From the field to the locker room, Mike McCarthy’s influence on the Cowboys isn’t working.
Another week, another embarrassing home loss for the Dallas Cowboys. A predictably one-sided, 34-6 defeat from the Philadelphia Eagles hardly moved the needle on where the team is at this season. But how the loss happened further indicates just how badly Dallas needs to move on from head coach Mike McCarthy.
You don’t lose by 28 at home without a group effort, but McCarthy and Brian Schottenheimer’s offense was more complicit by far. Between Cooper Rush and Trey Lance’s work at quarterback, Dallas managed just 49 passing yards and a 49.1 passer rating against Philly. Five turnovers, four fumbles and one interception, showed the Cowboys’ offense to be completely out of sorts. As we’ve harped on all season, a lack of ingenuity in design and play-calling didn’t give Dallas’ outmatched roster any chance against the Eagles’ superior talent.
It was only 14-6 at halftime because the defense did their best. DeMarvion Overshown was a menace, Micah Parsons returned with solid work, and Trevon Diggs got one of his classic interceptions to stop an Eagles drive in the endzone. But even with such a manageable halftime score on paper, there was never a point that you felt much hope of Dallas pulling off the upset.
This void of optimism is directly linked to McCarthy. There’s no sense that he has a handle on things anymore, either in the X’s and O’s of running an offense, head coaching basics like clock management and challenging plays, or managing the team’s chemistry and culture. Parsons’ well-covered postgame comments may not have been intended to blast the coach’s effort, but the words still came out the way they did. And the reason they resonated is because McCarthy does seem like a guy who’s phoning it in. Or worse, a guy who’s now so bad at his job that you can’t tell the difference.
We never saw the team look this bad, on the field or backstage, under Jason Garrett. We never saw Cooper Rush look this bad when Kellen Moore was offensive coordinator. People want to make such a big deal about McCarthy’s three-straight seasons with 12 wins, but let’s not pretend that Garrett wasn’t a 2015 Tony Romo injury away from a similar feat from 2014-2016. McCarthy’s highs haven’t been any higher than previous coaching regimes, and his lows are starting to look much lower.
A midseason firing probably isn’t happening at this point. Jerry Jones seems more stubborn than ever about doing things his way, whether it’s blinding his own players with sunlight in the stadium or hanging on to a head coach who’s team is just not competitive.
What Jerry decides here is about what he wants to do, not what he should do. He should absolutely fire McCarthy. He should have done it after the playoff loss last January, but at this point there’s no room for debate. The entire atmosphere around the team has become putrid and dragging your fans through two more months of garbage is just negligence. Firing McCarthy isn’t about saving this season but rather saving some goodwill for the future.
We’ve reached the “it can’t get any worse” point with Mike McCarthy’s run in Dallas. Getting outclassed by the next generation of coaches is one thing, but now he’s proven to be counter-productive to winning football games. Maybe that’s what you want if you’re focused on 2025 draft positioning, but it could cost you the morale and loyalty of your roster and fanbase along the way.
