Dallas Cowboys: Why promoting an in-house OC is the wrong move

The Dallas Cowboys are rumored to want to find their next offensive coordinator from within their own coaching staff. Here’s why that’s the wrong move.

The Dallas Cowboys fired their offensive coordinator, Scott Linehan, last week despite the team having won the NFC East title and posting their first postseason victory since 2014. Clearly, winning wasn’t enough for Linehan to keep his job.

A week later, and there seem to be some very strong indications that the Cowboys intend to find their next offensive coordinator from within, pulling from Linehan’s own staff to replace him. The leading candidates appear to be quarterbacks coach Kellen Moore and tight ends coach Doug Nussmeier.

This is the wrong move for Dallas. Moore is a first-year coach who seemed to do little to improve quarterback Dak Prescott‘s play in his third season. All season long fans have been begging for a more experienced hand to guide Prescott. Dallas may have now found that person in the recently hired Jon Kitna, a 17-year quarterback in the NFL whom now possesses several years of experience as a coach as well.

Promoting Moore to offensive coordinator would appear to be a massive misstep for Dallas as the 29-year old lacks coaching experience. Plus he was brought to Dallas in 2015 as a backup quarterback due to his knowledge of Linehan’s system.

Moore went undrafted out of Boise State in 2012 but was signed by the Detroit Lions while Linehan was their offensive coordinator. He essentially followed him to Dallas.

And regardless of what you think of Moore’s career in college, he was a player, not a coach or coordinator for the Broncos. And the majority of his time in the NFL has been under Linehan. So, if the Cowboys opt to promote Moore, they are basically getting a far less experienced Linehan. No thank you.

As for Nussmeier, he has an impressive résumé. The 48-year old has had short stints as the offensive coordinator at Alabama, Michigan, and Florida. But you are only as good as your last job. And the Cowboys tight ends struggled last season. Blake Jarwin was near irrelevant till the last couple games of the year and did little to help in the playoffs.

Rookie Dalton Schultz and former basketball star Rico Gathers didn’t make a real leap in their development under his tutelage. I honestly do not think we’ve seen enough from this positional group to suddenly promote Nussmeier to offensive coordinator.

What the Cowboys’ offense needs is an outsider to come to Dallas from a dynamic offense. Los Angles Rams head coach Sean McVay being the poster boy for such things. In my eyes, someone like Shane Waldron, the passing game coordinator and co-offensive coordinator for the Rams makes a lot of sense in Big D.

The bottom line is the Dallas Cowboys must hire the best personnel available. And apologizes to Kellen Moore and Doug Nussmeier, but other NFL teams are not knocking down their doors for interviews. Why would you ever think the best candidate for your open offensive coordinator position would come from the very same staff of the man you just fired? That’s absolutely mind-boggling to me.