Since he became the owner and general manager of the Dallas Cowboys, Jerry Jones has had nine head coaches. Of those, only three – Bill Parcells, Wade Phillips, and Mike McCarthy – had NFL head coaching experience. The rest? They were Jones being “creative” with his choices.

Yet, on Friday, he claimed that while he does gamble on some names, he doesn’t mind paying the big guns if their performance deserves it. Of course, it was a desperate measure to rectify his comments from Tuesday about there being “no correlation” between a coach’s salary and winning. But while doing that, did the gambler mistakenly give away his tell? Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio believes so.

“Unless he was referring to college coaches (or high-school coaches), that’s tampering. Period. End of discussion,” Florio implied in his latest take. “It could be false — an effort to bolster the idea that, yes, he’s willing to spend.

“Still, the effort to put out the frugality fire he started on Tuesday by ridiculously claiming there’s no correlation between coaching pay and winning included a nonchalant concession that he has tried to pry NFL coaches away from their current teams, in blatant violation of the rules.”

There had been reports of Jones’ interest in Sean Payton, a former Dallas assistant under Parcells, when he was head coach of the New Orleans Saints. There had been no names named. And the fact that Jones does go mainly after NCAA coaches kind of quiets the noise down. But did he dig a deep NFL investigation-worthy hole for himself?

The whole scenario began when the Cowboys’ management was called out for their apparent head coach salary patterns.

Jones ‘investment’ on head coaches comes to the fore as he defends his take

The Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer is reportedly among the lower-paid head coaches in the NFL.

ESPN’s Todd Archer reported that Schottenheimer’s salary is believed to be in the bottom half of the league. Sportico’s Kurt Badenhausen also estimated that 15 current NFL head coaches earn at least $12 million annually, but Schottenheimer was not one of them. The Athletic claimed that his salary is approximately between $5 million and $8 million. It didn’t start with him, though.

Jerry Jones was also not paying Wade Phillips a high salary compared with other NFL head coaches. In 2010, Phillips was reportedly earning around $3 million per year, which made him one of the lowest-paid coaches in the league.

But the GM, who always wants to ensure his word is the last word, wouldn’t agree.

Jerry Jones said on 105.3 The Fan that it is ridiculous to believe that he was underpaying coaches with the Dallas Cowboys. He then revealed quite an attention-grabbing detail while defending his stance, admitting a serious error.

“The facts are I have been out there, and I have been trying to lure very successful coaches away from the teams they were on and knew full well that I was going to pay them for their success,” Jones said on his appearance on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas on Friday. “So that has been done. No one knows that, but I do.”

Per the existing rules, teams cannot contact coaches employed by other teams until after the regular season is over. Coaches on teams that don’t make the playoffs can be interviewed three days after their season finale.

The NFL may have a tampering problem

Florio had hinted at possible tampering with the Raiders hiring Klint Kubiak as head coach. The latter, previously the Seattle Seahawks’ offensive coordinator, announced the move right after the team won the Super Bowl. However, it might not have been an issue, as there was an expectation that Kubiak would leave.

According to the rules, sitting head coaches cannot be approached at any time of the year unless their teams consent. The Seahawks might have allowed Kubiak to pursue this opportunity.

The NFL has brought down the hammer on tampering in the recent past.

In 2022, the Miami Dolphins were found to have tampered with getting Tom Brady (as a player) and Sean Payton. Per the investigation, the Dolphins had illegally reached out to Payton’s agent without permission from the New Orleans Saints. This was before Payton announced his decision to retire from the Saints.

As punishment, the Dolphins had to forfeit a first-round pick in the 2023 draft and a third-round pick in the 2024 draft.

Jerry Jones’ decision-making as team owner has always been a topic of debate, but, as always, he defended his assessment.

Jones claims “zero correlation” between paying coaches and winning games

A reason why this debate exists is that Dallas seems to be playing rather uncharacteristically this season. Jones and Co. made quite the moves to rebuild the troubled defense, starting with hiring Christian Parker.

Jones stressed that there was “zero correlation between how much you pay a coach or how many coaches you have as to winning.”

Dallas is now 3-5 in the season. The defense has not lived up to the advertised hypes, despite all the additions made.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers, winless before their clash with the Cowboys, torched the defense with 241 rushing yards. But this season, the offense is also underperforming. The Cowboys have not been able to balance their strategy with a healthy run game, averaging only 94.1 rushing yards per game (8th-least).

However, despite it all, Jones is still supportive of Schottenheimer.

“Well, I will say that a lot of people let Brian down today,” Jones said after the loss to the Cardinals. “So for whatever criticism we want to have with Brian, we can all get in line. And that was a total team loss to use a cliche. That was a total team effort out there for us. And we have to be have to be better for our fans, have to be we have to be better than that when we got our hands on the win and then drop the ball.

“I made a change and I don’t want to mention it because I’m not proud of it. But I made a change with Wade Phillips there in the middle of the season, and I don’t see that here.”

But with the Cowboys already in a precarious position after eight games, will Jerry Jones resort to the extreme measures he has pulled before? Only time will tell.