Cowboys: Mike McCarthy has blunt answer for hot seat rumors
The Dallas Cowboys' latest playoff loss could really throw a wrench into the team's plans for the future. Not that long ago, head coach Mike McCarthy's job security was an afterthought and Dak Prescott's regular-season dominance silenced a large portion of his usual critics. But a loss to the seventh-seed Green Bay Packers that felt […]
The Dallas Cowboys' latest playoff loss could really throw a wrench into the team's plans for the future.
Not that long ago, head coach Mike McCarthy's job security was an afterthought and Dak Prescott's regular-season dominance silenced a large portion of his usual critics.
But a loss to the seventh-seed Green Bay Packers that felt over by halftime quickly turned everything upside down and now, McCarthy's job feels less safe than the Cowboys were against a Packers team that ran over them.
Long before the game was over, media and fans online started to bring up questions about available coaches, young and old, while NFL insider Adam Schefter pointed out many people in the league believed McCarthy's fate would hinge on how the Cowboys' season ended.
And so, like a media-trained seasoned-veteran, McCarthy took a sip of water right as he fielded the inevitable question on Sunday's postgame presser: Could a coaching change be ahead after Jerry Jones' comments about evaluating McCarthy's job security game by game?
As he put the bottle of water down, a serious Cowboys coach offered a blunt answer.
"I think the biggest thing is, you know, we're disappointed," McCarthy told reporters postgame. "I've got a whole team in the locker room that's hurting, and that's, you know, I haven't thought past the outcome of this game."
You can't blame McCarthy. Jones didn't reaffirm his job status when surrounded by reporters desperate to get insights into what he was thinking. But you can't blame the reporters either.
The Cowboys looked completely unprepared for their playoff matchup and this time they can't take refuge in the fact that this was the San Francisco 49ers on the other side of the ball. Nah, it was the visiting Wild Card Packers, who barely got across the .500 mark in Week 18.
"I wouldn't say we were flat," McCarthy said. "There was energy, they made more plays than we did."
McCarthy might believe it. But when the broadcast crew is showing there was some friction between Dak Prescott, CeeDee Lamb, and Mike McCarthy and you pair it with a defense getting dragged through the mud and with a Second-Team All-Pro quarterback struggling to see the field, coming out flat seems like a much more accurate description.
That's what we – and Jerry Jones – saw on Sunday. Now we wait.
