NFLNFLMcCarthy seems prepared for what comes next. Are Jones and the Cowboys?
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By Nora PrinciottiJan. 14, 12:55 am UTC • 6 min
Oh, the irony that Mike McCarthy, whom my former Ringer colleague Kevin Clark once adroitly referred to as “pre-fired,” turned out to be the one who walked.
McCarthy and the Dallas Cowboys, the football team/branding exercise that has employed him for the past five seasons, parted ways on Monday. At the risk of circumcising the mosquito (to borrow a phrase), the details here are worth spending time on, as they’re somewhat telling about all the ways in which team owner Jerry Jones continues to exhibit little awareness of the actual state of his football team.
McCarthy coached the 2024 season on an expiring contract, a relatively unusual arrangement that was an obvious sign of a very hot seat. For multiple years, Jones has made a pageant out of McCarthy’s job security, or lack thereof. But everyone knew McCarthy’s contract in Dallas was set to expire at midnight on Tuesday, and, up until very recently, the Cowboys were giving signs they intended to renew the partnership.
The biggest indicators came last week: Dallas blocked McCarthy from interviewing with the Chicago Bears, and while the window was open for the Cowboys to interview potential head coaching candidates currently employed by playoff teams, they made no requests. Now, if the Cowboys want to interview candidates like Detroit’s Ben Johnson or Aaron Glenn or Eagles offensive coordinator Kellen Moore in person, they’ll have to wait until their teams lose or, if they reach the Super Bowl, until that game concludes.
More on the NFL Coaching Carousel
More on the NFL Coaching Carousel
That’s not how you’d expect a team planning on hiring a new head coach to operate, particularly given that whoever comes next in Dallas may need a whole new staff since McCarthy’s assistants were also reportedly on expiring deals. Which sure makes it seem like McCarthy was the one to say goodbye, not Jones.
According to CBS Sports’ Jonathan Jones, the Cowboys and McCarthy had been negotiating a new deal, but it fell apart over a disagreement about the length of the contract. If you’re thinking that a year or two on paper isn’t a good reason to blow up your entire coaching staff, well, yes. But again, this points to the probability that it was McCarthy who decided he’d had enough. McCarthy, 61, has been an NFL head coach for 18 years, and he’s spent the better part of that time as a public scapegoat, first for Aaron Rodgers and then for Jerry Jones, perhaps the two figures in the entire current NFL most enamored of publicly airing their opinions on the shortcomings of others. You can see why McCarthy would be rather fed up; it actually may be more surprising that he’s avoided an entire Joker arc.
McCarthy seemingly prepared for things to get to this point. According to Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer, McCarthy changed agents ahead of this hiring cycle, signing with Don Yee, who famously represented Tom Brady. And McCarthy is now entering a hiring landscape that seems ripe for a person with his particular résumé. With Mike Vrabel and Bill Belichick off the board, to New England and the University of North Carolina, respectively, the options for teams looking to hire someone with proven success as a head coach are slim, making McCarthy stand out. And McCarthy has history with three of the teams with vacancies: the Jets, Saints, and Bears. McCarthy interviewed for the Jets’ head coaching position in 2019, was the Saints’ offensive coordinator from 2000-04, and coached against Chicago multiple times per year (to great success) for over a decade with Green Bay.
Chicago has reportedly already requested an interview with McCarthy, and the Saints could be next. The Saints, in particular, seem to be a likely landing spot. McCarthy may even be in a good enough position to land a job this cycle without needing to brag about having Pro Football Focus login credentials.
It’s less clear that the Cowboys prepared for what’s next. There are certainly plenty of candidates out there they can interview (eventually), including ones with ties to the organization, like Moore. But the late decision about McCarthy’s future likely cost them the chance to interview Vrabel. Belichick, meanwhile, would reportedly have been interested in the Cowboys job if he had known it would be available before committing to UNC. I suppose we should never say never when it comes to Belichick—Jones and Belichick have a personal relationship, and it’s always possible Jerry could try to make a financial offer that can’t be refused. Or Jones may find an up-and-coming candidate to latch onto.
But whoever the next Cowboys coach is, they will have to rebuild an entire staff, take on a lagging roster, and contend with an owner whose expectations seem increasingly unrealistic.
McCarthy’s job security became tenuous not just because of this season’s 7-10 record but because he’d been hired to lead the Cowboys deep into the playoffs, something that, five years in, he failed to do. When McCarthy’s Cowboys did make the postseason, they failed in spectacular fashion. But those disappointing finishes and early playoff exits happened at least in part because of Jones’s confounding roster-building strategy.
The Cowboys have been slow to re-sign star players like Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb, only to have to pay market-setting premiums when their delays give those players extra leverage, a pattern that seems to be repeating itself with star linebacker Micah Parsons. Meanwhile, Jones and his son Stephen—the Cowboys’ executive vice president, CEO, and director of player personnel—have spent very little in free agency. Last year, Dallas’s most significant addition was linebacker Eric Kendricks, who signed a one-year, $3 million deal. When asked last year why Dallas wasn’t in on elite players like running back Derrick Henry, Jones said, “We couldn’t afford it.” (The Ravens, who had less cap space than Dallas at the start of free agency last year, signed Henry, who is now a cornerstone of their offense and headed into the divisional round.)
Maybe McCarthy’s departure will serve as a wake-up call. Much of Jones’s reluctance to spend on outside players, and the messy way he’s handled contract situations with Prescott, Lamb, and now Parsons, seems to stem from the idea that anyone should be so lucky as to work for Dallas. The way the Cowboys handled the last week of McCarthy’s contract suggests they didn’t consider that he might not want to stick around.
It’s not that losing McCarthy is a total disaster. He won a lot of regular-season games—his .608 record as a head coach, including three 12-win seasons in Dallas, is better than Kyle Shanahan’s or Sean McVay’s and sandwiches him right between Bill Walsh and Tom Landry all time. But his teams have chronically underperformed in the playoffs (this happened in Green Bay, too), and his offenses have often been criticized for asking too much of quarterbacks. Dak Prescott was an MVP candidate under McCarthy in 2023, but it’s been a long time since McCarthy has been considered an innovative offensive mind.
Without a different approach to the roster and player contracts, even the right new coach (even if they’re an upgrade from McCarthy) may not be enough to get the Cowboys where Jones wants them to be. And recent events don’t exactly indicate the owner will be taking a long look in the mirror.
Last week, Jones made a cameo on the Paramount drama Landman. Calling it a cameo may be underselling it; really, Jones had a whole scene. I’ve never seen Landman, so it’s possible I’m missing some context, but in this scene, Jones visits an ailing Jon Hamm—who I assume is the titular Landman?—in the hospital and delivers a genuinely heartfelt speech about, well, working with your kids. Hand it to Jerry, he looks truly emotional delivering the line: “I’m pretty proud of the stuff we’ve done with oil and gas.” (Is this what’s happening in the Sheridanverse?)
“When I got the Cowboys, I got it so that we could all work together,” Jones says. “I thought I was doing it for them. But the one that got the most out of it was me.”
Bravo, Jerry! The speech is delivered with almost enough feeling that you forget it kind of boils down to the idea that the Cowboys are a vanity project for Jones to spend more time with his kids. Which either means that Jones is a surprisingly great actor or, well, that he isn’t. I guess that’s up to the next Dallas head coach to decide.
Nora Princiotti covers the NFL, culture, and pop music, sometimes all at once. She hosts the podcast ‘Every Single Album,’ appears on ‘The Ringer NFL Show,’ and is The Ringer’s resident Taylor Swift scholar.
