Blogging The Boys
Mike McCarthy’s old Dallas Cowboys staff is now sprinkled across the NFL in high-ranking positions.
You may recall that when Mike McCarthy first took over the Dallas Cowboys that his staff featured plenty of people who had been head coaches before. Mike Nolan had been the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers and McCarthy actually worked on his staff. Jim Tomsula, the defensive line coach, had also been the skipper for San Francisco, albeit for a brief cup of coffee.
John Fassel joined as special teams coordinator, and while he had never been a head coach before, he did serve as the interim head coach for the Los Angeles Rams in their first season back in L.A. when they fired Jeff Fisher before the season was over. The overall point is that there was a lot of leadership on that staff.
Obviously things didn’t fully materialize for that McCarthy staff (or any one for that matter), but interestingly a recent iteration of it is now spread across today’s NFL in all sorts of leadership positions.
A common theme when coaches leave for promotions elsewhere is for them to bring people with them. Consider how McCarthy brought some people from his time in Green Bay and even Nolan from a previous stop.
It was a year ago when Dan Quinn left his post as the Cowboys defensive coordinator to become the head coach for the Washington Commanders. He took several staffers (and players) with him and chief among them was Joe Whitt Jr. who became his defensive coordinator.
McCarthy’s Cowboys moved on from offensive coordinator Kellen Moore after the 2022 season and he would go on to hold that same role for the Los Angeles Chargers in 2023 and then ultimately the Philadelphia Eagles this past season where he was a part of the team that won the Super Bowl. Moore finally parlayed it all into a head coaching role as he is now running the New Orleans Saints, and recent reports suggest that Doug Nussmeier, another former Cowboys staffer, is the favorite to be his offensive coordinator.
Quinn, Whitt, Moore and Nussmeier make for four former Cowboys staffers that now hold head coach or coordinator positions which is a high figure for one group that Mike McCarthy oversaw in his time as the Cowboys head coach. There is also the matter of the current Cowboys head coach in Brian Schottenheimer who was also a part of the group.
Schottenheimer joined the Cowboys in 2022 when all four of the people we have mentioned so far were also a part of the team. Think about that singular group.
