Sources: The Cowboys have signed Will McClay to another deal taking him off the GM market

In the past it seemed like the Dallas Cowboys were in danger of losing one of their most important people to another team every offseason. It wasn’t a player or a coach, but Vice President of Player Personnel Will McClay.

Owner Jerry Jones also holds the title of General Manager for the Dallas organization, so it was impossible for McClay to become a full-fledged general manager in Dallas. Because of this, almost every offseason in recent history his name would come up in talks when other teams were trying to hire a new general manager.

This year, McClay’s name didn’t come up, but that might be because the Jones family was opening the checkbook for McClay to remain in Dallas. Today we learned that McClay has signed another deal to stay with the Cowboys.

While Jerry Jones is the GM, much of the work on the draft and free agency goes through McClay, and the Cowboys have had big success over the years in the draft.

The coaches love him.

“Excellent personnel man and an even better person,” coach Mike McCarthy said earlier this week. “I really enjoy working with Will. I can’t say enough about him. He’s very astute at his approach and how the inner workings of the personnel department and the collaboration between Will, Stephen and Jerry. We spend a tremendous amount of time together and I enjoy working with him.

“He’s obviously someone that I know as an organization we would not want to lose. But he’s definitely worthy of any opportunity that pursues him. Will does a tremendous job.”

And the players love him.

“He’s on the ground floor with us every single day,” cornerback Jourdan Lewis said Wednesday. “He’s at practice every day and I mean we always joke back and forth. He’s an amazing mind. He knows football. He knows people. That’s one of the good qualities that he has. He’s a great judge of people and a great judge or character. He gets the right guy in here like you see.

“All these guys, a lot of us are draftees that he drafted or helped draft coming here. You can see the productivity we’ve had since then. I know he’s garnering a lot of attention too, but at the same time everybody is thinking about that ring, getting to the Super Bowl.”

Seems like McClay is happy in Dallas and the Jones family intends to keep it that way. As a result the Cowboys and the fanbase benefit greatly.