Mike McCarthy hasn’t done anything to prove he deserves an extension once his contract expires when the season’s over.
It would be a surprise to see Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy in AT&T Stadium next season. It would probably be more surprising than the team severely underperforming this season, in which their owner deemed they were “all in”.
This season is trending to be worse than McCarthy’s first year in Dallas back in 2020. The offense has been inconsistent.
And while injuries marred this season from the beginning, there’s more to McCarthy getting an extension than if he manages to win back his job by mid-January.
McCarthy’s job isn’t just predicated on regular season success. The Dallas Cowboys are a team determined to win championships – despite it being nearly three decades since they were last crowned world champions.
While McCarthy has laced together three-straight 12-win seasons and two NFC East championships, he only has one playoff win to show for it. And that’s not good enough to earn another shot at winning a championship.
Jones hired McCarthy hoping he was getting the McCarthy that played for two Super Bowls and won one with Aaron Rodgers back in Green Bay.
Instead it became clear that Jones being at the forefront of the organization is probably holding the team back from being the dominant team it used to be.
Mike McCarthy hasn’t done anything during his time in Dallas to receive an extension
According to ESPN insiders Dan Graziano and Jeremy Fowler, both don’t think McCarthy comes back after this season.
Fowler even said that the belief was it would probably take a deep playoff run for him to get a new contract with Dallas entering the season.
And he’s not wrong.
The Cowboys are now 3-6 and haven’t won in a month. They’ve lost four straight games and haven’t scored more than 25 points since Week 1 against Cleveland.
There’s no faith that McCarthy can turn this team around.
And even if they managed to sneak into a wildcard playoff spot, there’s no confidence McCarthy can win more than one playoff game.
Jones is going to have a busy offseason. For one, he realized what the term “all in” means. And he also realizes as good as the team’s been the last three seasons, the current players on the roster have a ceiling.
They need reinforcements to get to where they want to get to.
That includes beefing up the run game and getting depth at wide receiver and on defense. It also means finding another coach. This season was the wake-up call the Cowboys needed and could ultimately help them get back to where they want to be.