To say that Mike McCarthy didn’t know the circus he was joining when he accepted owner Jerry Jones’ offer to become coach of the Dallas Cowboys before the 2020 season is like saying that anyone who married a Kardashian didn’t know they would be living a life on reality television.
Unless he had been living under a rock for the last 30 years, how could you not know?
Still, there are two different realities of seeing it from the outside and living it.
And there has been some shock value for McCarthy, who previously coached a vastly different organization in the Green Bay Packers. It is a publicly owned team with a general manager who stayed out of the limelight.
“I think it’s a little bit of a welcome to the Dallas Cowboys,” McCarthy said of his experiences during a two-part interview with the local media at the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis. “That is the reality of it. I think you have to look at it that way. You couldn’t have two more opposite situations.”
Hall of Fame coach Bill Parcells once called joining the Cowboys like playing the big room in Las Vegas.
And it can be that.
It also can be the Barnum and Bailey Circus with Jerry Jones as the ringmaster.
McCarthy got the bitter taste of the Cowboys’ roller coaster under Jones following the disappointing loss to the San Francisco 49ers in the wild card playoffs.
Jones had already assured McCarthy his job was safe for 2022 but he declined to immediately endorse his future during subsequent media interviews.
He also talked up defensive coordinator Dan Quinn as a future coach of the Cowboys, which opened a Pandora’s box of narratives that include former New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton as a possible replacement.
That’s where McCarthy draws the line.
“It’s a narrative I don’t want to be a part of,” McCarthy said. “I don’t think anybody would want to be a part of it on either side of the fence. In fairness to Sean, he’s being asked the questions, but nothing good comes out of that.
“I would be ignorant not to acknowledge that the hard thing is when your family hears stuff like that. That is the part you can do without, that I don’t like.”
Jones had already told McCarthy that he was safe and he also made a point to talk to him about the Payton rumors.
“He addressed it. We laughed about it and moved on and that’s really where it is,” McCarthy said.
McCarthy has come to realize there is a “difference between Jerry the owner and Jerry the GM.”
He has spent a lot of time with Jones and takes comfort in the relationship they have developed and the daily conversations they have.
“I am also involved in numerous conversations about what he and I are building here together and that is what I go off of,” McCarthy said. “So the strength of the partnership, what’s in front of us. Short-term plan, long-term plan obviously we got some big decisions to make with our roster.
“I would say our relationship is very open and direct and we’ve had a lot of conversations about everything that we’re doing and I think that’s extremely healthy and it’s definitely the way I like to do things.”
McCarthy is also able to shun the narratives because his focus is solely on winning and building a winning culture in the Cowboys’ locker room. He turns a blind eye to everything else.
“I have developed a different version of the filter I have always worked with: does it affect winning? McCarthy said. “If it affects winning it is really important to me and everyone knows that. Everybody. I am all about winning.”
He said Jerry Jones has built the marketing universe of the sporting industry and you are not in tune with who you are and where you are working if you don’t realize that.
And while the narratives drive talk radio and social media, McCarthy doesn’t believe it affect the Cowboys’ locker room or his ability to build a winning culture because he understands the environment and doesn’t make it personal.
“I think if I allowed it and I reacted to it and put my personal feelings in front of my professional commitment and goal then it probably would,” McCarthy said. “I wouldn’t be handling it right. Our players know one thing: We are about winning. That is all I ever talk about.
“Everybody that I touch and everybody who I am responsible for, we are all there to win a championship. That is all that really matters, how we spend our time and energy and focus.”
McCarthy is emboldened by his conversations with longtime Cowboys employees who tell him “this is the best they have ever seen as far as the culture around the locker room.”
“That is a huge compliment from someone who has worked there 20 years. I know we are doing it right,” McCarthy said.
He also has to know that if the Cowboys don’t win in 2022, the circus will go on without him.
