The biggest Dallas Cowboys storyline entering the final week of the season is obvious. What is the future of the team’s head coaching position?
Sunday’s game against the Washington Commanders could be Mike McCarthy’s last as Cowboys coach. He is not under contract beyond this season. Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones and executive vice president Stephen Jones have spoken highly of the job McCarthy has done over the past five seasons, but they have been noncommittal when directly asked about McCarthy remaining in that position beyond Sunday.
“We’ll address all of this after the Commanders game,” Stephen Jones said Monday on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas when asked about McCarthy reportedly having interest from other teams.
However, he did say that it doesn’t surprise him that other clubs would have interest.
“Mike’s an established head coach in this league,” Stephen Jones said. “He’s won a Super Bowl. He’s been to multiple championship games. Obviously we had a tough start with the COVID year that everybody was trying to get their hands around, and followed that up with three 12-win seasons. And then, of course, we’ve had this year, but this year’s been a challenge for the obvious reasons with injuries. But that doesn’t surprise me a bit that there would be interest in Mike McCarthy.”
Despite the Cowboys having been eliminated from playoff contention nine days ago when Washington beat the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 16, McCarthy’s message to the team this week is: “We need to finish the race.”
He referenced that point when asked Monday about how much he wants to remain Cowboys head coach.
“I think the biggest thing,” McCarthy responded, “and I do appreciate the opportunity to speak on it, but I’ve answered this question the same for however many months now. I need to make sure I’m doing exactly what I’m asking everybody else to do. We need to finish the race. It’s been a challenging year. Based on our contract situation for coaches, it’s stating the obvious, but we’ll have time to talk about that next week.”
The team’s star players, like Dak Prescott, CeeDee Lamb and Micah Parsons have spoken recently about wanting McCarthy back. Following Sunday’s 41-7 loss at Philadelphia, Prescott said he’s “obviously a promoter” of bringing back McCarthy.
“It’s tough to probably get your job done and do your job with all that hanging over your head,” Prescott said. “But credit to him, credit to his professionalism and really his coaching style of being able to get guys ready to play and go out there and finish and take pride in what we finish and what we put on tape.”
On Monday, McCarthy thanked players who have shared their support for him publicly.
“I think it’s just a reflection of what we have here,” he said. “It’s a reflection of, everybody talks about culture, and I’m not up here to give a bunch of buzzwords, but we do things the right way, I can attest to that. I’ve done this long enough to have a strong opinion (on) how to run a program, what’s best for the players, (how) the players are coached. They’re coached with detail. There’s demand there. Accountability. So the basics are in place.
“But we’re like any other program, we need to get better. There’s a number of areas we need to improve on. but that’s what the offseason is for. This is not the week to be getting into these discussions. But I think it’s really a reflection of what we have here in place. We have a coaching operation. We have a locker room. We have things within our realm that you need to win and we had a number of challenges this year and we didn’t overcome them all. And that’s why I’m standing here talking about not being in the playoffs. …
“I think the future is bright and we have a lot of things in place here. We need to take a step back after next week and obviously a lot of decisions got to be made, a lot of business decisions got to be made because of our contract situation, and that’s what we’ll do.”
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Prescott and Lamb signed contract extensions before the season started. Parsons is expected to do the same before next season. There won’t be major changes to the roster. Aside from adding a draft class and trying to re-sign some of their own free agents, the Cowboys aren’t expected to make significant additions via veteran free agency. The owner and general manager aren’t changing. So the biggest question is about the direction they will go at head coach.
There’s a chance that Jerry Jones could show his hand after Sunday’s game. But he could also wait. The Cowboys hired McCarthy on Jan. 7, 2020. Their 2019 season finale was on Dec. 29, 2019. It wasn’t announced that Jason Garrett wouldn’t be back as head coach until seven days after that game.
Jerry Jones was very complimentary of McCarthy immediately following their last home game, a 26-24 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Dec. 22. But he declined to provide any insight into how he will determine the future of the team’s head coaching position. It’s difficult to believe Jones hasn’t already made the decision on if he wants to keep McCarthy. The season has been trending in a bad direction for a while. Even before it was known Prescott would be lost for the season with a hamstring injury, Dallas was off to a 3-5 start that included three lopsided home losses.
But Jones has done a good job of not revealing his exact thoughts. That has led many to assume that Dallas will eventually work out a deal to keep McCarthy. We’ll soon find out if that’s true. Until then, the Cowboys head coaching position will remain their most interesting story.
(Top photo of McCarthy: Emilee Chinn / Getty Images)
