FRISCO – There was a time before Mike McCarthy and the Dallas Cowboys went their separate ways where some chatter of a Bill Belichick return connected the future Hall of Famer to “America’s Team.”
Amid last season’s struggles, it became more apparent that leadership changes were imminent at The Star. … and owner Jerry Jones was more than happy to let the Belichick rumors fly.
Dallas took the long road to getting their, but ultimately pulled the plug on McCarthy. The only problem? The Belichick train had left the station, chugging all the way down to Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Belichick took the head job at the University of North Carolina in a shocking move to the college ranks. Now, the Belichick connection was always a long shot, but Cowboys fans had some hopes of landing the winningest coach in league history to end a decades long title drought.
And maybe Jerry and Bill harbored some hopes, too.
Dallas would eventually land on Brian Schottenheimer whose resumé boasts for less prestige than the eight-time Super Bowl champion. However, the Cowboys’ decision looks smarter by the day. Frankly, it’s almost a blessing they never got into the Belichick sweepstakes.
Over the weekend, footage of an interview Belichick did an interview with CBS Sunday Morning went viral. He went on to promote his memoir “The Art of Winning: Lessons from My Life in Football.”
That interview took a turn when his girlfriend, Jordon Hudson, interrupted the discussion when Belichick faced a question regarding the nature of their relationship.
According to reports, Hudson interrupted the interview on several occasions, even leaving the room at one point. Wednesday, The Athletic followed up with notes that Hudson blockaded the filming of a season of Hard Knocks with the North Carolina football team.
The university and Belichick have now had to facilitate some damage control and address everything in the fallout from that interview. … while also trying to work through the fact that Hudson essentially now has a job helping the legendary coach run the Tar Heels program.
And now, with regard to the Cowboys, fans of “America’s Team” will surely acknowledge that this team avoided a rollercoaster of weird headlines (what would Hudson’s job been here at The Star?) and instead found a candidate who so far feels like the right guy in “Schotty.”
There’s no guarantee that these same storylines would spiral out of control if Belichick stayed in the pros, especially in Dallas where a person like Hudson would have less autonomy.
Regardless, this relationship and the drama stemming out of the past week has become an unnecessary distraction as the program ends the academic year and prepares for the summer. For Cowboys fans, it’s hard not to have some sort of relief that the team avoided this headache.
“Schotty” has much to prove and there is an immediate expectation for results. But the franchise and his players already have his backing with fans slowly falling in rank. Dallas’ offseason, along with this draft class, only promote his promises of culture change driven on character on results.
We’ll see if that translates on the field. But early indications are the Cowboys found their guy and avoided utter chaos.
