The Dallas Cowboys have seen a major turnaround since Mike McCarthy came on board in 2020. 

COVID-19 restrictions (didn't see the team until August) and a plethora of injuries to key players resulted in a 6-10 campaign for McCarthy in his first year in Dallas. The last two years have been highly successful with back-to-back 12-win seasons, an NFC East title, and two playoff appearances. 

That doesn't seem to mean much to Patrick Daugherty of NBC. In his head coach rankings for 2023, he has McCarthy, shockingly, at No.21 on the list.

Mike McCarthy is the first Cowboys coach since Jimmy Johnson to win 12-plus games in back-to-back seasons. He just notched the franchise's third playoff victory since the 90s. How did he celebrate? By “moving on” from the coordinator who furnished him back-to-back top-five offenses, the second of which received five starts from Cooper Rush You see, the Cowboys weren't running the ball enough in McCarthy's opinion. He called their 19-12 Divisional Round loss to the 49ers a “shootout” before literally saying he didn't want to be the No. 1 offense in the league. “I want to be the No. 1 team,” McCarthy elaborated. “And if we've got to give up some production and take care of the ball a little better to get that, then that's what we'll do because we have a really good defense.” McCarthy put an exclamation point on his retrograde thinking by making Brian Schottenheimer his new top offensive assistant. Kellen Moore did all he could to get the Cowboys at least middle of the pack in most advanced 2022 metrics. That is an area where McCarthy has made it clear he would rather be dead last. He wants to go back in time and take the Cowboys with him. He will succeed, with the likely result being the loss of his job.  

Several things just don't add up here.

Names like Andy Reid, Bill Belichick, and Mike Tomlin make sense. Once Daugherty's list gets to the backend of the top 10, it starts to go off the rails.

Philadelphia Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni is ranked eighth. Granted, he did take the Eagles to the Super Bowl last season, but his record head-to-head against McCarthy is 1-3 over the last two seasons, and the only win came when Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott was on the sidelines. So, ranking him ahead of McCarthy can be highly debated.

Mike Vrabel of the Tennessee Titans is ninth. However, he hasn't even won a playoff game in any of the last two years and McCarthy has. Doug Pederson of the Jacksonville Jaguars is 10th. He did get the Jaguars to the playoffs in 2022 and won a playoff game, but he was out of coaching in 2021 so having him above McCarthy is a head-scratcher. 

Dan Campbell of the Detroit Lions came in at No.14 and Brian Daboll of the New York Giants is 15th. In the last two seasons, the Lions haven't made the postseason, and Campbell lost to McCarthy in Week 7 last year. Daboll should be commended for getting the Giants to the playoffs in his first year, but the Cowboys swept the Giants last season. No disrespect, but neither of these guys should be above McCarthy. 

Kevin Stefanski of the Cleveland Browns, Mike McDaniel of the Miami Dolphins, Robert Saleh of the New York Jets, Kevin O'Connell of the Minnesota Vikings, and Brandon Staley of the Los Angeles Chargers ranked 16-20. Neither has won a playoff game in the last few seasons, and McCarthy has beaten O'Connell and Staley a combined three times since 2021.

That's at least 10 coaches that McCarthy has a case to be better than, nine are pretty definite. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but for Daugherty to say that 20 coaches are better than McCarthy is quite ridiculous.