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Cowboys owner Jerry Jones believes that, if coach Jason Garrett had been a free agent in the 2019 hiring cycle, five teams would have made Garrett a job offer. With Jones still not extending Garrett’s contract, which expires after the 2019 season, it’s unclear whether the Cowboys would be one of those five teams.

Here’s what is clear. As explained by David Moore of the Dallas Morning News, Garrett has no coaching tree despite serving as the head coach in Dallas for more than eight full seasons.

Let that sink in for a moment. Not a single member of Garrett’s coaching staff has become a head coach elsewhere.

While not immediately relevant to Garrett, it makes it harder for Garrett to find, for example, an offensive coordinator when there are no other teams running Garrett’s system, and in turn schooling young coaches in Garrett’s philosophies.

Garrett routinely is criticized for having a simplified, bare-bones, predictable offense that relies far more on physical dominance than creativity. Receiver Dez Bryant had a hard time finding work last year due in part to the fact that, for his entire career, he played one position (the “X” receiver) in the same, basic offense.

With great players, a simple system will work, much of the time. At some point, however, a coach needs to come up with ways to confuse and confound the opponent’s players and coaches. Not a lot of that happens in Dallas.

And that may be one of the reasons why teams looking for coaches flock not to coaches with connections to Garrett but to those who have worked with Sean McVay.