The Athletic's Dianna Russini reported what anyone with common sense figured anyway: Deion Sanders going to the Dallas Cowboys was a hypothetical that spawned out of nowhere and is more content fodder than it is legitimate rumor.
"After having conversations around the league this week of, 'Is this real? Are we really doing this?' At this point right now, this is all chitchat," Russini said (h/t The Coloradoan). "Because he wants to stay in college. He wants to stay in college.
"Here's how I look at it. I don't think he realizes if there is an owner that really wants to bring him on they are going to write him a big fat check, especially some of these newer owners. ... I just think a lot of this is for excitement and good conversation on television and YouTube for people to just debate."
Sports Illustrated's Kyle Koster said the same thing earlier this week.
"There's a chicken-and-egg nature to all of this that's so interesting because it only takes a tiny sliver of momentum to Astroturf something into existence. Meaning that Jones could conceivably look around, see all these people who would be excited by Sanders coaching the Cowboys and then seriously consider the idea," Koster wrote.
"To his credit, Sanders has been focused on the task and hand and isn't breathing an ounce of life into this narrative. Yet at a point very soon it won't even matter what he has to say because once a juicy topic like this makes the round on television, it's so hard to put back into the tube. A year after Sanders was accused, perhaps rightly, of creating a circus at the expense of winning, one is being constructed all around him. Deion Sanders, Cowboys coach will more than likely never be a thing. But it already is a different type of thing in the media."
Deion Sanders leaving for Colorado for the NFL will be a new annual rumor tradition
Until the end of Sanders' coaching career, and probably beyond that, we'll see Coach Prime linked to the Cowboys. If/when Shedeur Sanders goes to the Las Vegas Raiders, Deion will be linked to Sin City too. Ditto for wherever Travis Hunter and Shilo Sanders end up.
"Prime Time" is a valued commodity and after the last few decades of futility, some don't believe Boulder deserves it.
Sanders clearly does, though. So far, it's been working out at CU in a way that didn't seem fathomable.
But even the possibility of a 7-2 start to his second season was more probable than becoming the Cowboys' next head coach.