The Dallas Cowboys season will end tomorrow against the Commanders. It’s been a long year, and rumors of who will coach the team in 2025 have been rampant for its entirety. Owner Jerry Jones continued that chatter yesterday when Jon Gruden’s name came up in an interview.
Appearing on 105.3 The FAN, Jones was asked if the former Buccaneers and Raiders leader, who has been a rumored candidate across the league, interests him.
The normally blunt and straightforward Jones gave an uncomfortable response, to say the least.
Jerry Jones was asked on @1053thefan about Jon Gruden's name being mentioned as a possible head coaching candidate across the league again. “I don’t have any comment here at all," Jones said. "Seriously, one way or the other. Jon is a friend, but let’s leave it at that.”
— Todd Archer (@toddarcher) January 3, 2025
Saying he doesn’t have “any comment here at all,” before adding “seriously, one way or the other.” What does Jones mean by one way or the other? Well, that’s the topic we’re here to discuss.
Does Jones’ clear sidestep, discomfort, and choice of words signal his interest in the idea, or is this a non-story in an offseason of rumors?
Jerry’s Rumors: Is Jon Gruden A Real Candidate?
It’s been over three years since Gruden submitted his resignation to the Raiders ownership. If you don’t remember, his downfall was a series of leaked emails that the NFL deemed derogatory.
That timeframe means franchises around the league have had three offseasons to interview Gruden, and nobody has, so why now?
The answer there is simple: the further away we are from the scandal, the less heat a team will get for hiring him. We’ve already seen rumors outside of Dallas that multiple teams are discussing Gruden as a candidate.
If other teams are looking at him, and the Cowboys become in need of a head coach, it’s hard to see them not taking a glance as well.
https://twitter.com/jasrifootball/status/1874108976868290605
When you add Jerry Jones’s quote, the pieces of this puzzle start to fall into place.
Jon Gruden may be on the brink of being brought back into the NFL, he has a good relationship with Jones, and it seems more and more likely that a Mike McCarthy extension might not happen.
Yes, this rumor that was kick-started by Jones’ question dodging could pick up steam quickly. It would not shock me if Gruden became a real candidate in Dallas.
What If: Would Jon Gruden Be A Good Candidate?
We’ve established that Gruden may indeed emerge as a legitimate candidate for the Cowboys, but this raises a crucial question: is it a good move?
While hiring this polarizing figure would bring some fireworks to Dallas, headlines don’t win you championships; there should be much more to consider when it comes to hiring a new head coach.
For starters, the NFL may have passed Gruden by. His prime was as a young, hard-nosed, fiery leader in the early-2000s. That was a few decades ago, and teams are looking for different candidates now.
Young, offensive-minded, and creative are the three things that teams most frequently seek out. It’s hard to pin any of those traits on Jon Gruden in 2025.
Similarly to McCarthy, we may see a head coach who, for lack of a better term, is stale.
McCarthy neutering the offense just like he has the last 2 years and final years in Green Bay I’m sick https://t.co/Cje0Lj5qxS
— Connor Livesay (@ConnorNFLDraft) September 18, 2024
Could a guy like Gruden bring some much-needed toughness, structure, and grit to the Cowboys? Absolutely. This is a team that has been more finesse than anything for well over a decade now.
That said, yelling on the sidelines won’t fix all of Dallas’s problems; a head coach with his best years ahead of him could, and Gruden isn’t that.
The Bottom Line
Overall, Cowboys fans need to sit back and wait things out before getting too hyped up on these rumors. Right now, Mike McCarthy is still the head coach of the team, and until he walks out the door, the assumption should be that he will stay.
Jerry Jones doesn’t love rocking the boat, and he does have a genuine respect for McCarthy, which makes him the favorite for the job in 2025.
However, things can get tricky fast in this league, and as we can see from his comments, Jon Gruden is clearly not far from Jones’ mind.
Whether or not that formulates into something more serious than rumors, we’ll just have to wait and see. Until then, the frenzy over who is coaching the Dallas Cowboys next year will continue to run wild.
Not a fan of Gruden. He wasn’t exactly turning the Raiders into a bunch of fire-eaters before the NFL drove him out. Though, it really doesn’t matter who they bring in. Whoever the poor sap is, they’ll still be hamstrung by bad contracts, inconsistent QB play (which is probably why McCarthy keeps dumbing down the offense), and Jones’ interference with team discipline.
I don’t think it really matters who the next HC will be. Jones wants a HC that he can control. What makes things worse is that he surrounds himself with yes-men willing to do his bidding, even if it means stepping and climbing over others to get into his good graces.
We can leave Ben Johnson out of the conversation. He released a statement a few weeks ago that says to the effect that he wants to work with a GM who takes accountability and will do whatever it takes to win it all.
As we all know, Jerry Jones is a egomaniacal control freak, so Ben Johnson’s demands will never come to fruition.
Plus we all know JJ LOVES throwing people under the bus, despite the fact that he’s the owner, and driver of that same bus.
Currently, that bus is careening down a steep and bumpy mountain road, with no brakes, and the cliff edge is coming up mighty fast. I’m actually surprised that JJ hasn’t driven the bus completely off the cliff yet, though we know it will happen.
I predict he’ll give Big Mac another extension. JJ knows that Big Mac is not good enough, or creative enough to take the team to the playoffs and beyond. JJ doesn’t care. He just wants a coach he can control and manipulate.