With Garrett Gone and Saints Out, Yes, The Cowboys Should Call Coach Sean Payton

Changes Came Quickly in the NFL On Sunday, and With Jason Garrett Gone and the Saints Out of the Playoffs, Yes, The Cowboys Should Call Coach Sean Payton

FRISCO - Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is aware of my simple advice to him - presumptuous as it is - regarding his coaching search to replace the exiled Jason Garrett. It goes something like this:

"Mr. Jones, you have the greatest mansion, the greatest stadium, the greatest headquarters, the greatest wife, the greatest brand, the greatest yacht, the greatest helicopter ... why would you not then want the greatest coach?''

The 2019 Dallas Cowboys plowed forward under Garrett while also flirting with ideas of "the greatest.'' CowboysSI.com will stand by its story that Dallas last offseason flirted with the idea of a re-connection with New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton ... while finding COO Stephen Jones' public denial to understandable

“That’s just untrue,'' Jones said of an NFL Network report - which again, we can confirm - that Dallas spent a moment last season investigating the availability of Payton. "Obviously we don’t comment on rumors like that.''

Jones, speaking to "K and C Masterpiece'' on Monday on 105.3 The Fan, can reasonably deny having "interviewed'' Payton, who of course eventually re-upped in New Orleans with a massive five-year extension, further cementing his folk-hero status in The Big Easy.

But "denying interest'' then is a fib. And "showing interest'' now should be a truth.

Our position? The Cowboys' search to replace Garrett - already under way before his official Sunday night dismissal, complete with Jerry Jones' lovely parting words - is fine to include Mike McCarthy and fine to include Marvin Lewis and can be a win by securing the likes of Lincoln Riley or Urban Meyer ...

But should also eventually see Dallas climb to the top of the mountain in its football pursuits. What might the Cowboys find up there? Unless you look, you won't know if Bill Belichick and the Patriots' early-playoff ouster means change for them. You won't know if the fact that Nick Saban actually lost two games this season means change at Alabama. And thanks to the events of Sunday - the expected dismissal of Garrett and the unexpected Vikings' playoff thumping of the Saints ... Jerry and Stephen Jones won't know if the Cowboys can break up the Sean Payton marriage with New Orleans .... unless Dallas is willing to again flirt.