FRISCO, Texas -- Dallas Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy is close to finalizing his staff, with a source saying Adam Henry is expected to become the wide receivers coach.
With Henry on board, McCarthy will have a lead coach at each on-field position, though he is still looking for a strength and conditioning coach and other position assistants. In part because of the work that remains, McCarthy and the coaches will not attend next week's Senior Bowl in Mobile, Alabama.
Henry, who will replace Sanjay Lal, spent last season with the Cleveland Browns. He has coached Odell Beckham Jr. at LSU and with the New York Giants and Browns. He has been an NFL receivers coach since 2015, starting out with the San Francisco 49ers.
Henry inherits a group that included two 1,000-yard receivers in 2019, Amari Cooper and Michael Gallup. While Cooper is set to be an unrestricted free agent in March, the Cowboys are hopeful of signing him to a multiyear deal or potentially using the franchise or transition tag to keep him next season. Randall Cobb is also set to be a free agent, but he could remain since he played for McCarthy in Green Bay.
McCarthy said he started his process of building a staff with his coordinators -- Kellen Moore on offense, Mike Nolan on defense and John Fassel on special teams -- and then had them be part of the interview process for the other positions.
Joe Philbin will reunite with McCarthy as the offensive line coach after serving in that role, as well as offensive coordinator, with the Packers. Jeff Brasko will be the assistant offensive line coach after spending last year in Cleveland. Doug Nussmeier, who will be the quarterbacks coach after spending two seasons as the Cowboys' tight ends coach, joins Moore, so far, as the only holdovers from Jason Garrett's staff, although Leon Lett could return as the assistant defensive line coach to work with Jim Tomsula.
Skip Peete will return to the Cowboy as the running backs coach, a spot he held from 2007 to 2012. Lunda Wells, who was with the Giants, will coach tight ends.
Scott McCurley, who was also with McCarthy in Green Bay, will be a linebackers coach with Maurice Linguist, and Al Harris, who played for McCarthy with the Packers, will handle the secondary.
"Experience was something I valued," McCarthy said Wednesday during a meeting with reporters. "I think that the experience in this league is something that, in my opinion, can really help develop players. I came from a program where we were going to be young every year. It was a draft-and-develop program, so the emphasis on having the patience and the understanding that you're always developing that youngest player in the room because those are the guys that will be playing in November, December.
"So that's a priority of mine when I'm establishing what we're trying to do as a coaching staff, the personalities. There's a certain personality that I was looking for with these staff members, how they fit together. That's why I think it's important to hire the coordinators first and make sure that those assistants clearly understand that there's a chain of command and it fits together. Experience was definitely a primary component that I was looking for."