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Eight years ago to the day, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said he wouldn’t be making an in-season coaching change. Three days later, he did.

After Monday night’s disappointing loss to the Titans, the first 2018 home loss for the Cowboys, Jerry Jones said the same thing.

After the 28-14 outcome, Jones was asked whether he could envision making a coaching change during the season. “No,” Jones said, via Charean Williams of PFT.

Which means that it’s time to watch and wait for a potential coaching change.

The Cowboys, now 3-5, face the 4-4 Eagles in Philadelphia on Sunday night. The Cowboys then travel to Atlanta to play the Falcons, followed by a pair of Thursday home games, against Washington and New Orleans. Three of those four games will be played in front of large national audiences. And the outcomes of these next four games could go a long way toward determining whether Jones will, eight years later, do the thing he has said he wouldn’t do.

The difference this time, of course, is that there really isn’t an in-house coach in waiting, unless Jones has taken a sufficient shine to Kris Richard to prompt Jones to entrust the job to the former Seahawks defensive coordinator. The more likely outcome is that Jones would go big-name hunting after the season, giving up control and limelight for a Jimmy Johnson/Bill Parcells-style coach who would be charged with turning around an extended stretch of mostly mediocrity.

Right now, the Cowboys are slightly worse than mediocre. They’ve got six days before embarking on a three-games-in-12-days stretch that could go a long way toward sealing Jason Garrett’s fate, whether he makes it to Week 17 or not.