IRVING – Wade Phillips sat inside Jerry Jones' Highland Park home for roughly an hour Thursday, noshing on tortilla soup, lobster tacos and hamburgers after a flight on a private jet from San Diego earlier in the morning.
Quietly, Phillips and the Cowboys owner moved to a private room, where the two hammered out the final details of a contract that made Phillips the seventh coach in franchise history.
Eighteen days after Bill Parcells surprised the organization with his resignation, an emotional Jones, who teared up as he did Saturday when Michael Irvin earned induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, had found his coach.
"We needed to get it right," Jones said, "and in my mind, we got it right."
The Cowboys interviewed 10 candidates, with talks taking nearly 90 hours to complete, but Jones' mind kept coming back to Phillips, the first coach to meet with him who did not have a link to the team's present or past.
With a team that made the playoffs in 2006 and acquired players specifically for its 3-4 defensive scheme, Jones felt Phillips' defensive background and his 48-39 regular-season record as a head coach in four stops was the correct choice over former Cowboys offensive coordinator Norv Turner.
"You ever read about the frog who dreamed of being king and became one?" said Phillips, who signed a three-year contract with an option for a fourth, averaging about $3 million a year. "Well, I was a high school coach in Texas, and now I'm head coach of the Dallas Cowboys, so my story is the same way."
Phillips' Texas ties made him attractive to Jones because "he understands what the football culture means to the people of Texas." Phillips joins Mission's Tom Landry and Port Arthur's Jimmy Johnson as the only native Texans to lead the Cowboys.
Phillips, 59, was born in Orange, Texas. He attended Port Neches-Groves High School and was a linebacker at the University of Houston. He joined the NFL in 1976 and worked under his father, Bum Phillips, as a linebackers coach with the Houston Oilers.
Phillips' father and his wife, Wade Phillips' wife, Laurie, son Wes, sisters and nieces sat in the crowded team room Thursday as he spoke in a much more folksy manner than his predecessor, Parcells.
He even made a joke when he called wide receiver Terrell Owens by name, something Parcells did not do often.
"Family is important to me," Phillips said. "Family means trust, loyalty and a common purpose. Now I'm in the Cowboys' family, and it's the same way in this Cowboy's family. We're going to have trust, loyalty and a common purpose."
That purpose is winning, especially with the team moving in 2009 into a new stadium partially funded by taxpayer money in Arlington. The Cowboys went 34-30 in Parcells' four seasons and failed to win a playoff game. Phillips has head coaching stops in New Orleans, Denver, Buffalo and Atlanta but is winless in three career playoff games.
Yet one of the reasons Jones was drawn to Phillips was the kind of team Parcells left. The Cowboys went 9-7 in 2006, making the postseason but losing to Seattle in the wild-card round. In the six times Phillips has taken over as a head coach or defensive coordinator during his 30-year career, his teams have made the playoffs in the first season.
"Our belief is our team is positioned to win," Jones said.
Phillips said the first task is filling out a staff that suffered eight assistant-coach defections since the season ended. The only offensive coaches on staff are assistant head coach/running game coordinator Tony Sparano and Jason Garrett, who will probably be the team's offensive coordinator. Todd Bowles is a likely candidate to become defensive coordinator, according to Jones, and Paul Pasqualoni and Vincent Brown also are under contract.
Phillips' expertise is in the 3-4 defense, but he runs it differently from Parcells. For the last three seasons, when he was San Diego's defensive coordinator, the Chargers' NFL ranking moved from 18th in 2004 to 10th in 2006. The Chargers led the NFL in run defense in 2005 and led the league in sacks in 2006.
"You put your best players in position to make plays," Phillips said. "That's my philosophy."
Before choosing Phillips, Jones spoke with owners such as Denver's Pat Bowlen and Atlanta's Arthur Blank, who worked with Phillips in the past. He spoke to general managers familiar with Phillips as well as head coaches, assistant coaches and former players. Having spent the last 17 years in the NFL, Jones also had a working knowledge of Phillips from spending time at the Combine and Senior Bowl throughout the years.
"Wade wanted it so badly, not that the others didn't," Jones said. "He has such an incentive to look at what he could accomplish for his career."
Phillips acknowledged that he has not been in such a "fish bowl" in his coaching career as he will be in Dallas. Landry, Johnson and, to a degree, Barry Switzer are remembered differently from Parcells, Dave Campo and Chan Gailey because they won Super Bowls.
"We have a lot to live up to," Phillips said, a nod to the franchise's five Super Bowl victories. "Our guys have a lot to live up to."
Age: 59
Family: Wife, Laurie, son, Wes, and daughter, Tracy.
Coaching experience: Owns a 48-39 regular-season record as head coach but has not won a playoff game (0-3). ... Served as interim coach in New Orleans (1985), taking over for his father, Bum, and in Atlanta (2003), taking over for Dan Reeves. ... In his two full stints as head coach, he was 45-35 at Denver and Buffalo.
Playing experience: Three-year starter at linebacker for the University of Houston from 1966-68 after a standout career at Port Neches-Groves High School in Port Neches, Texas.
Notable: The Bills have not made the playoffs since he left as coach. ... His father was head coach at Houston (1975-1980) and New Orleans (1981-1985).
| WADE PHILLIPS' COACHING RECORD |
| REGULAR SEASON |
| Year | Team | W | L | T | Pct. | Place |
| 1985 | New Orleans Saints-x | 1 | 3 | 0 | .250 | — |
| 1993 | Denver Broncos | 9 | 7 | 0 | .563 | Third |
| 1994 | Denver Broncos | 7 | 9 | 0 | .438 | Fourth |
| 1998 | Buffalo Bills | 10 | 6 | 0 | .625 | T-Second |
| 1999 | Buffalo Bills | 11 | 5 | 0 | .688 | Second |
| 2000 | Buffalo Bills | 8 | 8 | 0 | .500 | Fourth |
| 2003 | Atlanta Falcons-x | 2 | 1 | 0 | .667 | — |
| Totals | 48 | 39 | 0 | .552 | — |
| x-interim coach |
| |
| PLAYOFFS |
| Year | Team | W | L | Pct. |
| 1993 | Denver Broncos | 0 | 1 | .000 |
| 1998 | Buffalo Bills | 0 | 1 | .000 |
| 1999 | Buffalo Bills | 0 | 1 | .000 |
| Totals | 0 | 3 | .000 |
New Cowboys coach Wade Phillips is a proven winner with a reputation as a strong defensive coach, but he hasn't always won when it counted.
THE UPSIDE
■ He has had great success with the 3-4 defense.
■ He has a 48-39 regular-season record in head coaching stops at New Orleans, Denver, Buffalo and Atlanta.
■ He knows how important the Cowboys are to the area. He grew up in Texas and coached in Houston.
THE DOWNSIDE
■ With Jason Garrett viewed as the head coach in waiting, Mr. Phillips will face pressure from fans with high expectations.
■ He has directed three teams to the postseason but has not won a playoff game.
■ He has more of a laid-back approach than Bill Parcells, a style that didn't serve Mr. Parcells' previous replacements well.
The Cowboys hired former San Diego Chargers defensive coordinator Wade Phillips, 59, as the seventh head coach in franchise history. He is only the second Cowboys hire to have previous NFL head coaching experience. Here's how he compares with his predecessors:
| Category | Tom
Landry | Jimmy
Johnson | Barry
Switzer | Chan
Gailey | Dave
Campo | Bill
Parcells |
| Age when hired | 35 | 45 | 56 | 46 | 52 | 61 |
| Home state | Texas | Texas | Arkansas | Georgia | Conn. | New Jersey |
| Previous coaching job | Def. coord., N.Y. Giants | Head coach, Univ. of Miami | Head coach, Oklahoma Univ. | Off. coord., Pittsburgh Steelers | Def. coord., Cowboys | Head coach, N.Y. Jets |
| NFL head coaching exp. | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Tenure | 29 years | 5 years | 4 years | 2 years | 3 years | 4 years |
| Cowboys record * | 250-162-6 (.605) | 44-36 (.550) | 40-24 (.625) | 18-14 (.563) | 15-33 (.313) | 34-30 (.531) |
| First season | 0-11-1 | 1-15 | 12-4 | 10-6 | 5-11 | 6-10 |
| Best season | 12-2 | 13-3 | 12-4 | 10-6 | 5-11 | 10-6 |
| Super Bowl wins | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Division titles | 13 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Playoff wins | 20 | 7 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Legacy | The fedora – and the legend | Team of the '90s | He won a Super Bowl | He didn't | 5-11 says it all | Much ado about nothing |
| * Regular season |
— Chuck Carlton
Jerry Jones met with 10 candidates in making his sixth head coaching hire since purchasing the Cowboys in 1989. Here's who Jones has interviewed in each search, with the coach who was hired in bold:
Search No. 1
Replacing Tom Landry
Feb. 25, 1989
Jimmy Johnson
Search No. 2
March 29 to March 30, 1994
Barry Switzer
Search No. 3
Jan. 9 to Feb. 12, 1998
| Terry Donahue | Sherm Lewis |
| George Seifert | Chan Gailey |
| Unidentified college coach |
Search No. 4
Jan. 11 to Jan. 26, 2000
Search No. 5
Dec. 30, 2002 to Jan. 2, 2003
| Bill Parcells | Dennis Green |
Search No. 6
Jan. 22 to Feb. 8, 2007
| Tony Sparano | Gary Gibbs |
| Todd Bowles | Norv Turner |
| Todd Haley | Mike Singletary |
| Jason Garrett | Ron Rivera |
| Wade Phillips | Jim Caldwell |
