The Dallas Cowboys, one of America’s marquee teams regardless of the sport, haven’t been to a Super Bowl since the end of the 1995 season. That was also the last season the Cowboys went to an NFC Championship game. In the time since, Jerry Jones has filtered through six different head coaches, and a series of coordinators, and there’s no question that the team’s identity runs through Jones and his son Stephen, the team’s CEO/EVP/Director of Player Personnel.
The Cowboys hired former Green Bay Packers head coach Mike McCarthy before the 2020 season. In the four seasons since, McCarthy has put together a 42-25 regular-season record with a 1-3 mark in the postseason. The regular-season record on its surface looks great, but the postseason failures sting, and the team’s 48-32 wild-card loss to the Packers at their end of the 2023 season was another example of that.
Nobody would have been surprised if Jones had fired McCarthy after the season given Jones’s mercurial temperament, but for the time being, the decision has been made to stay put. But how hot is McCarthy’s seat, and how much rope does he have, especially if his in-game issues with situational football and clock management continue?
Per NFL insider Ty Dunne on Dunne’s Go Long Substack, the answer is complicated. As Jerry Jones is not one to sit back and let his head coach provide the team’s identity, there’s something missing in the equation, and it’s entirely possible that McCarthy’s frustration matches and mirrors Jones’ in its own ways.
Multiple people high up in the organization indicate that current players are more concerned about Jerry Jones than their own head coach. They know ownership can undermine the head coach at any moment.
“So that means you can get a talented team like they’ve had,” this personnel source says, “but they’re going to underachieve when the coaches can’t influence the players the way they need to.”
Jason Garrett navigated this world best he could.
McCarthy is doing the same, but he may be growing frustrated.
“He’s doing it the best he can,” the former Cowboys personnel man says. “Some of the people I’ve talked to have said that he’s getting fed up with it a little bit.
“It’s hard. I feel bad for Dak. I think Dak’s a really good quarterback who is capable of taking a team to the Super Bowl. He’s got to overcome a lot of things.”
Jerry Jones did give more control to Jimmy Johnson and Bill Parcells, but he wasn’t happy about it, even when the Cowboys were winning as a result of it. That has led to the Cowboys hiring head coaches whose ability to defer is a key attribute.
Which it really shouldn’t be.
“You hired him for a reason,” one NFL executive told Dunne of the situation.. “You believed in what their philosophy was. Let him execute the philosophy. If it doesn’t work? Then, you move on from him. But when you’re meddling and you’re not only telling the personnel people who to draft and who to sign, but you’re also influencing what plays are called and things like that, it’s just going to hurt what’s going on.”
This is a pivotal year for the Cowboys. The team has dawdled when it’s come time to pay it’s high-impact players, starting with quarterback Dak Prescott. McCarthy can’t do it alone, and while the Joneses have done an estimable job of giving him the personnel he needs, there are cracks in the foundation. And if things end badly in the 2024 season as they have in one way or another in each of the last few decades, don’t be surprised if the Joneses are on the lookout once again for the next great head coach who is comfortable giving much of his own control away.
As you can imagine, that’s a small (if not nonexistent) list.
