What in the world are the Cowboys doing?

Jerry Jones can't possibly be serious with this one.

Letting Mike McCarthy walk would have been entirely understandable if there was some sort of big move to follow. Granted, it's not easy to top McCarthy's 49-35 record, but this is the Dallas Cowboys we're talking about - a blockbuster splash to push them over the top should always be on the table.

Unfortunately for Cowboys fans, that's simply not how this team does business. After an embarrassing search that included all of four known interviews, Jones settled on promoting offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer to become the next head coach. And did he ever have a collection of words to say about it.

"Brian Schottenheimer is known as a career assistant," Jones told ESPN's Adam Schefter. "He ain't Brian no more. He is now known as the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys."

Got it.

Schottenheimer's indeed been a career assistant, and a relatively anonymous one at that. While there's more to being a head coach than statistical success in other roles, it's not difficult to understand why he's seemingly never been a candidate for top jobs before.

The Cowboys did lead the NFL in scoring during Schottenheimer's first season as offensive coordinator in 2023, but Dallas was similarly productive offensively over the two previous seasons. And McCarthy was the offensive play-caller throughout his tenure as head coach, anyway.

So, what gives? If we're going to be charitable, we could concede the remote possibility that Jones has masterfully identified some rare leadership qualities that may make Schottenheimer surprisingly successful as a head coach. That'll surely be the company line.

More realistically, though, this seems to be another case of the Cowboys owner doing what he does best: getting in the way of winning.

Jones runs the most valuable sports franchise on the planet - Forbes' most recent estimates have the Cowboys worth a staggering $10.1 billion. Their $564 million operating income is nearly double that of the next closest NFL team. Considering there's no cap for non-roster salaries, money should never get in the way of doing what needs to be done in terms of staffing.

Yet Jones is notoriously stingy when it comes to paying head coaches. The first sign the McCarthy exit was going to happen came when the Cowboys reportedly opened extension talks and balked at his desired term. Sure enough, Dallas didn't even pretend to aim high. The final candidate list included only Schottenheimer, Robert Saleh, Leslie Frazier, and Kellen Moore. A headline-generating call to Deion Sanders never appeared to be all that serious.

This would be the most attractive job in football - if the Cowboys would allow it. But the clear resistance to big-money gambles, along with Jones pledging to never give up personnel control, makes it nearly impossible to land a top coaching candidate. That leaves the Cowboys zeroing in on familiarity.

Schottenheimer and Moore - the team's offensive coordinator from 2019-2022 - were the clear favorites throughout this abbreviated search. Both know how things work in Dallas, are in no position to seek any sort of personnel power, and presumably aren't commanding top dollar.

Schottenheimer, whose hiring was announced in epic Friday evening news-dump fashion, will probably end up one of the league's lowest-paid head coaches over the course of his reported four-year deal. And that makes this the perfect time to look back on Jones talking a big game about his willingness to spend:

"It would be embarrassing, it would be shocking if you knew the size of the check I would write if it guaranteed me a Super Bowl," he said in 2018. "It would be obscene. There is nothing I would do financially not to get a Super Bowl."

Dallas is further away from a Super Bowl now than it was then, and Jones isn't exactly flexing his financial muscle to help push things in the right direction.

With the Commanders playing this weekend, the Cowboys officially take over the NFC's longest conference title game drought. It could be a lengthy one if ownership doesn't change its ways.