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Cowboys potential candidate Bobby Slowik (right) and Texans coach DeMeco Ryans.

Ayear ago, Texans offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik was one of the hot names on the head-coaching market. He had come over to Houston with coach DeMeco Ryans from the Cowboys‘ rival 49ers, where he had been the passing-game coordinator, and the Texans’ offense took off, with Slowik getting a stellar season from rookie CJ Stroud.

Because Ryans and Slowik had worked together for six years in San Francisco, and two more in Houston, there was some shock on Friday when it was revealed that Ryans and the Texans were opting for a change at the coordinator level. Slowik was ousted.

This comes a year after Slowik was a candidate for head-coaching jobs in Seattle, Washington, Carolina and Atlanta. Before the hiring cycle was over, though, Slowik leveraged his sought-after status into a new deal with the Texans, including a pay raise.

A year later, Slowik is out. The Texans’ offense regressed this season, but it was also riddled with injuries, especially at the wide-receiver spot where all three of the team’s stars–Nico Collins, Tank Dell and Stefon Diggs–missed significant time.

The Texans’ hasty axe on Slowik sounds like an interesting opportunity for a team that’s yet to hire a head coach. And there are only two left who fit that bill: the Cowboys and Saints.

NFL Insider: No Links to Bobby Slowik

Well, according to Jane Slater of NFL Network, don’t expect the Cowboys to see Slowik’s firing as an interesting opportunity. In fact, she wrote on Twitter/X, don’t expect the Cowboys to much mind to Slowik at all.

NFL insider Ian Rapoport wrote on Twitter/X: “A major change in Houston: The #Texans are moving on from offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik, sources say, after an up-and-down offensive season. Despite reaching the divisional round, coach DeMeco Ryans hopes for more. OL coach Chris Strausser is also out.”

To which Slater, who focuses on Cowboys coverage, chimed in: “And yes I just checked. Cowboys won’t be calling Bobby.” She followed that up with the one emoji that sums up the current state of the Cowboys: a shrug.

Cowboys Hiring Process Still Brian Schottenheimer or Bust?

In the past 24 hours, it has become increasingly likely that the Cowboys will settle on offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer to replace the since-departed Mike McCarthy. On Thursday, there were outlets reporting that the hiring of Schottenheimer was getting close, as the Cowboys spent five hours interviewing him in a second round of talks.

But subsequent reporting suggests that Schottenheimer is the chosen pick of the team’s executive VP Stephen Jones, son of owner and GM Jerry Jones. The elder Jones is not so sure. That says a lot about the lack of creativity on Stephen Jones’s part–even his mule-stubborn father is being more creative in this process than he is.

Still, it’s not clear who else Jerry Jones might have in mind. He reportedly spoke with Pete Carroll about the job, just hours before Carroll went ahead and took the Raiders job. There have been formal interviews with ex-Jets coach Robert Saleh and Eagles offensive coordinator Kellen Moore, and informal chats with Deion Sanders and former coach Rich Bisaccia, now the Packers’ special-teams coach.

It’s been an amorphous process. But it won’t, apparently, include Slowik.