It’s Monday, six days before the Dallas Cowboys play the Green Bay Packers for the right to go to the Super Bowl. At 5 o’clock, when most coaches and staffs are immersed in game tapes, Barry Switzer is heading out the door for his car.

“Gotta meet a builder,” he says.

Switzer works 9 to 5 and leaves the coaching to others.

This is no ordinary leader, for sure.

But he’s still got the Cowboys exactly where they wanted to be at the start of the season - at home in the NFC championship game, one win from the Super Bowl and two from the NFL title that’s the only acceptable outcome of his season.

Still, the book on Barry is that the Cowboys succeed despite him, not because of him. And despite a 28-8 regular-season record during the past two years in Dallas - he’s 0-3 against San Francisco - he is still better known for his gaffes than his genius.

“The word ‘coach’ means a lot of different things.” said Larry Lacewell, the Cowboys’ scouting coordinator under both Switzer and Jimmy Johnson.

“The only way he’s gonna get any respect is if he wins a Super Bowl. Very few coaches do that. That’s a high standard for anyone.”

Yet even winning a Super Bowl may never fully dispel the perception that he is, as one New York tabloid put it, “Bozo the Coach.”

This year’s Barry Blunder came on Dec. 10 in Philadelphia when he went for a first down on fourth-and-1 on his own 29 with 2 minutes left. It failed and left the Eagles in position to kick a game-winning field goal.

There were others, too.

He was blamed (although the defensive staff did it) for trying to cover Jerry Rice with a linebacker, leading to an 81-yard touchdown pass that started Dallas on its way to a 38-20 loss to the 49ers.

In that same game, he didn’t know he couldn’t put in emergency quarterback Jason Garrett for a play when backup Wade Wilson was banged up, without losing Wilson for the game. The officials had to explain the rules to Switzer - to keep Wilson in, he had to use a time out.

During a loss in Washington, he called a time out because he didn’t know if he had a fourth down and 2 feet or 2 yards. Then he blamed an unnamed assistant coach for misleading him, got into a shouting match with Emmitt Smith on the sideline and capped it by saying: “You NEVER call time out in that situation.”

Even his peers, usually loathe to criticize fellow coaches, jumped on him after the Philadelphia play. Joe Gibbs, Mike Ditka, Bill Walsh - all were aghast at such a blatant violation of the coaches’ handbook.

Johnson, the larger-than-life figure whom Switzer succeeded, said in the Dallas Morning News:

“Barry Switzer has been fighting for his credibility for two years now. I truly believe this one call will put his credibility as an NFL coach beyond repair.”

Beyond that one play, there is his style.

Switzer took time to go house-hunting just before the NFC Championship Game. On the flip side, maybe that means he’s putting down roots after two years of being regarded as a carpetbagger from Oklahoma. His new home will be a 15-minute drive from the Cowboys’ training complex at Valley Ranch and he may buy a car, too. He’s been driving a rental.

On Tuesday, he spent a half-hour watching owner Jerry Jones’ marathon media luncheon and discussed the re-issue of his autobiography, “Bootlegger’s Boy” with Lacewell.

On Thursday, he was wandering around in a suit. “Gotta do my TV show,” he said.

Switzer has often flown off on the Saturday before a game to watch his son play in college. The day before the Nov. 12 San Francisco game, he left for Pine Bluff, Ark.

“It’s a big one for him because the winner goes to the NAIA playoffs,” Switzer said at the time.

“Pine Bluff is playing William Morris. No, wait, I mean William Brown. Not William Morris. William Brown. I think William Morris is a talent agency. Isn’t it? I don’t know. .. Well, I think Pine Bluff is favored to win over either one of them.”

(It was Morris Brown, if anyone cares.)

Another rap on Switzer is that too easy on his players and that he blames others for mistakes despite being in the buck-stops-here position.

“I’m low-key,” said Switzer, who won four college championships at Oklahoma. “Even on game day I don’t look excited. But it’s there. It’s just my style. I’ve been doing this for 35 years and I must have been doing something right.”

His biggest defender is also his most important one - Jones. But his players like him, too, and superstars like Smith and Deion Sanders have publicly dressed down their coach’s critics.

“There is no right way or wrong way to coach because a coach has to be himself,” said Bill Bates, whose desire and work ethic has kept him on the team for 13 years - through Tom Landry, Johnson and Switzer.

So what does Switzer do?

He looks at film and gives a thumbs-up or thumbs-down on game plans.

He suggests to assistants what might be helpful against a certain opponent and what to throw out. But he rarely contradicts anything they develop.

He talks to players one-on-one, chewing them out when needed, building them up when needed. He is credited, for example, with making middle linebacker Robert Jones into a creditable player after two years in Johnson’s doghouse.

What he doesn’t do is instill fear - something Johnson does masterfully.

Switzer, for example, wouldn’t be likely to do something like this:

Three years ago, the Cowboys were beating the Bears in a meaningless game. Curvin Richards, spelling Emmitt Smith at tailback, fumbled and Chicago returned it for a touchdown in a 27-14 Dallas win.

Johnson cut Richards the next day, costing him a Super Bowl ring.

Actually, Switzer may be most guilty of one sin beyond his control - not being Jimmy Johnson.

His Cowboys largely remain the team built by Johnson, a team that won Super Bowls in 1992 and 1993 but didn’t in 1994 under Switzer. That year, they lost the NFC title game to San Francisco, whom the Cowboys had beaten the previous two years.

But while it’s not often noted, he does indeed have less talent than Johnson had - free agency and the salary cap have stripped the team of depth.

Since Johnson’s departure, the Cowboys have lost key players such as Ken Norton, Mark Stepnoski, Alvin Harper, James Washington, Kevin Gogan, John Gesek, Jimmie Jones and Jim Jeffcoat, all starters or productive players elsewhere.

Switzer’s also minus the best of Johnson’s coaches - Norv Turner and Dave Wannstedt, who moved on to other NFL coaching jobs; Tony Wise, who went to Chicago with Wannstedt, and Butch Davis, now head coach at the University of Miami.

Still, Switzer depends more than most coaches on his staff, the most experienced and respected of whom is Ernie Zampese, the offensive coordinator.

While most NFL coaches come up the assistant ranks, Switzer hasn’t been an assistant coach since 1972, when he got the head job at Oklahoma at age 36.

“It’s totally different as a head coach,” said Green Bay’s Mike Holmgren, four years removed from being offensive coordinator at San Francisco.

But Switzer’s world does not appear to be the same world occupied by the likes of Gibbs and Walsh, who won six Super Bowls between them by having a hand in every game plan and often sleeping in the office. Nor is it the one occupied by Johnson, who didn’t do much strategizing, but kept his players on the edge - everyone but the stars came to practice wondering if they’d have a job the next day.