Cowboys: Mike McCarthy is fired, he just doesn't know it yet
Entering the Wild Card Round, I made the case that Dallas Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy's job was safe despite rumors running amok following Jerry Jones' comments earlier in the week. "We'll see how each game goes," Jones told reporters when asked about McCarthy's job security ahead of the playoffs. Even when clearing up that he […]
Entering the Wild Card Round, I made the case that Dallas Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy's job was safe despite rumors running amok following Jerry Jones' comments earlier in the week.
"We'll see how each game goes," Jones told reporters when asked about McCarthy's job security ahead of the playoffs. Even when clearing up that he was very satisfied with McCarthy, the Cowboys owner failed to reaffirm the head coach was safe.
Fast forward to Sunday afternoon and it strongly feels like McCarthy is already fired, even if he doesn't know it yet. Let's dive into why the Cowboys' humiliating loss leads me to such a swift change in opinion.
With an embarrassing 48-32 loss, the McCarthy Cowboys lost the one benefit of the doubt they had had for two years about stinking it up in the playoffs: This was not the uber-talented, Kyle Shanahan-coached San Francisco 49ers. And it wasn't a trip to Santa Clara like last year's.
Instead, this was the seventh-seeded, young and inexperienced 9-8 Packers and you had them at home. For context, in the three years since the NFL included seventh-seeds in the playoffs, such teams had gone 0-6. Gone was the excuse that the other team was an unstoppable juggernaut.
On this game, the Cowboys were expected to be more disciplined since the game was to be played at AT&T Stadium, where the team's unique knack for making bone-headed mistakes is slightly taken down a notch. It took one drive for Dallas' defense to be called for two third-down flags that resulted in an opening-drive touchdown for Matt LaFleur's offense, which would go on to drag Dan Quinn's defense through the mud for the remainder of the game. A conversation around Quinn's future is also worth it, but we'll save that for another day.
McCarthy's biggest responsibility is the offense, though. This was the game where he was supposed to prove why the Cowboys moved on from Kellen Moore in the offseason. It wasn't about having Dak Prescott end the year as a Second-Team All-Pro quarterback. It wasn't about having CeeDee Lamb break Michael Irvin's regular season records. Those were nice bonuses but the idea to replace Moore was all about the playoffs.
And in the biggest stage of the season, McCarthy failed to make Lamb a feature. He consistently ran on second down and forced Prescott to play hero ball on third down in a game where the quarterback couldn't even play regular ball. The below numbers (tweeted by Warren Sharp during the first half) on McCarthy's second-down offense scream coaching malpractice:
Lamb was clearly unhappy during the game, as the FOX broadcast speculated what the playing on the field seemed to confirm: The Cowboys decided not to make the gameplan about their WR1. Why? We'll never know, despite whatever unacceptable responses we get from the team's press conferences later.
Undisciplined, unprepared, and without a gameday edge to show for it. That's the McCarthy Cowboys experience in yet another postseason game.
Which brings me to this: I don't see how an 81-year-old Jerry Jones sees the game from his suite, knowing Bill Belichick, Jim Harbaugh, and Mike Vrabel are all available, and brings back McCarthy for another year.
Nah. My opinion is formed: McCarthy is out as Cowboys head coach, he just doesn't know it yet. I bet Jerry does, though.
Could the Dallas Cowboys look into Bill Belichick?
People are wondering.
