Report: Dallas Cowboys expected to interview Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn

The Cowboys’ coaching search will reportedly last for a month.

Friday marks the fourth full day of the Dallas Cowboys coaching search as they officially parted ways with Mike McCarthy on Monday. If you are curious, it took about a week last time they were looking for a head coach for them to ultimately land on McCarthy himself.

According to recent reports it appears that this will not be the case this time around. Calvin Watkins of The Dallas Morning News recently reported that this thing is going to last until mid-February.

“The Cowboys will take this into probably mid-February before they make a final decision.”

Watkins said this after noting that Detroit Lions coordinators Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn are each expected to interview for the job at some point. It is likely that variable that will serve as the main reason why Dallas has to wait so long to make a decision.

As members of the still-in-the-playoffs Lions, neither Johnson nor Glenn are candidates who the Cowboys can even speak with until their seasons end. This is the case because, as we detailed the day that Dallas and McCarthy parted ways, the Cowboys did not virtually interview either of them in the week between the regular season’s end and the Wild Card Round’s conclusion. Per the NFL’s rules, teams who have a bye in the first round, as Detroit did, can have their staffers do virtual interviews then and then alone. Once the Wild Card Round concludes things are off limits.

Technically speaking this isn’t entirely true as the candidates in question can also chat with teams between January 27th and February 2nd; however, this only applies to teams who conducted virtual interviews in the window previously discussed which obviously does not apply to the Cowboys. TL;DR…. the Cowboys cannot talk to Johnson or Glenn until Detroit is done, whenever that is (this is also true of Kansas City Chiefs staffers if that is not obvious).

Given that the Super Bowl is on February 9th and that the Lions stand a good chance of playing in it, the Cowboys could not speak to either of these two until then which makes the mid-February date thrown out by Watkins make sense. Obviously between now and then Dallas can talk to a variety of other candidates and it goes without saying that if the Lions lose before the Super Bowl that things could get expedited.

But it would be troublesome for the Cowboys to wait that long on some level. Consider that the Senior Bowl is on February 1st, the weekend before the Super Bowl. The NFL Combine is not until March 3rd so that is not as pressing as it may feel, but the overall point is that some very important time relative to the overall synergy of the coaching staff and scouting department could/would be lost by the Cowboys do wait this long. You can certainly argue that it may be worth that to wind up with one of the two, though.

Consider the dates when previous seasons ended that were followed by the hiring of new head coaches and the dates on which the hirings were announced:

• Mike McCarthy: 2019 season ends on December 29th – McCarthy announced on January 7th
• Jason Garrett: 2010 season ends on January 2nd – Garrett announced on January 6th
• Wade Phillips: Bill Parcells announces he is leaving on January 22nd, 2007 – Phillips announced on February 8th

This feels like a large enough sample size as it covers about 20 years and the last three coaching decisions that the organization made. Obviously the shortest time taken by the team to name a coach was Garrett but as he was coming off of serving as the interim the writing was very clearly on the wall (as it had been from the day he signed on as OC in 2007).

The Cowboys took a bit of time between Bill Parcells walking away and fully deciding on Wade Phillips. It was then that the organization last went through a thorough search as Mike McCarthy was one of only two candidates (Marvin Lewis) who Dallas interviewed in early 2020.

Mac Engel was kind enough recently to document all of the people who Dallas interviewed after Parcells left:

Jerry interviewed the following candidates:

Bears defensive coordinator Ron Rivera; Indianapolis Colts assistant head coach/quarterbacks coach Jim Caldwell; Dolphins quarterbacks coach Jason Garrett; San Francisco 49ers offensive coordinator Norv Turner; former 49ers head coach Mike Singletary; Chargers defensive coordinator Wade Phillips; New Orleans Saints defensive coordinator Gary Gibbs; as well as members of Parcells’ staff that included receivers coach Todd Haley, offensive line coach Tony Sparano, secondary coach Todd Bowles.(Eight of those men would he an NFL head coach either again, or for the first time. Bowles is currently the head coach in Tampa.)

Unlike Ben Johnson or Aaron Glenn, Wade Phillips was not a candidate who Dallas had to wait to talk to. The process simply took that time.

But back to Johnson and Glenn for a moment, what if the Cowboys wait to talk to them and then they ultimately say no? Or choose another team? Waiting that long and compromising the Senior Bowl and whatever else (to whatever you degree you feel that this is the case) is a risky proposition given that you are not guaranteed either one of those candidates whenever you finally do get the chance to speak with them.

It all feels built on a loose foundation and like the Cowboys are trying to figure it out as they go along. Consider that this whole ordeal is one that the team reportedly did not even plan on being their current reality and that they now have to navigate it.

Surely they will figure out a way to do so… right?

Update: 5:15pm ET

For what it’s worth… Adam Schefter noted on Friday that Ben Johnson is not going to be the next head coach of the Dallas Cowboys.

Watch the clip. He was pretty frank.