Mike McCarthy out-dueled Dan Quinn last week.
It’s been a tough year for Mike McCarthy. Nobody is going to feel overly sorry for the coach who owns a Super Bowl ring, has a street named after him in Green Bay, and is very well compensated for his job as the head coach of the most valuable sports franchise in the world. But it would be an understatement to say that 2024 has been unkind to McCarthy.
It started with the embarrassing loss in the Wild Card round to the Packers. Getting ripped apart by your former team is tough to stomach. Then, Jerry Jones decided to hold onto McCarthy for another year, but refused to extend his contract, making McCarthy a lame duck coach. Around the same time, McCarthy lost his revered defensive coordinator to a division rival, as Dan Quinn took the head job for the Commanders.
What followed was an offseason full of moves that screamed “setup.” It’s hard to view the Cowboys’ moves since that playoff game as ones you’d expect from a team doing everything in its power to win now. If anything, it looked like a team who was already preparing for a new coach in 2025.
It’s not entirely surprising that the Cowboys stumbled out of the gate, and even less surprising that they continued to do so after Dak Prescott was lost for the season. Last Monday night, the Cowboys hung with the Texans for three quarters before Houston pulled away and delivered the Cowboys their fifth straight loss. It was their longest losing streak since 2015.
Then came a road trip to face Quinn and a Commanders team filled with former Cowboys. Washington was favored to win by 10.5 points, the second-largest point spread of the week. It was a reflection of how bad the Cowboys have been this year and how good the Commanders have been with Quinn in charge.
Once the game kicked off, though, none of that mattered. McCarthy’s offense was up first, and he had a script that worked beautifully. Cooper Rush was dealing, mostly to CeeDee Lamb, and the Cowboys were in field goal range after just three plays. A drop from Jalen Tolbert on third down forced a field goal, which was inexplicably blocked.
The next drive also saw the offense firing on all cylinders, with several strong runs from Rico Dowdle bringing them right to the edge of the red zone. But a pitch to Dowdle on third and short got blown up, bringing up another field goal try. This time, Brandon Aubrey just flat out missed the kick.
That was the theme for much of this game: the offense was moving the ball, but found a way to shoot themselves in the foot, whether it be a drop or a missed kick or a penalty that wiped out a first down. When the fourth quarter came around, though the offense stepped up. They scored 10 points on consecutive drives, which featured Luke Schoonmaker getting wide open in the endzone.
Special teams scored the final two touchdowns of the day for Dallas, taking pressure off the offense, but that doesn’t erase how good McCarthy’s unit played. They averaged 5.4 yards per play – Dallas is averaging an even five on the year – and posted a success rate of 45.5%, which was the 11th highest of any team this week. More shocking was their 55.3% success rate on all dropbacks, which ranked third in the league.
Getting that kind of production and efficiency with Rush under center and playing behind an offensive line that was forced to start backups at both guard spots is nothing to sneeze at. It was a reminder of how good McCarthy can be – the coach has quite the record with backup quarterbacks, mind you – and the fact that it came against Quinn made it a little more satisfying, even if he won’t admit it.
This game won’t change much, of course. McCarthy is still all but guaranteed to be let go after the season despite what Jerry Jones said, and the Cowboys are all but guaranteed to miss the playoffs for the first time since McCarthy’s first year in Dallas. And there’s still a compelling argument to be made that a change in leadership is necessary.
That said, bad coaches don’t win Super Bowls, and they sure don’t win 171 regular season games, as McCarthy has. He may not be the coach that will help this franchise return to its glory days, but McCarthy has always been a good coach. For a brief, fleeting moment in what’s been a disaster of a season, McCarthy got the chance to remind everyone of what he’s capable of.
