Cowboys playing hard for Mike McCarthy is a good sign, but it shouldn’t save his job

For the second time this season, a football Sunday has come and gone with the Dallas Cowboys serving as spectators having already beaten the New York Giants on a Thursday. This time, it was a 27-20 home win on Thanksgiving that got them off the hook of not winning a game inside AT&T Stadium in five previous tries this season. The win on Turkey Day felt different from the previous Thursday night win all the way back in week four against the Giants for a lot of reasons. At the forefront of this is the fact it came on a holiday, and sent fans into a weekend where it can be hard to differentiate which day is which and the general feel for the season. The time between Thanksgiving and the Monday that follows is like a small warmup for the stretch between Christmas and New Year’s where many echo the same sentiment about losing track of time.

One thing will be clearer when it comes to how the calendar is concerned for the Cowboys at the turn of the new year though. With just one scheduled game at the moment to conclude their season on January 5th at home against the Commanders, the Cowboys are still facing long odds to change this and play beyond Week 18 into the playoffs. At the same time, their active two-game win streak against the Commanders and Giants has them at a 5-7 record that would be good enough for second place or a game behind it in exactly half of the league’s divisions – just not their own. In a down year for so many teams, the Cowboys’ down year has no clear path to the playoffs right now.

It’s not time to count this team out of playoff consideration yet, but it is also not time to totally lose sight of the early season ineptitude that put this team so far behind the eight ball to begin with. Trying to figure out how to feel about the current state of the 2024 Dallas Cowboys is a bit like trying to figure out when it’s time to start Christmas shopping at the moment. Anything goes.

Another smaller detail about what made Thursday’s win for the Cowboys unique in the broader picture of Week 13 around the NFL is that Sunday’s main slate of games did not feature FOX’s number one team of Kevin Burkhardt and Tom Brady anywhere on the air. The crew had the Sunday off after already calling a record-breaking Cowboys and Giants matchup on Thursday. Brady’s airtime, of which he has had plenty to discuss the Cowboys this season starting with his first ever telecast in week one, did not come and go this week without some interesting comments about the state of the Cowboys as it relates to head coach Mike McCarthy.

Oh, I think Coach McCarthy is a great coach. His 18th season as a head coach. He’s a great leader of men. But not only as a play-caller, he’s a developer of players, of talent, of quarterbacks.

“He’s got a very consistent personality to him. He won in Green Bay. He’s got a championship DNA. I think he’s one of the better coaches in the NFL, absolutely.”

These comments during the Cowboys’ eighth straight win against the Giants also came just days after owner and general manager Jerry Jones told the local Dallas media that the idea of McCarthy earning an extension while coaching out the final year of his current contract is “not crazy”. Now, not every viewer (of which we know there were literally millions in epic proportion) of Thanksgiving football may follow the Cowboys close enough to know that Jones said this, and even more of the true Cowboys fans watching may also naturally understand the way Jerry spins things and be able to take this for what it’s worth, but Brady’s comments are different entirely. They were echoed on televisions in living rooms full of families about a coach that’s equally been on television in a HC capacity since 2006 with the Packers and now Cowboys.

Speaking of things that are “not crazy”, those within the Cowboys organization hearing this public praise for their coach and truly taking it to heart as a reason to still believe in the direction of a team that hasn’t given up on McCarthy.

It takes some reading between the lines to truly dig into what Brady was saying about McCarthy though, and the hows and whys of it not just being a 100% positive thing or 100% negative for the Cowboys. It is indisputable that Brady knows what great coaching looks like in the NFL, having spent most of his first ballot Hall of Fame career with the widely-considered GOAT, Bill Belichick.

The characteristics Brady points out that make McCarthy a “great” coach in his eyes are being a leader of men, play-caller, developer of players (and specifically QBs), and consistency in personality.

The first trait here, McCarthy being a leader of men, has perhaps been most evident in the midst of his team’s current two-game win streak. The Cowboys have picked themselves up off a three-game skid that very well could have snowballed into this year’s team going down as one of the worst in franchise history. Dallas has lacked consistency in the starting lineup at just about every position on the field this season, and more times than not the players that have suited up have hardly been able to keep the Cowboys in games against better competition. The Cowboys are still fourth worst team in the league in point differential, less than a touchdown’s worth away from the Giants team they just beat. The same Giants team that is in contention for the number one overall pick.

Again, there is absolutely room to have a real discussion about the Cowboys and playoff probability right now, but not without also acknowledging the other reeling teams (in New York’s case, an already mathematically eliminated one) they are just as close in comparison to.

The fact the Cowboys are still playing hard, coming out with a coherent game plan that gives them some chance on a weekly basis, and putting new players in positions to succeed on game days are all encouraging things that speak to the leadership of McCarthy and the respect he warrants from the rest of his staff. This should also be considered the bare minimum for any coaches working under Jones’ ownership, as a GM that’s proven he has an incredibly long leash with coaches so long as his team is not an embarrassment under their leadership. The last in-season head coaching change for the Cowboys remains Jason Garrett replacing Wade Phillips in 2010, with the final straw for Phillips being a primetime embarrassment 45-7 at the hands of McCarthy’s Packers on the road. Under a defensive-minded head coach, the Cowboys allowed 415 yards in that game, just two weeks removed from giving up 497 in a loss to the Giants.

McCarthy’s Cowboys may not currently be a historic embarrassment, but earlier in the year they were making plenty of history for all the wrong reasons, most notably losing the most lopsided game of Jones’ entire ownership at home to the Lions on Jerry’s birthday. Even in a limited sample size where players like Dak Prescott, Zack Martin, CeeDee Lamb, Jake Ferguson, and Brandin Cooks were all on the field together, McCarthy’s offense looked allergic to making the big plays this team relied on just a year ago, and the result was Dallas not only getting crushed in turnover differential but on the scoreboard as well.

While it is true that McCarthy immediately followed a coach that was also considered a very strong “leader of men” in Garrett, who held onto the job for a decade despite producing just two playoff wins, the Cowboys have slowly but surely proved they want more than this from the HC position. They allowed McCarthy to take over play-calling duties from their homegrown prodigy Kellen Moore, and publicly speak about a growing sense of urgency to be known for winning ways again rather than an NFC championship game drought that is approaching three decades. Given the stunning lack of urgency the Cowboys used to prepare McCarthy for this contract season, there is a clear disconnect in how the team can achieve this goal with McCarthy still in place as their head coach, making extending him beyond this season a dubious prospect if they truly are serious about learning from the failures that have already occurred this year – feel good win on Thanksgiving aside.

The Cowboys are already set to be considerable underdogs for their next game, also on national television, against the Bengals on Monday Night Football in Week 14.

The next thing that Brady pointed out about McCarthy is his play-calling, which is perhaps the most hot button issue for the Cowboys this entire season. Where Mike Zimmer has come out of NFL retirement to call consistently strong games for a Cowboys defense almost always without at least one key starter this season, the Cowboys can unfortunately not say the same about McCarthy on offense in his second year as play-caller. The bigger issue at hand may very well be personnel, which we will get to as well, mainly at running back where the Cowboys seriously handicapped their ability to be a balanced team having only Rico Dowdle and Ezekiel Elliott as capable backs right now. Dowdle has clearly been the best choice out of the limited ones the Cowboys have out of the backfield all season, but it took until recently for McCarthy and the rest of the staff to see this and establish him as a lead back.

Dowdle had a career game against the Giants simply by being asked to do what he is consistently good at on a regular basis, rum north-south between the tackles. He did so behind an offensive line missing both Zack Martin and Tyler Guyton. It is entirely possible that by the end of the season, the low-cost running back by committee approach that McCarthy at least had some say in utilizing this season is actually viewed as a positive thing and not one of the defining reasons this season was a failure – which it appeared destined to be for most of the season. This potential fatal flaw in the run game paired with a complete regression in passing game consistency make McCarthy’s long-term prospects as the future play-caller for the Cowboys’ offense hard to justify.

Many fans that were calling for a new head coach midseason wanted to see another offensive mind, anyone but McCarthy really, get an opportunity to work with Dak Prescott. With the season now entirely up to Cooper Rush at QB, it makes more sense to stick with McCarthy’s play-calling. It is also so painfully obvious that the return of a healthy Prescott is going to be the number one thing Dallas’ front office tries to sell the fans on for hope on the 2025 season. Doing so alongside a play-caller that inspires more confidence than McCarthy, whose called an offense that’s made routine things look difficult this season, feels like a necessary step to go along with this.

All of the auxiliary factors about why a head coach specializing in just offensive creativity and helping his QB as much as possible, with potential blind spots in the other areas the Cowboys value in their HC, can be discussed at a later time. The truth will still remain that the Cowboys need to get better one way or another in this area to catch up to teams like the Lions or Eagles in the NFC right now, and justify Prescott becoming the highest-paid player in NFL history before this season began.

With McCarthy stating earlier in the year that he has some regrets about not immediately taking over play-calling his first season with the Cowboys in 2020, it’s hard to imagine the Cowboys taking the needed strides on this side of the ball without letting his contract play all the way out.

The most likely outcome of any success the Cowboys find on offense the rest of the year, with Rush starting to find some of the same momentum that led him to a four-game win streak back in 2022, is a resounding feeling that these things could have been executed earlier in the year to change the entire tenor of this season. To not have this consistency going from year one to two of McCarthy still being in charge of the offense is a major disappointment for the Cowboys. Simple things like targeting the middle of the field more and using play-action, even with tight ends Luke Schoonmaker and Brevyn Spann-Ford in their two most recent wins, have made a world of difference for this offense and make it hard to believe how inept they were at almost everything to start the year.

McCarthy’s own frustrations in this facet of the game have even come out in uncharacteristic ways that go against Brady’s sentiment that he is a “consistent” personality. Most notably, McCarthy regretting slamming the Microsoft Surface tablet to the ground after a failed fourth-down attempt in a week nine loss at the Atlanta Falcons. Just three weeks later, McCarthy called that same play and got the same result on a handoff to CeeDee Lamb on a key third down against the Commanders.

With this Sunday being the latest opportunity for Cowboys player, coaches, and fans alike to check out other teams around the league and compare them to Dallas, it didn’t take too much searching to find offensive performances from teams like the Bills, Steelers, or Eagles to see just how behind the McCarthy offense has been most of the year.

Lastly, there is the giant umbrella that encapsulates all of what the 2024 Cowboys are when it comes to player acquisition and development. Whether a playoff berth is in their immediate future or not, the Cowboys are showing a lot of encouraging development from young players to be excited about the outlook at several positions right now. Not only do rookies Cooper Beebe and Tyler Guyton look like pieces of a remade offensive line that have a chance to be in place for a while, but the same can be said about backups T.J. Bass and Brock Hoffman who’ve earned more playing time due to injuries. Schoonmaker and Spann-Ford are keeping the tight end position a strength without Jake Ferguson. Prior to tearing his ACL against the Giants, practice squad cornerback Josh Butler was making a name for himself in Zimmer’s defense. DeMarvion Overshown scored the first defensive touchdown of the season for the Cowboys on Thanksgiving with a pick six from the linebacker position. Mazi Smith is looking more comfortable and making more plays with each passing week. Jalen Tolbert has been a reliable third receiver at times with a dramatic game-winning touchdown in Pittsburgh.

The Cowboys have backed themselves into the corner of needing to be a strong player development team that heavily relies on the draft to build the roster. Even in a tenuous season that’s invited extra controversy thanks to the very public nature of McCarthy being in a contract year, the Cowboys are fortunate to be seeing strong player development from a McCarthy led team once again. Dallas can still enjoy the fruits of these seeds McCarthy has planted firmly in the football operations side of the organization without him continuing as their head coach. Under McCarthy, all of the positive player development has still only led to the all-too-familiar result of playoff disappointments, mainly by teams that wound up thin or one-dimensional due to lack of outside players being brought in.

Nobody is claiming that the Cowboys have not done positive things over McCarthy’s time as head coach since 2020, or can’t continue implementing any of these things even if they go in a new direction after the season. The hope from many fans is to add a more dynamic approach to free agency and roster constructing on top of player development to better keep up with the ever changing landscape of professional football. Doing so may be the only chance the Cowboys have to not continue their current cycle of wasting entire Pro Bowl or All-Pro level careers of players like Demarcus Ware, Jason Witten, Tyron Smith, Dez Bryant, or current veterans DeMarcus Lawrence and Zack Martin. There again appears to be some real disconnect when it comes to how the Cowboys can have a better all-around approach to being taken seriously as one of the best football front offices, and not just a business one, and make good on their apparent sense of urgency while retaining McCarthy. The head coach has been dealt a tough hand in many ways this season, telling the media as much when he commented on the way Dallas was still adding to their roster late into the preseason.

The Cowboys need to be more sound from top to bottom, front office all the way down to coaching staff, if they plan on fixing this and being a consistent winner again. McCarthy’s consistency in winning 12 games in three consecutive seasons should not be totally forgotten in this self-evaluation, but neither will all of the shortcomings that have put the 2024 season well below expectations. If these current Cowboys are truly at the point where winning games is being frowned upon by some because it won’t encourage the front office to shake things up to their liking enough, breaking character and moving on from a coach after just five seasons regardless of how this team finishes in December and January feels necessary.

There isn’t anything going well for the Cowboys right now that they can’t reasonably expect to continue going well under a new head coach in 2025, pending making the “right hire” of course. There also isn’t anything they’ve failed at this season that doesn’t in some way – big, small, or otherwise – reflect on current head coach Mike McCarthy. If anyone in the building understands this concept the best right now, it might ironically be the 61-year old head coach himself.

If the wins continue to add up through December, there will be nothing wrong with continuing to praise the job McCarthy is doing in the moment just like Brady did. There are Cowboys fans that already believe two wins in four days over Thanksgiving week, and things like Brady’s and Jones’ comments together, have already done more harm than good when it comes to the Cowboys not fully facing the reality of the work ahead of them this offseason. Considering the overwhelming amount of depth players that were not expected to play much this season who now find themselves contributing to on-field success, these recent Cowboys wins can absolutely still mean the right things for a future in Dallas. One that can become uncertain at any point should a slew of coaching contracts expire and the early offseason is spent reshuffling offices at The Star.

It will be fascinating to see how much momentum builds up over the team’s final stretch of games for the biggest domino here to fall, that being McCarthy’s status with the team, and if there truly is a path for him to coach his way into a longer term future with America’s Team. It is hard to remember any point in recent Cowboys history where this many possibilities were all on the table near the end of the season, everything from a miraculous playoff berth to a mass exodus of coaches immediately following week 18. The Cowboys may have already failed on some of their 2024 goals, but they have succeeded in an evergreen one of being entertaining.