It’s been a rough go for the Dallas Cowboys. Not only did they fall short of making the playoffs, but their divisional rivals, the hated Philadelphia Eagles, took home the top prize by claiming their second Super Bowl win. While the Eagles get to have confetti and parades, the Cowboys are left scratching their heads wondering what’s next. The only thing they do know is they have moved on from head coach Mike McCarthy, resetting their coaching staff.

What makes this change even more depressing is that former coordinators Dan Quinn and Kellen Moore, who aren’t too far removed from being in Dallas, have already achieved success that the Cowboys haven’t had in almost 30 years.

Quinn helped turn the Washington Commanders around and immediately led them to the NFC Championship game for the first time since 1991. That’s crazy. And Moore, who was in his first year as offensive coordinator of the Eagles, is a Super Bowl-winning coach. That’s even crazier.

Both of these former Cowboys coordinators are head coaches in the NFL now and McCarthy is not. We know what Quinn did for the Cowboys’ defense and what Moore did for the Cowboys’ offense. At different times, they featured some of the best units in the league, and their success post-Dallas speaks to how good they really are.

While the early reviews are good for Quinn, Moore has ventured off to become the new head coach of the New Orleans Saints. How that ends up is anyone’s guess. His prior success offers no guarantees of future success, especially for a Saints team that hasn’t made the playoffs since 2020.

Working against the appreciation of Moore is that his surroundings in Philadelphia set him up nicely. The Eagles had a great defense with the help of veteran defensive coordinator Vic Fangio. His defense allowed the fewest yards and the second-fewest points this season, and we saw what they did to Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl.

Offensively, Moore had a lot of help as well. For starters, he had one of the best offensive line coaches in the league in Jeff Stoutland. The Eagles were a good running team long before Moore showed up. And this year they added free agent Saquon Barkley, who had the best season of his NFL career, rushing for over 2,000 yards.

It’s easy to downplay Moore’s achievements because so many people had their hands in the Eagles’ success, but he was still a big part of it. And if you look at what he did, it’s easy to understand why he’s repeatedly drawn interest from other teams.

One of the biggest criticisms about Moore has been how he clams up when facing tougher teams. In the playoffs, his offense becomes “vanilla” and the Cowboys haven’t gotten it done. The team’s lack of postseason success has been blamed on anyone and everyone with Moore taking his fair share, but how much of it is really on him? With the Eagles, these “deficiencies” were nowhere to be found.

The Eagles scored 95 points between the NFC Championship and the Super Bowl. No NFL team has scored more points in the playoffs in any two-game span. Ever. In the two most important games of the season, his offense was firing on all cylinders. And while many will again point to the offensive line and Barkley as the main reasons for the offense’s success, you can’t discount what Moore has done.

For example, the Chiefs shut down Barkley in the Super Bowl. He rushed for just 2.3 yards per carry, his lowest efficiency total of the season. A stat like that would lead you to believe the Eagles were in big trouble, but Moore’s offense is not one-dimensional. He called a masterful game, working in play-action and delayed QB draws to punish the Chiefs defense. And with a 27-0 lead late in the third quarter, he’s not conservatively chewing the clock or playing “complementary” football. He’s going for the jugular.

Moore can beat you in different ways. He had one of the more formidable passing attacks in Dallas and one of the best running games in Philly. He dialed up the easy button for Jalen Hurts with no single receiver having 70 yards, but four different receivers having at least 40 yards. Hurts used his arm and his legs to take home MVP honors.

The debate over how good Moore is won’t end anytime soon. Cowboys fans want very much to believe he’s bad because it means the ineptitude in Dallas left when he left. It’s rather apparent now that’s not the case. With a great season topped off by a sensational playoff run, Moore is now a Super Bowl champ with a head coaching gig. It might finally be time to acknowledge that he’s a pretty good coach and one of the Cowboys’ biggest mistakes has been letting him get away.