The McCarthy Chronicles: The case for the Cowboys keeping their coach

An argument for the Cowboys keeping Mike McCarthy

The Dallas Cowboys’ miserable 2024 season finally came to an end with a loss to the Commanders, dropping them to 7-10 on the year and officially beginning a stage where all that’s left to do is wonder whether or not Mike McCarthy will be granted a contract extension or if Jerry Jones will let it lapse and start over.

Reports indicate that Jones will take his time making the decision, as McCarthy’s contract doesn’t actually expire for another week. That said, Jones sounded like someone who was getting ready to extend his coach after the game.

Prior to the game being played on Sunday, there were also reports that the Cowboys were leaning in the direction of bringing McCarthy back. These reports suggested that Jones is on board with keeping his head coach, but that others in the organization might not feel the same way.

While many fans want to see McCarthy gone, the reality is that he’s the best the team will do at head coach. Simply put, there is no clear upgrade over McCarthy right now. This is the typical nature of the coaching carousel, of course. Good coaches don’t get fired, so teams are left to hire a bunch of inexperienced coaches or retreads who have head coaching experience but are available for a reason.

The apple of the coaching carousel eye right now is Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson, but he’s been extremely selective in the past and is reportedly only accepting interview requests for teams he’s actually interested in. This has already led to the Jets not even requesting an interview, and Johnson’s reported criteria for a team makes it unlikely he’d be interested in Dallas either.

Mike Vrabel is another hot name, and the former Titans head coach recently had a revealing expose in The Athletic. In it, Vrabel attempted to dispel the narrative that he’s too controlling and difficult to work with, which rose to the top as the accepted reason for his firing a year ago in Tennessee. Of course, Vrabel was also fired following back to back years with double-digit losses. He also had been one-and-done in the playoffs the last two years prior to that. The overall downward trend of the Titans over Vrabel’s final four years there is a big reason he failed to land any jobs last cycle.

After Johnson and Vrabel, it’s a long list of names who have just as many question marks as they have appealing traits. Coaches like Brian Flores, Vance Joseph, and Arthur Smith all have head coaching experience and have turned in really good seasons as coordinators, but their previous tenure prompts plenty of questions about what they’d do next.

Meanwhile, hot coordinators and position coaches like Joe Brady, Aaron Glenn, Liam Coen, Anthony Weaver, and Josh McCown are getting interview requests, but it takes a lot more projection to imagine how these individuals will successfully go from one job to an entirely different one in being the head coach. There’s a very streaky success rate for rookie head coaches.

Therein lies the security of keeping someone like McCarthy. Johnson and Vrabel will be welcomed with open arms by whoever hires them, but their success is far from guaranteed. Both are going to want a heavy say in personnel as well. That won’t jive with the Cowboys, and Jones offered a fierce rebuke of any notion that he step down as general manager after Sunday’s game:

McCarthy already has a working relationship with ownership, enough to win certain battles – such as investing in the build-up of the analytics department last offseason – but also enough to know when to defer to the owner. Any new coach is going to have to figure out that relational aspect first and foremost, which takes time.

More importantly, McCarthy has shown an ability to win with what Jones provides him. This season proved to be too much, but few coaches could’ve won with this roster. They finished with 15 players on the injured reserve and missed Micah Parsons, DaRon Bland, and Brandin Cooks for long stretches as well. Still, McCarthy managed to win four games in five tries with Cooper Rush at quarterback.

Before that, though, we saw consistent winning on an unprecedented level. Three straight 12-win seasons and three straight playoff appearances are things that this franchise hasn’t done since the glory days of the 90’s. Fans balk at the lack of success after they made the playoffs in those years, but Andy Reid was 1-4 in the playoffs in his first five years with the Chiefs. McCarthy is currently 1-3. Both coaches had 10 postseason wins with their previous club.

The final and most important factor to consider is the team itself. The players have publicly vouched for McCarthy (and Mike Zimmer) to remain. Dak Prescott has even said he’ll personally lobby Jones to bring his head coach and play-caller back. The roster fought hard for McCarthy all the way until the end. To let him go and bring in someone new would not only be a slap in the face to all the players, but it would put the new head coach at an immediate disadvantage in gaining his team’s trust.

The Panthers did something similar not too long ago. Just about every player vouched for interim head coach Steve Wilks to be named the full time head coach following the 2022 season. Instead, Carolina brought in Frank Reich, a seasoned veteran in his own right who won 40 games for the Colts. Reich struggled to earn the buy-in from players who went on record as wanting Wilks, and the Panthers went on to finish with the worst record in the league, with Reich being fired midseason.

McCarthy is a proven winner who is loved by his players and already knows how to work with the unconventional setup in the Cowboys front office. There is not a single other coach out on the market who is better equipped to step into this situation and compete for the Super Bowl right away. Unless, of course, Jimmy Johnson decides to get back into coaching, though that seems unlikely.

So, barring a surprise announcement from Johnson, the Cowboys have no choice but to keep McCarthy in Dallas. Perhaps this time they could try a slightly more aggressive offseason approach too, just to see what happens.