Jerry Jones wanted “soft landing” for Jason Garrett

[Rowdy]

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The Cowboys waited longer than other teams to announce that they were making a head coaching change this month, but they ultimately did decide to move on without Jason Garrett.

That process involved several meetings and a variety of reports about what might be going on behind closed doors with most eventually landing on the Cowboys wanting to make the process as painless as possible. At a Wednesday press conference introducing Mike McCarthy as the new coach, team owner Jerry Jones confirmed that was the case and said it was out of respect to all the Garretts who have worked for the Cowboys at some point in Jones’ tenure.

“I do not only respect what he brought, helped [building] what we’re sitting in, helped what we’re doing,” Jones said. “Their family has been a part of that in their own way. As we all know, not the way — it took too many people, too many former players, coaches, everybody involved, to get to be sitting here today. But I felt strongly about that, and we all wanted this to have a very nice, if possible under the circumstances, soft landing.”

Jones said one of the conversations he had with Garrett was about interviewing McCarthy and Jones said Garrett told him he was “not going to meet anybody more special” than McCarthy. Given how few people interviewed for the job, it seems Jones agreed with his team’s former coach.