PHILADELPHIA -- A matter of principle is the only thing preventing owner and general manager Jerry Jones from publicly declaring that Jason Garrett will continue coaching the Dallas Cowboys next season.

"The only reason I'm not going to because I've said that I'm just not going to talk about his business," Jones said after the Cowboys seized control of the NFC East and improved to 10-4 with a 38-27 win against the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday night. "His business in this context is his contract. I'm just not going to talk about that. I haven't talked about it, and there’s no need to talk about it. We'll sit down after the season and take a look at how things are going.

"It's very obvious that he is doing very well and his hard work is paying off."

It’s paying off much more than Jones would have predicted, to be honest.

Remember that Jones, who has earned a reputation for being optimistic to the point of delusion, essentially labeled this as a rebuilding season during the summer. He made a point to mention that Garrett, coming off three consecutive 8-8 campaigns in his first three full years as a head coach, would not be judged solely on the Cowboys’ record.

That’s the kind of talk that comes from an owner who was looking for reasons to keep his head coach and didn’t anticipate a 10-win season.

"It is beyond my expectation when we started the year that we’re sitting here with the wins," Jones said. "It doesn’t surprise me when I look at the work of Jason, when I look at the work of the staff, when I look the preparation, when I look at the resolve that they exhibited during our [organized team activities] and training camp, it doesn’t surprise me that we’ve had exceeded our expectation at all."

Jones has said several times that he considers this coaching staff to be the best of his ownership tenure. He has frequently lavished praise on coordinators Rod Marinelli and Scott Linehan, both of whom are in their positions in large part because Garrett was given more leeway to decide on staff changes last offseason.

Jones refers to Garrett as a coach who "has the chance to be at the top of his profession." Jones sees the potential for greatness in Garrett after living through the first-time head coach’s growing pains the last few years.

"I am confident that he’s eons away from when he started, walking in here as a coordinator, and when he started as a head coaching taking Wade Phillips' place," Jones said. "He’s way far down the line. Seasoned? No, that’s the good news. The good news is he’s really just getting started."