FRISCO, Texas — Mike McCarthy came to Dallas from Green Bay. The move almost certainly involved extreme culture shock for the Super Bowl-winning head coach. Green Bay is the only franchise in the NFL without an individual owner. Dallas has Jerry Jones.
“I remember a conversation me and Jerry had, and he was insightful. He said, “This is a difficult job to be a head coach. He was right on the money.’’
The specifics escaped McCarthy, but he thought the discussion took place in 2021 after his first season ended with a 6-10 record.
It is not coincidental that McCarthy referenced that conversation on Monday, the day after the Cowboys’ season continued to unravel with a fourth consecutive loss. The conversation from a few years ago came to McCarthy’s mind sometime between the coach responding to Micah Parsons’ unflattering postgame comments that — intentional or not — created questions about McCarthy’s support in the locker room and doubt about his work ethic and the controversy emanating from CeeDee Lamb complaining he was blinded by sunlight and unable to catch a potential go-ahead touchdown pass against the Eagles.
“We need to just keep it about football,’’ McCarthy said. “If we’re not working on football, our opponent is an hour or two better than us already. That’s my message.’’
All of this as McCarthy, in the final year of his contract, confronts the reality that he’s lost starting quarterback Dak Prescott to injury for the second time in his five Dallas seasons. The quarterback had never missed a game when Jason Garrett was the head coach.
But McCarthy lost him five games into his first season in 2020 and now again in what appears virtually certain to be his last. Just as Parsons returned to the field, Prescott left it — destined to be the 10th player on injured reserve.
McCarthy firmly believes the most prominent characteristic of this Cowboys team is how it responds to adversity. It seems, to me at least, that they create adversity more often than they overcome it.
McCarthy remains positive, insisting he enjoys nothing more than starting his day at Starbucks and arriving to his office at The Star early each morning to coach his team.
“We have a great opportunity to be in an adverse situation as a group of men to go do something people don’t think we can do,” McCarthy said. “Been there before. Excited about it. Most of the times we come out on the other end, and that’s what I’m focused on.
“I enjoy the arena of conflict and being in these types of situations because these are the years you remember. But it’s time to get it turned around. We’ve been in this mode a couple of weeks too long here. But this is a great opportunity for us. No one believes that we can do it, which I think that makes it sweeter. But we need to win a game.”
There was doubt about the quality of the roster before the season began. The offensive and defensive lines were potential trouble spots. There was skepticism about the effect of Jones forcing McCarthy and his entire coaching staff to work on expiring contracts so he could make whatever changes he wanted the next offseason.
But the regression has been staggering, and most evident, in the last place McCarthy could have expected. The Cowboys have been outscored by 94 total points while losing their first four home games. That, according to ESPN Research, is the worst mark in NFL history by any team that made the playoffs in the previous season — 24 points worse than any other those other teams.
The Cowboys began the season with a 16-game home winning streak in the regular season, the longest in the league. Last season, the Cowboys were 8-0 at home with a +172 point differential.
Measured by extremes, that’s equivalent to the distance from Green Bay to Dallas.
Outside the losing locker room at AT&T Stadium on Sunday, Jones referred to McCarthy as a great coach, but we remember that Jones fired the greatest coach in franchise history: Tom Landry. Not to mention that his partnership with Jimmy Johnson ended prematurely in a clash of egos immediately after consecutive Super Bowl victories.
“Everybody's got a hand in this," Jones said. "We all know that the players play the game and we know the closest ones to them are the coaches. The closest ones to them are the people that hire the coaches, so everybody's got a role in this."
Jones has assured several times that McCarthy won’t be fired during the season as he was in Green Bay. He probably won’t be fired at all. Jones can merely allow his contract to expire. McCarthy was hired to win a Super Bowl; he didn’t and so that is that.
Failure seems more the responsibility of the front office than of the head coach. But in Dallas, as we learned long ago, only the coach is judged on his performance. So what are the criteria Jones will use in determining McCarthy’s fate?
"My criteria has always been, 'How we're playing. Do we have an edge? Are we fundamentally competitive? Are we competitive when we're down?' Those kinds of things," Jones said. "Not as much, obviously, the score. What does Bill [Parcells] say? You are what the score tells you you are? But still, you look at all of those things and there's no fairness.
"Let me be real clear. Nobody's trying to be fair here. We're trying to win a game. And so, those are the things I'm looking at to help be a part of decisions that could help us win a game. There's no joy here without winning games, and I'm very regretful to our fans. Very."
Jones mentioned twice his concern about how non-competitive the Cowboys have been in the third quarter. The Cowboys have failed to score a single third-quarter point in eight consecutive games.
The fact is, the Cowboys perform their worst coming out of the locker room. They are being outscored in the first quarter (61-32) and the third quarter (82-22) by a combined 143-55 out of the locker room.
McCarthy is the game-planner and play-caller for an offense that has played its last two home games without scoring a touchdown while committing 10 turnovers.
The Cowboys have had three home losses by 25+ points, tied for the most in franchise history. The other time was in their inaugural NFL season when Landry’s first team finished 0-11-1.
In total, McCarthy has been the head coach for five home losses of 25 or more points. No other coach in franchise history has more than two such defeats. Parcells and Dave Campo had two each, Johnson and Garrett one.
There are so many damning ways to measure the futility of this team, one McCarthy led to 36 victories across the past three seasons — second only to the Chiefs — that is now clearly one of the worst teams in the league.
The statistic he most despises is this: the Cowboys’ -10 turnover margin is their third worst through nine games since Jones became owner 35 years ago. McCarthy now has two of the three teams on that dubious list.
“You can’t win games like that; we can’t win games like that,’’ McCarthy said. “We’ve been good in the area of turnover ratio. I mean, -10 makes me sick. It actually does. That’s not what I believe in. I think my track record speaks to that. All I know how to do is keep working.”
He made it a point of emphasis in practice weeks ago. They created a six-minute practice period on Wednesdays that focused on ball security for the offense and ball extraction for the defense.
When that failed to produce the desired result, McCarthy extended it to being used in practice both Wednesday and Thursday.
“Honestly, to be -10 and to have three wins, I mean, -10 is really bad enough, and we know that if it doesn't get better, it's going to be hard to win a lot of games moving forward,’’ offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer said.
It’s not always the fault of the coaches. The players are ultimately responsible for protecting the football, and for playing at a level that wins games.
“I love the adversity of it,’’ McCarthy said. “I love the challenge of competing and so forth. I wish our players have more success right now because I know how much they put into it. This coaching staff, you know, with the things that they have to listen to and so forth. I mean, it's an unusual year.’’
Just like Jerry Jones warned.