Right now, the Cowboys are in a bad spot. They were there even before local radio DJs were threatened with termination by Jerry Jones on Tuesday for challenging him. Furthermore, even though Jones has been very clear—perhaps too clear—that he is not dismissing Mike McCarthy, the idea needs to be at least considered. These weekly McCarthy Chronicles have mostly been critical of the Super Bowl-winning coach’s work in Dallas for the past five years. Despite many curveballs thrown at him during the 2020 season, McCarthy was able to establish a new culture in the locker room and close the season with the Andy Dalton-led Cowboys winning three of their final four games.
Since then, he has won 12 games annually entering this season—something that no Dallas head coach has accomplished. For this team, the degree of continuity is unheard of—at least when it comes to the duration of a single coach—since the Jerry Jones era. Furthermore, after taking over the offence the previous season, McCarthy made significant improvements to the team in every area. As a result, Dallas finished second in EPA/play, first in points scored, tenth in offensive DVOA, and sixth in yards per game. Dak Prescott also had a spectacular year and finished second in the MVP voting for his efforts.
It seemed as though the McCarthy period was only beginning in many ways. Now that the veteran offensive playcaller was doing what he loves most, the Cowboys were winning. Then followed the postseason loss via the Wild Card. Things in Dallas have felt strange since the end of the previous year. To begin with, Jones took an unorthodox stance by allowing his coach to work into the last year of his contract rather than extending McCarthy’s. Subsequently, the front desk took even longer than normal to complete Prescott and CeeDee Lamb’s extensions. Numerous other choices resulted in the 2024 season beginning with maybe the least amount of fan excitement in ten years.
Things seemed even worse when the season started. With a 3-3 record, the club has not yet won at home. They have actually lost all three of their home games, despite putting on a strong fourth quarter display against the Ravens that was akin to cheap lipstick on a pig. Though it’s difficult to criticise a defence that was forced to start four backups this past week and had eight backups playing at least 25% of the snaps on Sunday, the defence hasn’t been outstanding.