There's arguments to be made for and against the Dallas Cowboys' decision to run it back with head coach Mike McCarthy.

You've heard many of them: Cowboys players clearly support the coach, he's been stellar in the regular season, he's won the Super Bowl before, and changing schemes yet again for Dak Prescott would be tough. 

On the contrary, McCarthy's offense is static in big moments, the team no-showed on Sunday against the Green Bay Packers, and his teams have been unable to beat the Kyle Shanahan coaching tree.

It's such a tough decision that it's actually easy to make either case around McCarthy. But I do believe there's a significant flaw in the logic to keep the head coach. 

You see, it's crystal clear what the biggest argument supporting McCarthy is and the Cowboys themselves laid out in Jerry Jones' statement on the decision.

"Mike has the highest regular season winning percentage of any head coach in Cowboys history," the statement explains. 

Objectively, it's a powerful argument and it goes back to what we've said endlessly. 36 wins in a three-year span isn't easy to do. That's why it's the second most in the league since 2021, only behind the Kansas City Chiefs. 

But a closer look makes it a little bit less impressive than it seems in first sight. If you look at strength of schedule per DVOA, which measures team efficiency adjusted for opponent, the Cowboys have had one of the five easiest schedules in the league each of those three years.

In 2023, they had the third-easiest, same for 2022, and in 2021 they had the fifth-easiest. 

I hate to bring up something out of the Cowboys' control but when regular season wins are THE argument to keep McCarthy, it's only fair to bring it up as it points to a significant flaw in the thought process. 

Note: I used DVOA metrics as I believe they're more significant than opponent's winning records, which can be skewed by many outside factors like injuries, one-score games, etc. 

Consider the other Top 5 teams in wins since 2021: Chiefs (37 wins), Buffalo Bills (35), San Francisco 49ers (35), and Philadelphia Eagles (34). Combined, those four teams have four (out of a possible 12) finishes in the easiest five schedules. 

In 2024, the Cowboys' schedule might be more complicated than usual as Dallas will face the 49ers, Lions, Bengals, Ravens, Browns, among other legit threats. The Washington Commanders could have Caleb Williams or Drake Maye at quarterback, making the NFC East slightly more difficult, too. But we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

The Cowboys are pulling off a "one last ride" kind of season with McCarthy because of his regular season record. But concerns about who they've beaten are absolutely fair when you've had three lackluster playoff performances. 

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