Cowboys Hiring Mike Tomlin Rumor: Is Jerry Jones Planning 'Toga Party'?

On Sunday night, just ahead of the Dallas Cowboys' Week 6 meeting at Green Bay, Mike Tomlin - the former Steelers coach taking a sabbatical while spending this season at NBC Sports - noted that "America's Team'' had spent the week throwing the kitchen sink at its problems.

There was the defensive players-only meeting. And the quick hiring of new assistant Mike Pettine. And lineup changes for the Green Bay game.

Tomlin - who'd previously said that any team that needs a players-only meeting is "dead'' - joked on TV here that, "If it doesn’t work, they have to just go ‘Animal House’ and throw a toga party.”

I'm fairly certain viewers of a certain age have no idea what he's referring to, so ... 

"Animal House'' was a low-budget surprise hit movie in 1978 and starred John Belushi in his film debut. It chronicled the gross-out exploits of the lowly Delta Tau Chi frat, where when things got bad, their what-the-hell solution was to throw a "toga party.''

There you go. Now you don't have to ask your grandpa, "What's 'Animal House'?''

Tomlin's point: A Cowboys loss at Green Bay would move the team to what-the-hell territory. Dallas did indeed lose, 23-13, to drop to a dismal 2-4.

What's next?

What the hell? 

"Toga-Toga-Toga!''?

Or ... start working on the next coach of Jerry Jones' Dallas Cowboys being ...

Mike Tomlin himself.

As it happens, before the game, NFL insider Josina Anderson wrote , "I'm told by a long-time well-placed source that there's an ownership family in the NFC who is very fond of Mike Tomlin and who the source has learned is open to wooing Tomlin to their franchise to potentially replace their current head coach if the ship isn't righted for their team this season.''

A failing "current head coach''?

An NFC team?

An "ownership family''?

Present Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer is on the hot seat - when it comes to the audience, anyway. He has an overall record of 9-13-1 with Dallas, though Cowboys COO Stephen Jones is brushing that off, insisting in a Monday visit with 105.3 The Fan, "We like our players. We like our coaches.''

So, no immediate changes in this area inside The Star.

But ...

"As of right now,'' Anderson writes, "the sentiment is that this current head coach needs to make the playoffs at least to keep their job, per league source."

So ... sure, there could be a change later.

I know the Jones family has a friendly respect for Tomlin, who won a Super Bowl to start his 19-year career as a head coach in Pittsburgh. I also know, though, that Tomlin's annual salary in Pittsburgh was around $17 million per year - almost four times more than what Jones pays Schottenheimer. (Indeed, Jerry "going cheap'' on coaches'' seems a fair criticism.

There are other bad NFC teams run by "family'' ownership, of course. And there is a lot of football to be played. But right now, most people in Cowboys Nation would - if they ever heard that Jerry Jones' Cowboys are the Mike Tomlin "mystery'' team - very much be in the mood to party.

"Toga'' or otherwise.

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