Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has slammed any notion of Sean Payton becoming the team’s head coach in the near future. 

For the past 25+ years the Dallas Cowboys can arguably best be described as the biggest ‘nearly men’ in the National Football League. Despite having the foundations for a great team in the 1990s and being one of the biggest names in the sport, since their last Super Bowl title in 1995, what has followed has been nothing short of failure.

They have only won three playoff games this millennium and haven’t even managed to reach the conference championship, despite the best efforts of head coaches Dave Campo, Bill Parcells, Wade Phillips, Jason Garrett and the current coach Mike McCarthy.

McCarthy has won a title before with the Green Bay Packers back in 2010, somewhat ironically that game was held in Dallas and it was hoped that he might be the man to turn things around. There has been some steady progress on that front as he took them from 6-10 in his first season to 12-5 in his second, but given the pressure on his shoulders to deliver and despite the apparent stability of a five-year contract, you never know how long his tenure could last.

That’s where Sean Payton comes in.

The ever-looming threat

When it comes to turning franchises around, Payton has arguably the best story of them all as he helped transform the New Orleans Saints from a team on its knees after Hurricane Katrina to a perennial contender in the league alongside quarterback Drew Brees. 

Before that though, he was the assistant head coach & quarterbacks coach of the Cowboys, when combined with the fact that he has lived in Texas before, it doesn’t take a genius to put the two together and picture that he could very well be the man in waiting for the Cowboys job. 

Jerry lays down the law

Speaking at a press conference in Dallas about AT&T Stadium being selected as a venue for the 2026 FIFA World Cup (via Fort Worth Star-Telegram), Jones was asked about the job security of current Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy and the possibility Payton as a replacement.

Jones though, was having none of it as he gave a pretty firm answer: 

“Sean Payton shouldn’t be out there. For him, the Cowboys, that’s just sheer out of the air. It’s well known we’re good friends and we think a lot of him as a head coach. But in this case, asking the way you’re asking, he shouldn’t be a conversation piece.”

So it’s pretty clear where Jones stands now, but if this season turns out to be a disappointing one for himn and the Cowboys, then the conversation might just take a different tone at the end of the campaign.