Cowboys Will Keep Mike McCarthy Despite Another Early Playoff Exit

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones announced Wednesday that the team will not part ways with head coach Mike McCarthy. McCarthy has taken most of the blame for the team’s unexpected 48-32 playoff loss to the Green Bay Packers in the Wild Card round last weekend.

“I believe this team is very close and capable of achieving our ultimate goals and the best step forward for us will be with Mike McCarthy as our head coach,” Jones said in a statement. “There is great benefit to continuing the team’s progress under Mike’s leadership as our head coach.”

After a disappointing 2020 season with Dallas, McCarthy has led the Cowboys to three straight 12-5 seasons and three trips to the playoffs. Despite entering each postseason as a Super Bowl contender, however, the team has never even reached the NFC Championship game, continuing a drought for the franchise going back to 1996.

In his statement, Jones cited McCarthy’s regular season success as a reason to keep him in the organization. This conflicts with many reports which suggested that Jones would evaluate his head coach on the basis of his last game.

“Specifically, there are many layers of success that have occurred this season as a result of Mike’s approach to leading the team, both with individual players and with our team collectively. Mike has the highest regular season winning percentage of any head coach in Cowboys history and we will dedicate ourselves, in partnership with him, to translating that into reaching our postseason goals.”

Regardless of whether one is in favor or against McCarthy, it is inarguably that the Cowboys lost to the Packers after suffering a systemic failure. Quarterback Dak Prescott, an MVP candidate coming off the best season of his career, was completely ineffective in the first half, throwing two interceptions, one of which was returned for a touchdown. His stats are inflated because the team made up ground late in the game while trailing.

The defense, ranked among the very best in the league all season, allowed multiple big plays to wide-open receivers downfield. The team has also announced that defensive coordinator Dan Quinn will remain with the team if he does not accept any head coaching positions during the off-season.

Despite earning two division titles and 42 regular season wins since 2020, the Cowboys only have one playoff victory in the McCarthy era to this point.