CNOTE: Why Will McClay keeps rebuffing GM interest/Osa Odighizuwa's free agency

KRLD-FM / 105.3 The Fan

In today's version of the Cowboys News of the Evening, the GBag Nation discusses Will McClay's comments on why he keeps rebuffing interest from other teams to remain in the Cowboys' front office. They also discuss Osa Odighizuwa's upcoming free agency and what it'd cost to keep him in Dallas.

Transcript

00:00Yeah, Will McClay on why he continues to not pursue leaving the Cowboys for a real GM job.

00:23Basically getting the opportunity to pursue a championship, a Super Bowl and work with

00:27these people is extremely important to me.

00:30I think it's good news.

00:31I think for Cowboys fans might not remember how bad the talent got at times on the run

00:36post Jimmy Johnson to Will McClay, you know, 15, 18 years somewhere in there.

00:42It was wheels off and unpredictable and McClay has stabilized, improved the organization

00:47and really the only bad years that you have are quarterback injury years.

00:51You know, there's no sustained losing.

00:53I think Will McClay gets a lot of credit for that.

00:55So I think it's a big dub to hear that and, you know, maybe I imagine Will McClay continuing

01:00in a very important role with the Cowboys.

01:03Not unlike a Gil Brandt or something like that, Brian, just a long, long type of deal.

01:07Absolutely.

01:08You know, I'd like to see Will have his own opportunity to hire his own coach and to pick

01:14his players and kind of navigate that.

01:16I think he would do a really a fine job with that.

01:19If I was a fan of another team and I needed a general manager, I, you know, Will McClay

01:23would be a guy I would surely look at.

01:25Yeah, you're absolutely right, Gavin.

01:27The stability that he's brought, his ability to marry the Joneses with the scouts, with

01:33the coaches is something that a lot of these, you know, my old boss, Larry Lacewell, he

01:40was able to do it because he was friends with Jerry Jones.

01:43You know, people knew that, listen, you mess with Lace, you're probably messing with the

01:48Joneses.

01:49You're probably, you know, Will seems to have that ability to kind of not put himself on

01:55with one group.

01:56You know, he puts himself with, you know, you feel like talking to Will that like he's

02:01for the coaches, he's for the scouts, you know, he's for the Joneses.

02:05You don't get the feeling that he's going to always side with the scouts.

02:09Because it was often contentious before.

02:11Very, very contentious, you know, and Lace was a former coach.

02:16And so the coaches always felt like, you know, that they were going to get their way here.

02:22And then the scouts kind of resented that because, well, wait a minute, you run our

02:27side of the building here.

02:28Why are you siding with the coaches over here and stuff?

02:31So, yeah, it's, Will has done a great job of just making sure that all parties involved,

02:38and they're really, as we know, they're really involved with consensus.

02:43They want that consensus.

02:44And to a point, it sometimes is a detriment, but other times it helps them with how they

02:50get their players on board.

02:53And to build on that idea, I think that's something important to note if, you know,

02:56somebody might be disgruntled or discouraged by the job that their personnel department

03:00is doing because of their last two first round picks.

03:04It's not Will McClay's vision like it was, you know, or it could be for other, you know,

03:09pure GMs.

03:10So he's just gathering consensus.

03:11I would love to see him have the opportunity to create the vision and be like a final say

03:16type of guy.

03:17Yeah.

03:18We've talked about this before.

03:19There's that clip of him standing up and basically being the tiebreaker of Mozzie Smith, you

03:25know, whether it was Bergeron, the tackle guard from Illinois, or Mozzie Smith.

03:33And there was that discussion on the clock.

03:35Man, I'd love to go back and see what this team could look like right now.

03:38No, exactly.

03:39But so, hey, there's times you're going to stand on that table and be absolutely wrong.

03:44And I think Will has eliminated a lot of that being wrong.

03:47Well, I mean, he just, he nailed Tyler Smith three years ago, you know, a pick that came

03:52out of nowhere.

03:53Yep.

03:54But Leofow and Overshown were good.

03:55Cooper Beebe is probably going to be good.

03:58Marshawn Nealon is going to be good.

03:59So it's not like a total waste of the loss.

04:01No, not at all.

04:02Not at all.

04:03And that's where I think that, you know, the Joneses really do appreciate Will, that he's

04:09able to smooth over all the rough spots that the Joneses might create.

04:15And I don't even know where they would go for a replacement for him.

04:18You know, that's a very special set of skills, what you talked about, getting all these different

04:22departments involved and feel like they have ownership and importance without being alienated.

04:27Plus a guy with his skill level of team building and the ability to have the relationship with

04:32Jerry is huge here.

04:33You just can't replace him.

04:34No, they would probably go with on staff like Mitch Lapointe or somebody like that would

04:38get an opportunity.

04:40If you remember when Lacewell left, you know, myself and Tom Suskowski were there and Tom

04:45looked at me one day and goes, you getting this job?

04:47And I'm like, no, you getting this job?

04:48And he goes, no.

04:49And then it was Jeff Ireland.

04:51Like he'd backdoored us to get to Parcells and that's how he got the job.

04:55Yeah.

04:56So it's, but they're going to, they're going to likely hire people within it.

05:00It's not something that they went out and got Lionel Vital.

05:04And I've known Lionel for a long time.

05:05He was an absolute disaster as a player personnel guy.

05:08And so, you know, when they, when they, and that was on a recommendation from Bill Belichick,

05:13you know, Hey, Lionel Vital, you know, come and bring him in.

05:15But that was an, and they, and they haven't really gone outside that sense.

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