Ideal Black GM candidate Will McClay happy with role as Dallas Cowboys chief scout

Will McClay’s resume speaks for itself.

From the titles to the accomplishments, McClay has done it all as the Dallas Cowboys vice president of player personnel.

It’s little wonder that every time a general manager opening has popped over the last few years, McClay’s name has been floated as a possible candidate.

For a league with an ongoing minority hiring problem in the head coaching, front office and ownership levels and is now overly bragging about an NFL-record seven Black general managers among 32 teams – still a decidedly small number in contrast to the player pool that is 70 percent – McClay should have been a slam-dunk hire for someone.

Except for one little thing.

McClay is happy where he is, happy with his role with the Cowboys and not looking to move on.

Never mind that he would get a chance to presumably call all the shots as the general manager elsewhere, which is not a possibility in Dallas where Jerry Jones carries the title of Owner/General Manager and his son Stephen Jones is Chief Operating Officer/Executive Vice President/Player Personnel.

“I realize what my role and my structure is, what we do here,” McClay said. “I feel good about what we are doing. That is the job I am happy with now. If an opportunity comes up that makes sense, sure I will look at it. But I am happy where I am now. I am happy with the job, the role and how we do things.”

McClay pushes back on any outside pressure to take a general manager job with another team to help increase the minority hiring numbers in the NFL and the join current Black NFL general manager class of Andrew Berry (Cleveland Browns), Martin Mayhew (Washington Commanders), Chris Grier (Miami Dolphins), Brad Holmes (Detroit Lions), Terry Fontenot (Atlanta Falcons), Ryan Poles (Bears) and Kwesi Adofo-Mensah (Minnesota Vikings).

Inherently, there is pressure out there – real and imagined.

“I’m a grown man. I know I’m black,” McClay said. “The pressure is from the outside saying, ‘oh, you have to do’…I don’t have to do anything. The thing that I have to do for any African-American person who is trying to get into personnel, what I’ve got to do is be the best at my job, then they can see. You’ve got to do your job first, so I’m doing my job to the best of my availability first.”

There is no question that McClay has done his job well in 20 seasons with the Cowboys, starting as a Pro Scout in 2002. He was named Director of Football Research in 2011 before officially taking over the scouting department as Assistant Director of Player Personnel in 2013. He ran his first NFL Draft in 2014.

In 2015, he was named Senior Director of Pro/College Scouting and he was given the title of the Vice President of Player Personnel in 2017.

Since 2014, the Cowboys have drafted 10 players who went on to earn Pro Bowl honors: Zack Martin, DeMarcus Lawrence, Byron Jones, Ezekiel Elliott, Jaylon Smith, Dak Prescott, Leighton Vander Esch, CeeDee Lamb, Trevon Diggs and Micah Parsons.

And that’s not including his knack for finding players in free agency within the confines of the bargain-shopping edict of the Jones family. Jayron Kearse, Damontae Kazee, Malik Hooker, Jeremy Sprinkle, Keanu Neal, Carlos Watkins, Tarell Basham and Brent Urban were among the defensive finds in free agency that helped the Cowboys win the NFC East with a 12-5 record in 2021.

The safety tandem of Kearse and Hooker are considered two of the anchors on the 2022 defense that might be the strength of the team.

McClay has had opportunities to talk to other teams but has resisted those overtures, most recently as last January when the Cowboys rewarded him handsomely to a new contract.

There is no question the Cowboys value McClay’s services as a decision maker and the personnel executive who scouts and identifies players to build the roster for the present and the future.

Jerry Jones said McClay is “as qualified” to be a general manager “as anyone he has ever been around”.

That title will never happen in Dallas because of the unique structure of the organization that is unlike any in the league.

“The general manager here does things that go beyond what the general manager does in other parts of the league,” Jones said. “Because the GM of the Cowboys decides everything and it decides what you’re going to spend, it decides on a player and so my definition of GM is one that you might normally associate with every decision – hiring the coach all of that. Of course the reason I bought the team, own the team is because of making those calls and always will.”

McClay knows and understands that.

He is also fully comfortable with the structure of the Cowboys organization and his role in it.

Jones may hold the title of general manager but the personnel decisions are made in a collaborative way with McClay as an important member of the executive brain trust along with Jerry Jones, Stephen Jones and head coach Mike McCarthy.

“I’m happy with the job and the role and the way it is here because of the way we work and do things together,” McClay said.

McClay said he would look for an opportunity in the future if one came along that he was comfortable with.

But it would have to be the right fit for him. And he has a checklist.

“You want to make sure the top structure is right,” McClay said. “How many picks do they have? What’s there? What’s the team? Got to have a quarterback…So many different things you would consider. So when the time comes and I have the time to look at it and put that foot forward that I want to do that, then I will look at all the different factors. I don’t consider it because it’s here right now that’s most important.”

He’s happy here.