As a beat writer or columnist, Tim Cowlishaw has covered all nine Dallas Cowboys head coaches. His rankings of them are listed here.

There are assistants who have been head coaches before, like Kliff Kingsbury and Brian Flores. There are former Cowboys assistants like Kellen Moore and Wes Phillips, and Al Harris could emerge as a dark horse candidate, and that’s before the young gun coordinators like Ben Johnson, Bobby Slowik, Joe Brady and others are even mentioned.

The Dallas Cowboys had to make one of the hardest decisions of Jerry Jones' ownership when they decided not to renew McCarthy's contract before Tuesday's deadline.  This was the right move, regardless of McCarthy's pedigree and success in the NFL-- even in Dallas.