Photo by Sam Hodde/Getty Images Speculation continues to surround Mike McCarthy’s status as the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys. The season is over for the Dallas Cowboys. It would be nice if we could say it’s been fun, but everyone knows better. It was maddening before the season began thanks to an offseason that provided fans very little to feel good about. When it was time to play football, they struggled early, finding themselves on the wrong end of some lopsided blowouts. Then they lost Dak Prescott for the year. Any enthusiasm we had left was sucked right out of us. So, as you can see, it hasn’t been fun. The only good thing about the 2024 season is that it’s over. We can finally turn the page and look ahead to next year, which hopefully will offer more promising results, and at the very least, a cleaner bill of health. Before the Cowboys can move forward, they need to figure out what they want to do for a head coach. The decision on whether to bring Mike McCarthy back is not an easy one. It’s a topic that Jerry and Stephen Jones have been asked about non-stop over the last several weeks and each time they humor reporters with an answer that’s so ambiguous, it’s hard to figure out what direction they might go. It’s quite possible the Joneses aren’t saying much because they, themselves, aren’t sure what to do. After last season, McCarthy was coming off of three consecutive 12-win seasons. He was the first coach in Cowboys history to accomplish such yet that wasn’t enough for them to reward him with a contract extension. The Joneses still had doubts. Maybe those doubts stemmed from continuously underwhelming in the playoffs. Playing well during the regular season and then not even showing up against Green Bay will definitely put a sour taste in your mouth. The every-year frustration of another playoff letdown had to be eating at them and it created enough uncertainty that they let McCarthy play out his contract in what many believed was a “lame duck” season. Instead of giving him a ringing endorsement in the form of a new contract, the Joneses treated 2024 like a test. Unfortunately, injuries hit the team hard and have some slapping an asterisk on the season, making it challenging to determine how well McCarthy has done. Sometimes they played hard and fought out a win, other times they looked dreadful and were taken to the woodshed. What can we conclude from all this? The Joneses are right to have pause. Even though they have won plenty of games, when the rubber meets the road and they need good coaching, they don’t get it. As my colleague One Cool Customer has discussed – talent will win you games in the regular season, but coaching gets it done in the playoffs. The Cowboys are proof of that. They can beat teams with lesser talent, but when the postseason rolls around and they go against other teams with comparable talent, they get outcoached. And when it comes to McCarthy’s coaching, several things aren’t working for him. Ineffective play-calling The creativity of offensive plays has been under scrutiny during the McCarthy/Brian Schottenheimer seasons. And the plays get worse when they get into the red zone. The Cowboys finished the year with a red zone efficiency of 46%. That is second-worst in the league, trailing only the New York Giants. Even last year when Prescott was dealing and they led the league in points scored, they were still middle-of-the-road in the red zone at 58%. In contrast, the Cowboys offense was 71% in the red zone (best in the league) during Kellen Moore’s final season despite Prescott missing five games that year. The offense also struggles to come up with good plays when they really need them. The Cowboys finished with a fourth-down percentage of 36%, the worst in the NFL. They were fifth-best during Moore’s last season. If you don’t think much of Moore as an offensive coordinator, you can’t be too pleased to see that McCarthy’s offense is worse in these important categories. Never-ending lack of discipline The discipline under McCarthy’s supervision has also been frequently questioned because the Cowboys have always been one of the worst teams in the league in penalties under his watch. Since 2020 when McCarthy became the head coach, no team has been penalized more than the Cowboys. That’s crazy. What’s even crazier is that Dallas has finished with the fourth-most penalties in three of the last four seasons. They’re bad and they stay bad. Embarrassment on Sundays Last week, we talked about how the number of blowouts the Cowboys have had under McCarthy doesn’t paint a very favorable picture. Dallas has lost five games by 20 or more points this year, the most ever in the Jerry Jones era. The team finished the year with a -6.9 average margin of victory. That is the worst mark for this team in 20 years. It’s one thing to lose games, but it’s even worse when they can’t even stay in them. Not making the most of things One of the most impressive things about this Cowboys season is how so many players on defense stepped up and played up to or beyond expectations. You can create a long list of contributors and even though they were decimated with injuries, this group kept fighting. Whatever the situation, this group kept making the most of things. That didn’t happen on offense. Outside of CeeDee Lamb, the offense was mostly filled with disappointment. For reasons we might not ever understand, they didn’t allow Rico Dowdle to be the lead running back until the second half of the season, and before that, the run game was hot garbage. Once they went to Dowdle, things took off, but why did it take so long? And sometimes I forgot KaVontae Turpin was on the team. Turpin averaged 11 yards per touch, the

Photo by Cooper Neill/Getty Images It feels so freeing to be done with the 2024 season. There were only two surprises in the Dallas Cowboys’ season-ending loss to the Washington Commanders. One was that the game was even that competitive. The other was that Marcus Mariota, not Jayden Daniels, led Washington’s charge to victory. For Dallas, the key story in this one was finally ending this horrible season and moving on to new business. There were no big revelations or takeaways as the Cowboys’ closed the book on 2024. A full game of Trey Lance showed us the same good and bad that he’s shown since entering the league. The athleticism was obvious and some of his throws were lasers, but at times had the accuracy of an Imperial Stormtrooper. Washington didn’t make things too hard for him either, focusing on stopping the run and forcing the inexperienced QB to sink or swim. We already knew that Micah Parsons was a beast. We knew it’s been a rough year for Jake Ferguson. We knew DaRon Bland could hang with the league’s top receivers and that Brandon Aubrey doesn’t miss. We know Tyler Guyton desperately needs more offseason work. We know that this Mike McCarthy/Brian Schottenheimer offense has redzone problems and doesn’t have enough creativity to overcome talent deficiencies. Now, at last, the Cowboys can do something about what they know. Coaching staff changes could come as soon as this week. Decisions on re-signing some players or making others salary cap casualties could happen within the next two months. Free agency starts on March 10th and the draft won’t be far behind. The business of trying to make this team better, we hope, can finally begin after one of the more demoralizing seasons in modern franchise history. But “hope” is the problem these days among Cowboys fans. As Morgan Freeman’s character in “The Shawshank Redemption” said: “Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.” Following this team has become increasingly maddening. Many have lost faith that any coaching staff can succeed given the failings of the front office. Now the offseason doesn’t come with the same enthusiasm of the past, especially after last year’s inactivity and the obvious consequences of it. If this spring comes with the same penny-pinching, minimalist approach of 2024, which Stephen Jones has already hinted at, the spirit of Cowboys Nation will only be more trampled on by next September. Comings and goings on the coaching staff and roster, which are typically overblown during the news-starved NFL offseason, won’t be met with the same fervor. Still, we’ve seen teams win it all without having the most talent. The “lightning in a bottle” seasons do happen. We saw one not long ago with the 2017 Eagles, who brought home the franchise’s only Super Bowl trophy with Nick Foles at quarterback. Sometimes, it’s just having the right mix of players, coaches, and good fortune to make a special one-year run. You won’t be a dynasty like the current Chiefs or past Patriots that way, but plenty of one-season wonders have won championships during their times on top. See, there I go again with the hopium. We all do it, even the more objective and pragmatic of fans. The enduring belief that “this is our year” is what keeps us coming back for more punishment. The wheels fell off the Cowboys’ bandwagon a long time ago and yet here so many of us still are, watching the team exemplify the definition of insanity and perhaps being even crazier for our enduring fandom. But this is what we do. We’ll be in our feelings for a bit until the first bit of offseason news to react to. This year, it will come fast with Mike McCarthy and other coaches either needing to be re-signed or replaced. Then will come the lull before roster moves, and by then we’ll be ready to scratch that football itch again. So while the 2024 season has finally come to a merciful end, we can only wait and see if the misery dies with it. How much does or doesn’t change with the Cowboys’ coaching staff and roster will now be our fodder, and ultimately we won’t know until at least nine months from now just how good or bad those choices will be. But like the loyal fans we are, we’ll spend the offseason getting ready to get hurt again. Or, maybe 2025 actually is our year? We don’t know. We hope so.

Photo by Sam Hodde/Getty Images 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. Jerry Jones on Mike McCarthy: “Mike’s one of the best coaches that I think there is. He was made the coach here because I thought that and he’s done absolutely nothing to diminish my opinion of him as a coach.” — Joseph Hoyt (@JoeJHoyt) January 5, 2025 Cowboys owner Jerry Jones when asked about having regrets about the roster he provided Mike McCarthy and the coaching staff: “I think that’s fair. I think that’s very fair. I always provide the roster for the coaches. If you don’t get there then you’ve always got some… — Jon Machota (@jonmachota) January 5, 2025 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: Jerry Jones also made some concessions about the roster and some of the decisions but when I asked him if he would concede the role given the scrutiny of it this season the answer was, “ No. I bought the team and…somebody asked, ‘Did you buy this for your kids?’ And I said hell… — Jane Slater (@SlaterNFL) January 5, 2025 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

Photo by Cooper Neill/Getty Images The latest Dallas Cowboys offseason news. Micah Parsons reflects on fourth NFL season, backs Mike McCarthy – Tommy Yarrish, DallasCowboys.com The Cowboys may not have found as many players to build the future roster around as they hoped this season, but at least there’s Micah Parsons. While his own accomplishments were impressive, Parsons was proud of the resiliency of his teammates all season as well. The Cowboys took pride in continuing to play hard even when they knew a trip to the playoffs is out of the picture, and Parsons believes the players who make that possible are guys that need to stick around. “Knowing that there is no playoff game but coming out there and putting it all out there for your teammates, those are the type of guys that you want to keep around,” Parsons said. “Build around, keep in this locker room, and that’s going to help build the culture and change the culture to become champions.” Parsons is also hungry to push for a championship, and he’ll talk about that amongst other topics with Cowboys owner Jerry Jones on Friday at the Cotton Bowl when Texas and Ohio State play at AT&T Stadium with a trip to the College Football Playoff National Championship game on the line. “It’s going to be great talking to the guy that believed in me first to see what the mission is and how we’re going to accomplish and really make us happy, and make the fans happy.” Parsons said. Another point of emphasis for Parsons this offseason is getting a contract extension, something that he’s made clear he wants to do and is willing to sacrifice in order to stay in Dallas and help bolster the roster. For now though, the looming question is the status of Mike McCarthy, and Parsons continued to back him through the end of a challenging season. “I thought he did very well, I felt like obviously for what he’s had, he definitely made an impact,” Parsons said. “It’s definitely challenging because anytime you lose your starting quarterback… it’s the most challenging part.” If this is in fact the end for McCarthy in Dallas, Parsons is thankful for the time they spent together. “I appreciate Mike for everything he’s done for me and the program if this was our last ride,” Parsons said. “He’s always been a great man, a great father, a great testament of faith since he’s been here so I appreciate him.” Micah Parsons drops telling quote about Mike Zimmer’s future as Dallas Cowboys wait to make any decisions – Mauricio Rodriguez, A to Z Sports Parsons has proven himself as the type of player that gives his all no matter who his coaches are, endorsing more time with Mike Zimmer the same way he did with Dan Quinn. “If I got (Zimmer) back, awesome, I think Zimm might want to come back, I told you he’s ready to ride off into the sunset,” Parsons told reporters postgame. “To him, it’s not even about money anymore, I think he’s gotta want to do it.” Parsons, who will have dinner with Zimmer this week, seems to be aware it’s a decision the Cowboys defensive coordinator will have to make himself as much as the team that would need to extend his deal if it wants to keep him around. For him to come out and say it explicitly and pointing out how much “want” is a factor here is very telling. There’s a real chance Zimmer might call it a day. Questions about Zimmer’s intentions have increased over the last couple of weeks, when the coach talked to reporters about how the 2024 season had been hard for him. “It’s been hard, I’m not going to lie about that,” Zimmer candidly said following Week 17. “It’s hard, it’s been hard.” McCarthy’s worth, Lance lessons among things learned in Cowboys’ Week 18 loss – Ben Grimaldi, The Cowboys Wire The Cowboys ending the season with back-to-back losses to division rivals and finishing 2-6 at home is certainly a tough look for Mike McCarthy at the end of his contract. Mike McCarthy shouldn’t be back It was evident early this season it wouldn’t be the Cowboys’ year, and while McCarthy gets credit for having the team fight through a rough stretch, it was obvious in Week 18 the head coach shouldn’t be back. Starting with the move to play Lance, McCarthy made some highly questionable decisions in the loss. Despite moving the ball well most of the game, the offense bogged down in the red zone, partly due to McCarthy’s subpar play calling. Lance looked to throw to the corner of the end zone on numerous occasions, none of which worked and all which failed to use Lance’s legs. However, the most egregious decision was to punt the ball late in the fourth quarter. Facing a fourth-and-1 at the Washington 47-yard line with 3:25 left to play, McCarthy played it passive, electing to punt. Instead of going at a defense that struggles to stop the run, and against a team that allowed the Cowboys to rush for 150 yards in the game, McCarthy gave the ball back to the Commanders to mount a game-winning drive. The Commanders took the gift and drove 91 yards for the winning score. It was one of McCarthy’s worst decisions during his tenure with the Cowboys, which is saying something. Old habits die hard in Cowboys season-finale as they lose to the Commanders – LP Cruz, Blogging The Boys If you watched one Dallas Cowboys loss this season, you might as well have watched all ten. Red zone issues It’s great that Brandon Aubrey was perfect, making all five of his kicks (four field goals and one extra point) but that’s too much of a good thing. The Cowboys’ offense disintegrated once they reached the red zone. The glaring mistake was the previously mentioned poor throw by Lance to Dowdle, but that’s only one

Photo by Sam Hodde/Getty Images It appears Will Grier will be back for 2025. In what seems like a minor move now but could prove to be more meaningful in the coming months, the Cowboys extended the contract of veteran quarterback Will Grier. With both Cooper Rush and Trey Lance scheduled to become unrestricted free agents this March, Grier is now the only other QB signed for 2025 along with Dak Prescott. Grier rejoined Dallas in November as part of the practice squad following the season-ending injury to Prescott. He didn’t get called up until last Sunday’s regular-season finale, serving as Lance’s backup without any actual snaps taken. Dallas is very familiar with the 29-year-old after a two-year stint from 2021-2022. A former third-round pick by Carolina in 2019, Grier was claimed off waivers during final cuts in 2021 and served in third-string and emergency duties with Dallas for two seasons. When the Cowboys traded for Trey Lance in August 2023, Grier was pushed to the chopping block. With mutual understanding that he wouldn’t be kept at final cuts, Grier was given a chance to show his stuff in the team’s 2023 preseason finale. It was a memorable night as he went off for 305 yards and four touchdowns, two passing and two rushing. Dak Prescott was emotional talking about Grier’s impending departure after the game, a clear indication of how the locker room felt about him and why he is back today. Since then, Grier has floated around multiple teams in similar emergency and practice squad roles without finding a home. But the Cowboys could present his best opportunity to stick to a depth chart given their potential needs. Rush has been Prescott’s backup since 2017, outside of a brief departure to the Giants in 2020. With a 9-5 record now as a starting QB, Rush could have a solid market for teams looking for veteran depth. At the very least, his asking price may go beyond what Dallas is willing to pay. Grier was only making about $1 million last year and shouldn’t be seeing much of a raise in this extension. With Stephen Jones already chirping about the team’s cap situation ahead of the offseason, they’ll be looking for bargains every way they can find them. Still, this move doesn’t preclude Dallas from re-signing one of their existing backups. They may prefer the continuity that Rush provides or still see some upside in Lance. Again, money will be the issue with either. But it’s possible that the Cowboys allow them both to test the market and then bring back one once the price comes down. In the end, this extension with Will Grier may be inconsequential. But given his history here and what’s coming in free agency with Cooper Rush and Trey Lance, it feels a little more significant than the typical January contract move. He may be here to hedge a bet, provide leverage, or perhaps even as the fallback option for QB2 if the team doesn’t find a better option.

Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images Former Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott has a new home on the LA Chargers. The Dallas Cowboys released an iconic player for the second time in three years when they said goodbye to Ezekiel Elliott last week. It was a bit of a shocking move for Dallas to release Elliott prior to the season finale, but club ownership made it clear that the reason for the timing was to afford Zeke the opportunity to latch on with a playoff contender before the league’s postseason tournament began. That has officially happened. Ezekiel Elliott is joining the Los Angeles Chargers practice squad. Breaking: Former #Cowboys RB Ezekiel Elliott is signing with the #Chargers, sources tell @NFLonFOX. Zeke wanted a chance to compete for a Super Bowl and will add valuable experience to the Bolts’ offense. pic.twitter.com/N4yiM1lplD — Jordan Schultz (@Schultz_Report) January 7, 2025 The Ezekiel Elliott return never quite took for the Cowboys at any point and he was slowly phased out over the course of the season as Rico Dowdle took center stage in the run game. Perhaps opportunities will be more present for Elliott with his new team, a club who features a fellow Ohio State Buckeye in the backfield in J.K. Dobbins. For what it’s worth, if Elliott managed to stick around the Chargers into the 2025 season he would get a second chance to visit AT&T Stadium as a member of the visiting team as they are one of the squads Dallas will host in 2025. You can see all of next season’s Cowboys opponents right here. Best of luck to Ezekiel Elliott with the Chargers. Incidentally his first action with them will be back in the state of Texas as LA visits the Houston Texans in the Wild Card Round.