"Haven't you heard? The Cowboys aren't talking," Phillips said as he returned to the team's hotel from Lucas Oil Field.

On Thursday, Phillips said it was "against the rules" to talk. According to multiple sources, owner and general manager Jerry Jones has told the coaches - including Phillips - not to talk to the media in an attempt stop information leaks.

Team spokesman Rich Dalrymple said in an e-mail he did not know if Jones made such a directive. Efforts to reach Jones were unsuccessful.

Phillips, who spoke to the media several times during last year's combine, said Friday he will speak when he is scheduled to have a press conference. None are presently scheduled.

According to league media rules, teams must make a coach or general manager available prior to the April draft. League rules also require the head coach to speak to reporters at the NFL owners meetings in March, if he attends. Phillips has attended the last two owners meetings.

While it is not unheard of for a team to order assistant coaches not to speak - the Cowboys did it under coach Bill Parcells - it is unusual for a head coach to be under a similar order.

Through the first two days of media availability at the combine, 20 of the league's 32 head coaches have met with the media and more are scheduled today. When Parcells went to the combine he spoke with a handful of reporters, but not formally. Jones has met with the local media on his luxury bus each of the last few years.

Since he replaced Parcells in 2007, Phillips and his assistants have been among the NFL's most accessible staffs. Parcells' assistants were allowed to speak to the media from training camp through the start of the regular season, and were available by request.

"Bill wanted them coached hard. Wade wanted them coached hard," said Miami Dolphins coach Tony Sparano, a Cowboys assistant under Parcells and Phillips. "That's what we did. I think an awful lot of Coach Phillips and what he's done and how he helped me, because getting a chance to have a voice and be out in front of the media and being a little bit more involved is something that helped me get this job."

At his end-of-season press conference, Phillips said he would institute changes, looking at everything from how he ran training camp to discipline of the players.

New York Giants coach Tom Coughlin made changes in 2007, adding a leadership council of players and becoming less of a stern taskmaster. Players credited Coughlin's change as part of the Giants' success, leading to a victory in Super Bowl XLII.

"If we're not even talking about me, we're just talking about anyone else coming in - a CEO coming to a job - you're not going to start easy and then try to be hard," Coughlin said. "And it's not a matter of being hard and then making it easier.

"For me, it's a matter of really standing for something ... and reinforcing it in another way, doing a better job of communicating."

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