Night in America that he grew up a fan of the Cowboys.
Actually, that could make Jerry think that deep-seated rooting interest will give him a chance at hiring Tomlin on the cheap. Because cheap does as cheap is. And, when it comes to his team (and specifically to his coaches), Jerry Jones is cheap.