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Home > Jeff Schultz > Archives > 2009 > February > 05
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Dallas messed up with Dan Reeves
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s still not out of his system. He is 65 years old and six years removed from his last coaching job. He has weekly radio shows, sits in a broadcast booth every NFL Sunday and is financially secure. Why isn’t that enough for Dan Reeves?
“I haven’t been able to get it out of me,” he said Thursday. “I was in Dallas, watching film with their coaches for 2 1/2 days, studying their running game. It felt great. It got my heart beating.”
Dan Reeves wants back in football. To say he is desperate would be overstating things because otherwise he would be in the employ of the Dallas Cowboys today.
The former Falcons coach temporarily shelved a job offer to be San Francisco’s offensive coordinator nearly two weeks ago so that he could explore a sudden opportunity with Dallas, where he played and coached for 16 years. Two days later, when he believed the position as Cowboys’ “advisor” was secure, he turned the 49ers down. But Reeves ended up with nothing when he and Cowboys owner Jerry Jones could not agree on contract language.
This may all seem a little strange, except that we are talking about the Cowboys, the most high profile dysfunctional franchise in professional sports. Reeves yearned to help his friend, coach Wade Phillips, elevate the team to something north of cartoon. Instead, he ended up walking out.
“They say hindsight’s 20-20,” Reeves said, when asked about turning down the offer from 49ers coach Mike Singletary. “I guess I can say now I should’ve taken the job out there. But for family reasons, Dallas was a better opportunity.”
He played and coached for 16 years in Dallas. He has two daughters who live there. His son-in-law, Joe DeCamillis, just became the Cowboys’ special teams coach.
“It seemed like a great fit,” he said.
Reeves said the two sides had reached a verbal agreement on salary and responsibilities. He would have input on personnel, philosophy and game plans. He would help in issues related to moving into the Cowboys’ new stadium.
He would be called only “advisor,” which left his job description intentionally broad and vague.
But when Reeves saw the actual contract Wednesday, something was wrong.
“The deal was basically done,” he said. “Then I got the new contract and there were things in there I felt I couldn’t live with. I talked to Jerry at noon. He felt those things were important to him but I felt they were important to me. In the end, we thought it was best to move on.”
The Cowboys released a statement, saying only that they were “unable to reach an agreement [on] details.”
Reeves again: “It’s so trivial that if I tell you, people will say, ‘That’s ridiculous. Why couldn’t you just sign the contract?’ But if it’s that important to me and him, maybe it’s not ridiculous.”
You know what’s ridiculous? That regardless of what this minor issue was, Jones wouldn’t make a concession. It would have been Dallas one step closer to normalcy. Instead, he’s still sharing office space with Terrell Owens.
Reeves is too bright, too classy and certainly too available to not be part of an NFL organization. He was a head coach for 23 years in Denver, New York and Atlanta. He coached the Falcons to an improbable Super Bowl in 1998. But he was fired five years later after a 3-10 start, a season in which Michael Vick watched from the sideline on crutches with a broken leg. The season before with Vick, the Falcons went 9-6-1 and upset Green Bay in the playoffs.
Vick’s greatest success came under Reeves. When San Francisco hired former Falcons quarterback coach Mike Johnson — who recommended Reeves to Singletary — and offered the coordinator’s job to Reeves, some speculated the 49ers were preparing to sign Vick. But Reeves said, “That was never mentioned to me.”
He still wants to coach. Knee replacement surgeries have him feeling stronger than in years. The postseason gave him an adrenaline rush.
If another opportunity comes up, Reeves said, “I would be interested, for sure.”
Instead, it’s probably back to a radio booth. “I had put all that stuff aside, not thinking I would be going back to it,” he said.
Suddenly, retirement seems out of place.
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