Mike McCarthy will not re-sign as head coach of the Dallas Cowboys, NFL Network reported and sources confirmed to Yahoo Sports’ Jori Epstein on Monday. (His original five-year deal expires Tuesday.)
For championship-starved Cowboys fans, the news was a bit infuriating — why the delay of a week, if not months, in making a coaching change? That’s a time period when top potential candidates have either come off the market or gone far down the road in the interview process with more aggressive franchises.
Then came the truly baffling, if telling, news. The reason for the parting was that after a week of meetings between McCarthy and team owner Jerry Jones, “the two sides could not come to terms on an agreement on the length of a new contract.”
The length of a new contract?
The length of a contract, from the ownership side, is twofold. One is to keep a coach from leaving if he is successful. The second is it sets the initial terms of a potential buyout if he needs to be fired early (either pay it all or perhaps negotiate down).
It’s a money equation.
Any consideration on the length of the deal suggests that Jones believed McCarthy was the best guy for the Cowboys job in 2025, but was prohibitively concerned about potentially doling out millions if he was wrong about it.
Jerry Jones is 82 years old and worth $17 billion.
Money should not have even factored into the decision — at least not the tens of millions that it would take to pay off McCarthy if he delivered another 7-10 season. The team is in on a 29-year Super Bowl drought.
It all speaks to the same old, same old from Jones, whose moves are consistently baffling and rarely productive.
If nothing else, you’d expect more urgency out of him, except this is exactly how he got Dallas into this hole in the first place.
Either McCarthy is the guy or he isn’t. That should have been the only determining factor, because you can’t take the money with you, but you can, perhaps, buy the experience and legacy of winning another Lombardi.
So why the budget control? And why the wait?
McCarthy wasn’t the sole problem in Dallas, especially during this injury-plagued season. He previously led the Cowboys to three consecutive playoff appearances, although he never got them to even the NFC title game. He previously won a title in Green Bay.
He’s a good coach.
“Mike’s one of the best coaches that I think there is,” Jones said a week ago.
Fine, then keep him. But if this was going to disintegrate due to contract negotiations then why didn’t it take place months ago? The Cowboys season was over in mid-November, when they fell to 3-7 and had already lost quarterback Dak Prescott for the season.
If the length of a new deal was going to be the determining issue (even if it shouldn’t be for a franchise truly all-in on winning), then find that out and cut bait accordingly.
That would have allowed the Cowboys to begin focusing on their next coach.
Maybe that means connecting with Bill Belichick before the NFL legend chose to head to the college ranks at the University of North Carolina.
Maybe that would be talking to other free-agent coaches, such as former Tennessee leader Mike Vrabel, who instead has already been snapped up by New England.
Or maybe it would allow for considerable study of up-and-coming coordinators — such as the Detroit duo of Aaron Glenn and Ben Johnson, who came into AT&T Stadium in Week 6 and humiliated the Cowboys.
Or maybe, well, maybe anything.
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Instead Dallas appears to be sitting flat-footed a week into the hiring cycle. It doesn’t doom them — they can still get in on a Johnson or a Glenn or even, perhaps, get a Belichick to reverse course. Who knows?
It doesn’t inspire confidence, however.
Jones has always been slow on the draw. During this nearly three-decade quest for another Super Bowl, he’s clung far too long to coaches, to quarterbacks, to his general manager (himself) out of some combination of loyalty, misplaced optimism and ego.
The fruitless seasons pile up and little changes in Dallas.
Now comes what may be his final coaching hire, or close to it. Jones has to get it right. Yet, rather than aggressively pounce on candidates, he sat back and … evaluated the season and talked contract length?
Does Jones have a plan here? Well, history says he doesn’t. His role as general manager, even with some delegation, remains puzzling.
This is a high-demand, long-hour, cutthroat job. You wouldn’t think it would be ideal for an 80-something with outside business and celebrity responsibilities.
It’s Jones, though, who still says he makes the personnel decisions, stubbornly clinging to the job even as he has often joked he would have fired someone with his record if not for the fact that he owns the team.
It’s a funny joke … unless you’re a Cowboy fan wondering how they ever get out of this mess if contract length is part of a billionaire’s consideration for who should coach the team.
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