Jerry Jones appears to be setting the stage to let things drag out with Mike McCarthy when the season ends.
We have known for over a week now, in terms of formalities, that there will be no postseason football for the Dallas Cowboys. Such news has meant that when Sunday’s game against the Washington Commanders is over, the offseason will fully begin and important decisions will have to be made.
Chief among the priorities for the Cowboys this coming offseason is an extension for Micah Parsons (getting one done with DaRon Bland might be wise as well), but before the team can get to anything to do with players, they have to figure out the state of their coaching staff.
Jerry Jones infamously let Mike McCarthy float in the wind throughout the entire calendar year of 2024, proven by the fact that this post is being published on New Year’s Eve. The Cowboys had an all-time playoff loss at the beginning of 2024 and extending Mike McCarthy after it would have surely been a tough scene, but some could argue that it would have been preferable to the daily drama that has surrounded the subject over this leap year.
Daily drama is sort of par for the course around The Star in Frisco and it appears that Jerry Jones is ready to unleash it when the calendar turns to 2025. In his appearance on 105.3 The Fan on Tuesday morning, Jerry noted that he is not under any unusual timeframe relative to Mike McCarthy and any would-be decision.
How quickly does Jerry Jones want to decide whether to extend Mike McCarthy or go another direction for 2025 Cowboys coach?
“I’m not under any unusual time frame at all,” Jerry tells @1053thefan.
— Jori Epstein (@JoriEpstein) December 31, 2024
You would think that a decision has already been made about Mike McCarthy and that Jerry is just saying the proper things until it comes time to unveil it one way or another. Consider that FOX’s Jay Glazer reported recently that McCarthy’s contract runs out a week after the season formally ends so this could go on for some time.
That idea may sound familiar to you and if it does it is for a reason. Consider what happened the last time the Cowboys moved on from a head coach in Jason Garrett. The 2019 Cowboys season ended on December 29th, coincidentally also at home against Washington and it was the last time Dallas hosted them in a regular season finale, and a formal decision on Garrett did not come until January 5th.
That was a full week later which lines up with the timing reported surrounding when McCarthy’s contract runs out. While it makes some sense to allow time for exit interviews and procedural things, as soon as next week hits is when many teams are going to already be on the hunt for their next head coach. Waiting a week – for the second time in which Dallas would have been looking for a new head coach – seems difficult to justify from a competitive standpoint. That is also par for the course relative to this team.
Given how the Cowboys have operated, expect that they will drag this out across all of next week.
