IRVING, Texas - The scary thing isn’t that Jerry Jones ran a misdirection play on us and hired Wade Phillips as the new head coach of the Cowboys on Thursday.

Phillips, 59, is a football guy, a coach with a solid NFL resume and thoroughbred bloodlines. No gripe here with Phillips, per se.

No, what’s oh-my-god frightening about this is the message Jones sent across the world with this move.

Jerry is large and back in charge.

For Cowboys’ fans, that’s as scary as midnight in a real haunted house.

For four years, Jones backed off and allowed Bill Parcells to make most of the football decisions around Valley Ranch, home of the Cowboys’ offices and practice fields.

With Phillips’ hiring, those days are officially over. Jerry’s the boss again.

Welcome to Cowboys’ hell.

Left holding the bag is Norv Turner, the 49ers offensive coordinator who had emerged as the clear frontrunner of 10 candidates that Jones interviewed for the job over the last 2 ½ weeks since Parcells announced his decision to retire.

Turner, who still had not heard from Jones by midday Thursday, a good 12 hours after the first reports that Phillips would get the job began to surface, had been seen everywhere with Jones during Super Bowl week.

The first guy Jones turned to in the private room where Cowboys and former Cowboys had gathered to hear whether Michael Irvin had been elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame last Saturday? Turner. They were even spotted together at an owners’ cocktail party.

But when Turner, the Cowboys’ offensive coordinator for two Super Bowl teams in 1991 and 1992, returned to his home in California after Super Bowl XLI, suddenly communication with Jones began to diminish rapidly. Over the last two days ... nothing, no calls at all, a bad sign.

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By late Wednesday night, Turner knew, without being told, that Jones had very likely decided to go with Phillips.

Bad news for Cowboys’ fans, not necessarily because Phillips is a bad choice — he has an excellent track record with the 3-4 defense that Parcells implemented in Dallas and Jones wants to keep — but because it’s a sure sign that Jones is back to his old ways.

What other general manager in the NFL hires the offensive coordinator and then the head coach? In fact, it’s fair to question whether Phillips will have anything to do with the offense at all. Tony Sparano, who called the plays for Parcells last season, is also returning.

The only way rushing to hire Garrett, who has just two years of coaching experience in the NFL, made sense was if Turner was going to be the head coach. Garrett and Turner already had a longstanding relationship, and Garrett could learn the offensive ropes under one of the best offensive minds in the game.

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Even better, quarterback Tony Romo could learn from both of them.

Now it looks as if “Coach Jerry” will be his own offensive coordinator.

The impending marriage of Jones and Turner may have fallen apart, strangely enough, because of Ron Rivera, who interviewed for the head coaching job himself Tuesday. Turner wanted the Bears’ defensive coordinator for his defensive coordinator in Dallas, but after his six-hour interview, Jones came away convinced that Rivera would insist on switching the Cowboys back to the 4-3 defense. Having been brainwashed by Parcells for the last four years, Jones is now a 3-4 devotee.

That’s where Phillips came in. His pedigree is with the 3-4 and he did wonders with Shawn Merriman in San Diego the last two seasons. Jones hopes he can elevate DeMarcus Ware’s game to the same level.

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