DALLAS — This NFC East race is going to be a barnburner to watch, the Eagles and Commanders and Cowboys are all tied at 1-1

DALLAS — This NFC East race is going to be a barnburner to watch, and I’m not talking about the one where the Eagles and Commanders and Cowboys are all tied at 1-1. That’s going to be less than phenomenal. That’s going to be first team to 9-8 wins and get a quick playoff exit.

I’m talking about the race for the services of Bill Belichick, one I discussed here immediately after Packers 48, Cowboys 32. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones chose to look the other way, pretend the Green Bay debacle was not any kind of exposure, just one of those things that happens to good teams. Then Saints 44, Cowboys 19 opened the home schedule Sunday, and Dallas wasn’t any better – is actually worse now without Tony Pollard and some semblance of a run game – and you wonder how many of these games Cowboys fans will have to endure before major change is considered.

Mind you, I’m not talking about firing Mike McCarthy at 1-1. I don’t even blame him for the construction of this roster, given that it’s the Jones Boys who refused to spend on meaningful players, choosing instead to play a waiting game until putting an average of $94 million in Dak’s and CeeDee’s pockets while watching them open the season with two very average performances.

I just mean as this thing continues, why should the Cowboys concede the rights to Belichick to the New York Lousy Football Giants? Just because that’s where Belichick got his start – some would say elevating Bill Parcells to the only two Super Bowl rings the head coach would ever collect – before moving on to grab six more over a generation spent with Tom Brady in New England.

Now I have to admit it would be our loss if Belichick leaves the airwaves and goes right back into coaching in 2025. Watching him on the Manning Cast on Monday nights, dismantling the Falcons’ defense, or carving up Caleb Williams and the Bears’ roster reconstruction on “Inside the NFL” is the surprise joy of the 2024 season. The mumbling Belichick we endured for a quarter of a century as a head coach – my first one-and-one with him in Cleveland was conducted while he sweated through an exercise bike workout and swatted my questions into oblivion – is a different no-holds-barred character now that he’s not employed by a single NFL entity.

But even if he’s viewed as only having four to five years left, the race for Belichick, now 72, will heat up later this season, and the New York tabloids already think they have a lock on his desire to return to Jersey and recreate the LT days. In Philadelphia, Nick Sirianni hangs by a thinner thread than the one that connects McCarthy here because the Eagles have a more proactive owner and something of a generational general manager. While Howie Roseman never stops looking for the next move or trade, the Cowboys GM was busy before Sunday’s game posing with Mike Tyson and someone named Jake Paul who apparently plan to put more wealth into Jerry’s bank account at AT&T Stadium.

They won’t do anything for the Cowboys, though, although Tyson looked like he could have played better defensive tackle than 35-year-old Linval Joseph, who got shoved all over the field by the Saints.

How fast will the Eagles’ Jeffrey Lurie and Roseman make a move on Belichick if the Eagles give away more games than the one that Saquon Barkley dropped Monday night? How many losses does Brian Daboll get in New York (can you really outscore an opponent, 3-0, in touchdowns and lose? Answer for Daboll is yes!) before the Giants try to put pen to paper with Belichick for 2025?

And if things go like they almost surely will here – the Cowboys cannot stop an offensive scheme too many teams play and they have a one-note offense – what’s to hold McCarthy and Mike Zimmer and all the other coaches on the last (or only) year of their contracts? Jones has made one thing crystal clear with his recent moves. Dak and CeeDee get paid for those 12-5 seasons that ended too soon each January. McCarthy does not.

When I wrote about Belichick last January, some of you responded that Jim Harbaugh would have been a better choice. You might be right. The Chargers are 2-0 although their schedule (Raiders, Panthers) almost forced them into an unbeaten record. Regardless, he’s not available.

In 2020, Jones hired McCarthy because he had a Super Bowl ring. Simple as it gets, that’s what put him ahead of the field and made him seem like a preferred option to Jason Garrett. He still does although not by as much as people expected him to be.