‘I Make All The Decisions, Ultimately’: Jerry Jones Says Control Has Never Been An Issue In Dallas Cowboys Coaching Hires

FRISCO, Texas — Control has never been a question for Jerry Jones when he hires a head coach, the Dallas Cowboys owner and general manager said Friday, because the final call on every decision belongs to him.

Jones made the comments on 105.3 The Fan’s K&C Masterpiece shortly after his answer on paying top dollar for a coach. The hosts followed by asking whether a candidate who wanted a bigger say, or total say, in player personnel would be a problem.

Jones tied the answer to what he has personally put on the line since buying the franchise in February 1989. He has served as owner and general manager ever since.

“What I’ve risked and what I’ve put on the line and what I do with my life, I have never felt the need to think about control,” Jones said. “I’ve put everything. Financially, I make all the decisions, ultimately, with the Cowboys. That’s the way I’ve always done it. A lot of them have not been good. Cowboys or otherwise, a lot of them have had positive results. So it’s never an issue.”

“Just think about it a minute,” Jones continued. “What in the world would have an issue with the individual that has potentially risked more than anybody they’ve ever met to be involved and spend more of their life doing everything we can do for the Cowboys?”

Dallas is 3-5 entering Sunday’s game at the Indianapolis Colts. Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer is in his second season after the team promoted him from offensive coordinator in January 2025.

Jerry Jones Retells Deion Sanders Signing Story

The people around him can change his mind, Jones said, and he would not still be in the job if they could not.

“I wouldn’t be talking on this phone with you if I didn’t have many people change my mind about many things, so that I can assure you that anybody that I’ve got at any place can change my mind,” Jones explained.

Dallas signed Deion Sanders on Sept. 9, 1995, to a seven-year, $35 million contract that included a signing bonus of nearly $13 million. Jones said the deal came together at a hotel while his son, Stephen Jones, now the Cowboys’ CEO and executive vice president, waited in another room.

“I’ll never forget the story about Deion Sanders, and I was in the other room, we were at a hotel, Stephen was in the other room, and I went in with his agent,” Jones said. “And I came out and I told Stephen we were going in to kind of talk. And I said, ‘Well, we’ve done the deal.’ He said, ‘What?’ I said, ‘We’ve done the deal. I’ve done the deal for Deion Sanders.’”

“He said, ‘What, what, what?’ And he grabbed me, hand on one shoulder and forearm up against my neck and pushed me up against the door,” Jones added. “I said, ‘What are you going to do? Hit me, Stephen?’ Okay? And he said, no, we just, there were a lot of things to think about it at the time.”

Sanders helped Dallas win Super Bowl XXX after that season.

“The record knows and everybody knows that he was the highest paid player brought in at that time in the NFL,” Jones said. “And so my point about it, you can take any points away from it that you want to, is that financial is the one thing. I bought things that I couldn’t pay for and had to work to pay for. But the financial consideration, if we think that that’s the way we want to go, is not an issue. It never has been.”

Jones Says Recent Additions Have Changed His Mind Too

One of the hosts pointed out that Jones bought the team 37 years ago and signed Sanders 31 years ago. Jones said he tells those stories because most listeners already know them, and that he has the same kind of stories about people who have joined the organization recently.

“The same kinds of stories prevail,” Jones said. “And I have absolutely changed on a dime. Sometimes I reject it and I’ll go home and sleep on it, and I’ll come back and change.”

Jones also said he regularly changes direction based on what employees bring to him.

“I do all the time decide to go in different directions by what an employee or somebody that technically works for me, by definition,” Jones said. “All of the time, that’s where I get my input, because I know they’ve got self-interest in making this suggestion.”

Dallas plays at Indianapolis on Sunday at noon CT on FOX. The NFL trade deadline is Tuesday at 3 p.m. CT.