Bill Callahan is saying all the right things, heading into his new job as the offensive coordinator for the Dallas Cowboys. The latest thing he has said, as he heads into his new job, is that he sees the Cowboys as being a Super Bowl team, one that can win it right now.
That's big talk for a team coming off a disappointing 8-8 season, where they had a chance to make the playoffs with a win in the final game but ended up third in their own division instead.
Of course, Callahan believes he is talking as a man with the experience of coaching a team to the Super Bowl. The problem here is that Callahan is what Cowboys' fans have always accused Barry Switzer of being.
In Dallas, Switzer took a team to a Super Bowl two years after Jimmy Johnson left. Fans like to cry that Switzer won with Johnson's team but the fact is that Switzer had Johnson's main stars but also had his own coaches and many key players, such as Deion Sanders, that were not there when Johnson was. It was Johnson's blueprint but it was Switzer's team.
Callahan took Oakland to the Super Bowl the year after Jon Gruden left the team. His team was Gruden's team with minimal changes. The only real change to the staff was bringing on Jim Harbaugh as an offensive assistant. Then, in the Super Bowl, he faced Gruden's new team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and got beat bad.
Callahan spoke about the Dallas team he is coming in to coach for. He points out Tony Romo as being one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. He said he loves the running back tandem of DeMarco Murray and Felix Jones. With Miles Austin, Dez Bryant and Jason Witten, he sees more weapons than his Oakland Raiders' team ever had.
It is nice to see Callahan excited. He leaves a New York Jets' team that was full of finger pointing and clubhouse turmoil, so it has to be nice to be entering a situation that, from the outside at least, looks cohesive. Dallas has all the talent in the world, but until someone puts together a game plan that utilizes it all properly, all we are left with is talk.
I want Callahan to succeed in Dallas, not because I like the coach, but because Dallas needs someone to come in and do something to get these players heading in the right direction.
Author Shawn S. Lealos has a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma (2000) and has been a Dallas Cowboys' fan since he was a child. His favorite players range from Roger Staubach and Tony Dorsett to the Triplets of the 90s and he enjoys talking about all Cowboys' related news, good or bad
