Maybe Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has opted to unleash a few significant changes to his coaching staff during Super Bowl week as a diversion to a fairly bright-line comparison between his team and the current NFC champions.
The Seahawks’ superiority to the Cowboys (and the rest of the NFC) comes from the draft. For Dallas, there’s a specific apples-to-apples comparison that becomes a bad look for the ‘Boys.
As pointed out by David Moore of the Dallas Morning News, the Cowboys used a fifth-round pick in 2011 on cornerback Josh Thomas. Eleven picks later, the Seahawks picked cornerback Richard Sherman.
But that wasn’t the first time the Cowboys whiffed on a rookie who became a big-name defensive player. In 2010, the Cowboys picked safety Akwasi Owusu-Ansah . . . seven spots before the Seahawks selected safety Kam Chancellor.
Coaching surely is a factor, too. Maybe Thomas and Owusu-Ansah would have become stars in Seattle’s system. Still, the Seahawks have shown that they know how to draft, in part because they put a premium on drafting.
Moore notes that Seattle has drafted 39 players since Pete Carroll became head coach in 2010. The Cowboys, in contrast, have made 28 picks during that same period of time.
So while the Cowboys keep hiring coaches and not firing coaches because firing coaches would mean admitting failure, teams like the Seahawks are drafting players and drafting players and developing players and competing for championships.