Michael Irvin isn't happy the Cowboys didn't hire Deion Sanders: 'We lost an opportunity here'
The Dallas Cowboys have hired Brian Schottenheimer as their new head coach to replace Mike McCarthy, and one famous Cowboys alumnus isn't happy with the decision.
Michael Irvin, the Hall of Fame wide receiver who spent his entire 12-year career in Dallas, laid into his former team on Saturday in a video posted to his YouTube channel, lamenting the Cowboys' decision to hire someone who was already on staff instead of Irvin's top choice of Deion Sanders, another Cowboys alumnus.
"Here's my issue. We lost an opportunity here. I don't know what happened with Coach Schottenheimer and the Cowboys, but Jerry [Jones, team owner and GM] is a shrewd, shrewd businessman, and this opportunity, I'm shocked he did not see. I was pushing for Deion Sanders to be the next head coach, and I still stand 10 toes down on that push.
“Let me break it down. We have two NFC East teams in the NFC championship game being played tomorrow. All eyes on them. The Philadelphia Eagles and the Washington Commanders. Our enemies on all fronts. And they’re in a position that we haven’t held in 30 f***ing years. The longest drought by any NFC East team. Thirty years. ... You bring in someone who's already inside for head coach. You lose things there that you can't grab back that I'm worried about.
"We’re losing ground in the NFC. ... It was time to bring somebody in here that could shake things up and grab this last leg of Cowboys Nation. If we've got 30 years right now, and life expectancy is 100 years, that means by math one third of Cowboys Nation has never felt or lived the glory of a championship story. Don't even know about it. How the hell can they pass something down when they don’t even know about it?
"Worse yet, that generation has seen total domination from a team named the Kansas City Chiefs. Who in that span is running up on winning three in a row. So not only are you losing football games over here and opportunities over here and divisions over here, you’re about to get our moniker snatched off our backs.”
The moniker Irvin speaks of is "America's Team," which the Cowboys truly earned in the 1990s during their last run of success that included three Super Bowl titles.
Irvin laid out his issues with hiring someone from the inside, focusing on what he believes are problems with team discipline.
“I know what we needed,” Irvin said. “They don’t have curfew. They don’t have discipline. We were fourth in penalties this [season]. So how do you fix that? ... How do you do that when you’re coming from inside?”
Sanders has experienced success as a college head coach in Colorado, where he's been for two seasons, coaching his son, QB Shedeur Sanders, and Heisman winner Travis Hunter, and taking the Buffaloes to a bowl game. Early in the head coach hiring cycle, Sanders expressed interest in the Las Vegas Raiders opening, but nothing came of that (the Raiders recently hired Pete Carroll as their new head coach).
Jones had reportedly spoken to Sanders about the Cowboys' head coaching job several weeks ago, but Jones decided to go a different way, much to Irvin's displeasure.
