When Wade Phillips took over as the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys, he inherited several assistant coaches from the Bill Parcells regime. Don't be surprised to see several of them heading for South Florida very soon. Tony Sparano started the exodus today accepting the head coaching position of the Miami Dolphins. Along with Parcells, that's four men who were in the Cowboy organization now orchistrating the turn around for the once proud franchise that finished 1-15 this past year.
Parcells started the parade from Valley Ranch to Davie, Florida by hiring Jeff Ireland from the Cowboys scouting department as his General Manager. Irelend than hired his right hand man in Dallas, Brian Gaine and now Sparano.
Who's next?
-Cowboys secondary coach Todd Bowles
-Linebackers coach Paul Pasqualoni
-Defensive Line coach Kacy Rodgers
All three of these men are high on Parcells' list and close with Sparano.
While Jerry Jones is busy putting together a counter offer to try to retain Jason Garrett he issued a statement of congratulations to Sparano for his promotion today.
"I commend Wayne Huizenga, Bill Parcells and the Miami Dolphins on the hiring of an excellent football coach. I have a great deal of confidence in Tony and his ability to get the job done there in Miami. He fulfilled several very key roles here and was productive with every assignment. He is a dedicated and hard working man. His players respect him and work hard for him. I wish Tony and his family the very best."
Wade Phillips also praised his former offensive line coach today. "I talked to Tony today and told him how proud I was of him and how happy we are for him. I also told him how much I appreciated how helpful he was to me this past year. He has been a big contributor to this organization for the past few years, and we wish him the very best. He’s a quality football coach and an outstanding person.”
Though this was an exciting day for Sparano, he couldn't help but reflect on having to dig out of the dissapointment he's felt after losing to the Giants on Sunday.
"Obviously, it's been a real crazy week for me, but I'm glad that it ends this way," he said. "At the end of the day, if you're going to lose a football game like we lost down there in Dallas this week, it does leave a bitter taste in my mouth. Anybody that knows me knows that I'm about finishing. It's not about starting this thing, and I learned this from somebody else, putting your toe in the water, you've got to finish, and we didn't finish, so it left a bad taste in my mouth. Once that was over and I was able to get involved in some of these opportunities, that sort of cleared the smoke a little bit, but I think about last week a lot right now."
Hopefully the Cowboys won't have to go through this whole routine all over again with Jason Garrett.