Jerry Jones says money has never kept him from hiring a coach

Jerry Jones spent more than five minutes on the Cowboys' flagship radio station Friday defending himself against the charge that he will not pay for a head coach. "Not one time in my life that I have ever, if I wanted to do it, let money stand in the way of doing it," the owner and general manager said on 105.3 The Fan, ESPN's Todd Archer reported.

He was answering himself as much as his critics. On Tuesday, on the same station, Jones said that after studying every team over a span of seasons he had found no correlation between what a club pays its coach, or how many coaches it employs, and how much it wins. That drew a column from ESPN's Dan Wetzel contrasting it with Forbes' $17 billion valuation of the franchise, the most valuable in sports.

What Jones said Friday

Jones said no coach had ever turned him down over money, called the notion that he would not pay for the right coach ridiculous, and said he had tried to lure successful coaches away from other teams in approaches that were never made public. He did not name anyone. Archer noted earlier reporting that Dallas had been interested in Sean Payton, a former Cowboys assistant, while Payton was coaching the Saints. Jones allowed that every hire is uncertain, since many coaches are hired and few win a Super Bowl.

Coaching salaries are not public. Brian Schottenheimer is believed to be paid in the bottom half of the league, Archer wrote; Wetzel put the reported range at $5 million to $8 million a year. Mike McCarthy, his predecessor, made $8 million a season. Before promoting Schottenheimer, his offensive coordinator, in 2025, Dallas interviewed Leslie Frazier, Robert Saleh and Kellen Moore but not some of that cycle's most sought-after candidates, such as Ben Johnson, who went to Chicago. Saleh now coaches Tennessee and Moore New Orleans.

In the same division, Wetzel noted, the first-place Giants hired John Harbaugh at a reported $20 million a year.

Where that leaves Schottenheimer

Jones had already ruled out a change after Sunday's 33-30 overtime loss to Arizona, in which Dallas led by 14 early in the fourth quarter. He said many people had let the coach down that day, and recalled that the only time he fired a coach in midseason, Wade Phillips in 2010, the team was 1-7. Dak Prescott said it was weak and cowardly to pin the loss on one person, ESPN reported.

Schottenheimer is 10-14-1 in a season and a half. Dallas has not won consecutive games since Weeks 11 through 13 of last season. The Cowboys are 3-5, two games behind the Giants in the NFC East, and the only coach on the staff with head-coaching experience is senior defensive assistant Mike Pettine, who joined in Week 5.

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