Colorado football coach Deion Sanders said Friday he allowed himself to dream a little bit after getting a call last month from Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.
Jones was looking for a new coach at the time.
How deep did the conversation get?
Sanders talked about it on ‘The Rich Eisen Show’ Friday as he made a round of interviews in New Orleans, the site of Sunday’s Super Bowl. It’s not clear how seriously Jones considered Sanders for the Cowboys job. Sanders, 57, did not get a formal interview before the Cowboys hired Brian Schottenheimer. But Sanders also said on the ‘Dan Patrick Show’ Friday that “I don’t have to interview” for a job like that because he’s already a known commodity.
“It was great,” Sanders told Eisen about his conversation with Jones. “It made me think.”
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Sanders said he even thought about how he’d get to work every day. He has a ranch outside of the Dallas metro area in east Texas.
“When he calls, and we had our little discussion and our conversation, you hang up and you start thinking, ‘Hey, wow, that’s something,’” Sanders told Eisen. “You just weigh everything, and then you go out there, you know. You go way out there with it, like, let me see, now if I did this, I would probably get a helicopter to fly into work every day. … I’m serious. I’m like, I can stay in my own home and get a helicopter to fly in every day, land right there on the field right beside Jerry. And this could work. I mean, you start thinking crazy things.”
How long did those thoughts last?
Eisen asked him that.
“I had a lot of praying to do, praying and weighing,” Sanders said.
In the interview with Patrick, Sanders was asked what he’d do if Jones had asked him to interview for the job.
“I wouldn’t have to interview,” Sanders said. “My interview is being played (on television and in the media). Why would I have to interview? Like, can you coach or you can’t? You can watch that. You can see that. I’m pretty darn good at what I do. I don’t have to interview.”
Did Deion Sanders want to be asked to coach the Cowboys?
Patrick posed that question, too.
“I love the college football game,” Sanders replied. “I’m built for the college football game at this point in my life. And I’m not doing nothing at that next level without my sons.”
In his own interview with Sanders, Eisen noted it would “take something highly significant” to lure Sanders away from Colorado, where he is entering his third season on the job after finishing 9-4 last year.
“Highly significant,” Sanders said.
Did the discussions with Jones get “high enough?” Eisen asked.
“It never got to that point,” Sanders said. “Nah, it was just a thought process.”
Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. Email: bschrotenb@usatoday.com