It’s extremely sad that there are seven games left in the regular season and it feels pointless to converse about actual football. With no Dak Prescott, the Dallas Cowboys might not win another game and it feels like an inevitability that head coach Mike McCarthy will be fired.

You wouldn’t know it based on the scoreboard on Sundays, but the Cowboys are still playing for McCarthy. Injuries have ruined any chance Dallas had at competing for the playoffs and the front office didn’t supply the roster with enough depth in the offseason to overcome even a small number of injuries.

McCarthy was definitely dealt a poor hand, but regardless everyone believes Jerry Jones is eyeing Bill Belichick to be the team’s next head coach. Jones and Belichick have a strong relationship and the Cowboys offer Belichick perhaps the best chance to catch Don Schula’s all-time wins record and potentially capture another Super Bowl.

Well, it might not be that cut and dry for Dallas’ owner. A surprise AFC team has emerged as a candidate for Belichick’s signature.

Dianna Russini of The Athletic reported this week that “Belichick wants as much authority as he can in his next job, but very few teams are willing to grant any candidate the kind of freedom he had in Foxboro.”

Enter the Jacksonville Jaguars, who are mired in another losing season. Like McCarthy, it’s a foregone conclusion Doug Pederson will be fired. There’s been talk of GM Trent Baalke also losing his job, but Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk revealed Baalke could “survive as part of a package deal” with Belichick, whom he worked with back in 1998-99 with the New York Jets.

It seems like Belichick might top the Jaguars’ list of HC candidates. While Dallas is a more attractive landing spot for the six-time Super Bowl champion, the influence Belichick may have in Jacksonville’s personnel decisions could be the deciding factor.

It’s worth noting, too, that Baalke isn’t the only familiar face to Belichick in the Jaguars organization. Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer appeared on “The Dan Patrick Show” this week and made an excellent point about Belichick’s ties to Jaguars ownership.

“Tony Khan [son of Jaguars owner Shad Khan] has a real strong relationship with Belichick to the point where, when they hired Doug Marrone full time when they removed the interim tag in 2017, that was largely on the advice of Bill Belichick to do it,” Breer said.

That sound you hear is sweat from Jerry Jones’ forehead hitting the floor. Fortunately for Jones, while he isn’t in the business of paying a premium for head coaches, he can seemingly offer more to Belichick than the Jaguars in terms of annual salary.

If Jones isn’t willing to concede some power in personnel decisions, though, his master plan of having the greatest head coach in NFL history succeed McCarthy and lead Dallas to the promised land could come crashing down.