When Deion Sanders was at Jackson State, he laid the groundwork for his eventual departure months beforehand. He was talking a lot about God and a greater mission in those days, and so when one has such a purpose, it helps to have a justification for leaving.
"Now, I don't know the timetable for any of that, so I'm not going to tell anybody the timetable. I don't know," Sanders said at the time. "God hasn't given me the timetable for those instructions, but what I do concern myself with is my coaching staff. I feel like I have a phenomenal coaching staff and they're coaching their butts off. I'm trying to find ways to compensate them even more because they've out-coached their salaries."
It's not that Coach Prime wanted to leave, you see. He had to.
We may have reached a similar point in his Colorado tenure.
On Thursday, NFL Network's Jane Slater reported that Sanders has approached Colorado leadership for more money for his roster and his staff and been, pardon the pun, rebuffed.
One thing to watch following Jerry Jones and his initial discussions with Deion Sanders. Two people with knowledge of the situation tell me Sanders approached Colorado AD Rick George Tuesday about additional money for NIL and his staff. He was met with resistance. The University…
— Jane Slater (@SlaterNFL) January 16, 2025
To be clear, one does not need justification for leaving Jackson State for Colorado, nor Colorado for the Dallas Cowboys. The reasons are plain and obvious.
But if you're Deion Sanders and you've said on multiple occasions that the NFL is not a fit for you and, if you did, it would be to coach your son, how do you turn around and leave for an NFL job where you almost certainly will not be coaching your son?
You reveal after the fact that you didn't want to leave, you had to leave. It takes a certain level of investment to win, and the cost of winning never goes down. If Colorado cannot meet that level of investment, Sanders could argue, he would be left with no choice but to start anew elsewhere or suffer the consequences.
There are other layers to this story as well.
Perhaps Sanders has no plan on leaving but is using his connections with the Cowboys to create a credible threat that he will, thereby leveraging CU into investing at the level he wants/needs. On that front, Ed Werder of WFAA-TV in Dallas reported Thursday that Sanders would take the job if offered.
Regarding Deion Sanders: I’m being told that he would almost certainly accept if Jerry Jones offers to make him the next #Cowboys head coach, that those around him are encouraging him to pursue it and that Jones is enamored with the idea.
— Ed Werder (@WerderEdNFL) January 16, 2025
Or, perhaps Sanders really wants the job but doesn't wind up getting it. The Cowboys search is expanding and, even if he is the favorite, Coach Prime's chances of beating out the field would still be below 50 percent. If that's the case, perhaps we're learning of a growing riff that others could exploit.
Fascinating times. Stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.