2023 Cowboys: Kellen Moore out as OC, McCarthy stuck in 1996
- Thread starter TFisNEXT
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What now? They looked unready defensively and Dak made some critical errors to put it out of reach by halftime.
I don't see McCarthy surviving with the quality of HCs on the market right now.
I don't see McCarthy surviving with the quality of HCs on the market right now.
I would be the least justified firing in many years.... but it's going to happen.
Why?
They beat up crappy teams, so give them credit for that. But every big game this team plays, they lose.
Pretty sure you couldn't. He's won more games than any of the guys before him in recent years, he took over playcalling from his young hotshot OC and the offense got much better. I'm not a huge McCarthy fan, but firing him after he put up the seasons he has because Dan Quinn's fraud defense gets shredded is a very quick trigger. Now maybe you replace him with BB and you argue that you need someone to get them over the hump in the playoffs you could sell I guess, but coaches usually don't get fired when they win 12 games back to back years and their side of the ball is good.
Not usually, no. The standards are different though. Everyone said the same thing when they hired him originally - that he wouldn’t get them over the hump.
The team is also the first team in history to win 12 games three straight season and not make a Championship game.
They are great when you need to be good and they are bad when you need to be great. That's the problem. The regular season performance has been great, but the playoff performances have been bad, and embarrassing on occasion too.
I thought Strahans comment about the atmosphere being more like a broadway play than a football game rang true. Nowhere else in the NFL is like Dallas, and that’s 100% on JJ.
They were undefeated at home this year so why wasn't that a problem in any of those games?
What does the Jones family do that messes things up, especially in the playoffs? Is it just too much meddling or something else? This is really curious.
he's always in the locker room or contract negotiations or media telling all the players how great they are and wanting to be friends with them, so there's no fear from anybody. That's great when things are going well but when things starting going bad, none of them have the ability to turn the switch. All you see is deer in the headlights, which started tonight when the Packers took the opening kickoff instead of deferring and drove it right up their behinds.
I normally don’t like to use the word “soft” in sports contexts but, man, the Cowboys are almost always mentally soft. McCarthy may be a scapegoat for broader problems but I don’t see the point of continuing the McCarthy/Dak combo. You have a coach who isn’t a great tactician combined with a QB who can’t seem to stop tripping over himself when it counts.
It’s kind of scary how similar Romo and Dak’s careers have been so far. Two guys who have tremendous regular season resumes but who couldn’t raise their games in the playoffs despite multiple years of talented teams.
But given where this roster sits, I still think you go after Belichick if there is mutual interest. No coach can change the Jones family culture but BB is probably the closest person who can impact it.
Because it’s less about home games and more about overall culture. I think what Strahan was getting at is that playing for the Cowboys is different than playing for any other team. For all other teams it’s almost all about playing football, but for Dallas it’s about the showtime component. So maybe not a problem vs the Little Sisters of the Poor, but in a big game they turtle up.
All teams promote the players etc etc, but Dallas takes that crap to the next level. I mean they still act like ‘America’s Team’ despite being 5-13 in their last 18 playoff games and not even appearing in an NFC Championship since 1995. Maybe accomplish something before acting as though you’re the belle of the ball. If it were all about wins and losses they’d be more concerned with football and less about marketing or other dynamics. How else do you explain Garrett and McCarthy lasting as long as they did?
The Cowboys are Rocky in Rocky 3 and the rest of the NFL is Clubber Lang. Thats fine and all but it’s extra annoying because it’s been 30 years since Rocky won a fight.
Okay I got you, I thought he meant it had something to do with the stadium itself or something.
I agree like I said above, there's a culture of front-running/softness/pick your word that rots through the organization starting with the owner/gm.
I agree like I said above, there's a culture of front-running/softness/pick your word that rots through the organization starting with the owner/gm.
I think they run a bit of a GM by committee. Stephen is involved as well. And Will McClay?
Talent is not their problem. It was either said here or in a different thread that as "America's Team" there's an expectation that they'll put on a show, be exciting, etc. and that leads to some sloppy football and boom/bust results and that doesn't play well in the playoffs. That actually resonates with me. Although I have no idea how it would affect the players. I do know one coach that's pretty good on cancelling that out though. He's really exactly what they need.
Just getting into here for the first time since yesterday….here’s my thoughts…and some of these are in response to posts above:
1. Dak Prescott hasn’t done anything to stop his critics from getting louder. The dude literally had an MVP-caliber season but we said it back in the middle of the season that he will be judged by his playoff performances. He can shut up his critics with a good playoff run, but he keeps giving them fuel with these bad performances. He’s simply not having enough good/great playoff games to be considered an elite QB when discussing Super Bowl contenders. We’ve seen him have great playoff games before (TB last year, SEA in 2018, GB loss in 2016), but they are out-numbered by mediocre or bad performances.
2. Despite the above, more than 50% of yesterday’s loss is on the defense. That was an absolutely ghoulish performance by Dan Quinn and that unit. Why was Quinn running so much zone when the Cowboys played mostly man coverage all year? There were guys open that didn’t have a defender within 5-10 yards of him. Just pathetic. When the Cowboys offense started making a little noise, the defense never got stops to keep any momentum. They did absolutely nothing to even give the offense a chance to get back in it. It’s not hyperbole to call that possibly the worst Cowboys playoff defensive performance in franchise history.
3. Mike McCarthy….I honestly didn’t see anything in-game that was egregious other than maybe trying to run the ball a little too much early on, but that’s mostly nitpicking. The biggest glaring thing i saw was he just didn’t look like he had his team ready to play at all. I was actually starting to warm up to McCarthy after last years playoffs and the regular season this year. After his team came out utterly flat in the 2021 wildcard round at home against the 49ers and rightly skewered him for it, I was impressed how ready the team looked last year in the 2022 playoffs. Even in the loss to the 49ers last year, the Cowboys were ready to play that day. Yesterday, they looked like an even worse version of the 2021 team…totally lost and not ready to play a playoff game. I don’t know how he survives that type of performance. These are the games you’re judged on and the team walked out of the tunnel and into the field with about as much intensity as a preseason game against the Cardinals. I think he’s gone…but I’m not sure it will change much because….see below
4. Jerry Jones/GM discourse….for those who follow the Cowboys closely, it’s been an open secret that Jerry isn’t really the GM anymore. Really just in name only. Stephen Jones and Will McClay run player personnel mostly. You’d be hard pressed to find a team that has drafted better than Dallas over the past decade. There’s a reason they are constantly either in the playoffs or at least in contention. They have drafted and developed good talent. So what’s the issue? I still think Jerrah is an issue but not because of player personnel decisions…it’s because he refuses to hire an Alpha head coach who can change the culture into a disciplined team who is always ready to play. The last coach the Cowboys had who did that was Bill Parcells and then Jerry forced TO on him in 2006 (back when he was GM for real) and Parcells decided that was enough time in Dallas. In short, Jerry’s ego of needing to be the alpha male in the organization with zero competition has produced an undisciplined culture which has infected the team since Parcells left. The Cowboys typically lose big games because they play undisciplined football and/or not ready to play at the same speed as their opponents. Unless Jerry swallows his pride (like he briefly did for the Parcells hiring), I don’t see how things really change in terms of competing with the elite teams of the league.
1. Dak Prescott hasn’t done anything to stop his critics from getting louder. The dude literally had an MVP-caliber season but we said it back in the middle of the season that he will be judged by his playoff performances. He can shut up his critics with a good playoff run, but he keeps giving them fuel with these bad performances. He’s simply not having enough good/great playoff games to be considered an elite QB when discussing Super Bowl contenders. We’ve seen him have great playoff games before (TB last year, SEA in 2018, GB loss in 2016), but they are out-numbered by mediocre or bad performances.
2. Despite the above, more than 50% of yesterday’s loss is on the defense. That was an absolutely ghoulish performance by Dan Quinn and that unit. Why was Quinn running so much zone when the Cowboys played mostly man coverage all year? There were guys open that didn’t have a defender within 5-10 yards of him. Just pathetic. When the Cowboys offense started making a little noise, the defense never got stops to keep any momentum. They did absolutely nothing to even give the offense a chance to get back in it. It’s not hyperbole to call that possibly the worst Cowboys playoff defensive performance in franchise history.
3. Mike McCarthy….I honestly didn’t see anything in-game that was egregious other than maybe trying to run the ball a little too much early on, but that’s mostly nitpicking. The biggest glaring thing i saw was he just didn’t look like he had his team ready to play at all. I was actually starting to warm up to McCarthy after last years playoffs and the regular season this year. After his team came out utterly flat in the 2021 wildcard round at home against the 49ers and rightly skewered him for it, I was impressed how ready the team looked last year in the 2022 playoffs. Even in the loss to the 49ers last year, the Cowboys were ready to play that day. Yesterday, they looked like an even worse version of the 2021 team…totally lost and not ready to play a playoff game. I don’t know how he survives that type of performance. These are the games you’re judged on and the team walked out of the tunnel and into the field with about as much intensity as a preseason game against the Cardinals. I think he’s gone…but I’m not sure it will change much because….see below
4. Jerry Jones/GM discourse….for those who follow the Cowboys closely, it’s been an open secret that Jerry isn’t really the GM anymore. Really just in name only. Stephen Jones and Will McClay run player personnel mostly. You’d be hard pressed to find a team that has drafted better than Dallas over the past decade. There’s a reason they are constantly either in the playoffs or at least in contention. They have drafted and developed good talent. So what’s the issue? I still think Jerrah is an issue but not because of player personnel decisions…it’s because he refuses to hire an Alpha head coach who can change the culture into a disciplined team who is always ready to play. The last coach the Cowboys had who did that was Bill Parcells and then Jerry forced TO on him in 2006 (back when he was GM for real) and Parcells decided that was enough time in Dallas. In short, Jerry’s ego of needing to be the alpha male in the organization with zero competition has produced an undisciplined culture which has infected the team since Parcells left. The Cowboys typically lose big games because they play undisciplined football and/or not ready to play at the same speed as their opponents. Unless Jerry swallows his pride (like he briefly did for the Parcells hiring), I don’t see how things really change in terms of competing with the elite teams of the league.
All very good points. Jerry probably has to decide whether he'd rather continue "his way" and very likely continue to come up short, or bring in BB, take even more of a back seat, and have a much better chance of an SB. Basically, is winning the most important thing, or is running the organization a particular way the most important thing. I would not be surprised if he chose the latter and just decided he did not want to be anyone's Beta at this point in his life, results notwithstanding.
The Cowboys have not only coach drama to deal with but a real reckoning with Dak as he has a $59.4 mil cap hit next year. That means they're either going to have to give him the biggest contract in NFL history (coming off another playoff disaster), cut him and spread the dead money over two years post 6-1 or let him play with that hit and have to dress a bunch of grocery baggers and janitors.
Don’t think they have much of an option here. You bring back Dak with hopefully a HC that can get more from him come playoff time. McCarthy hasn’t done a bad job. In fact, he’s done a very good regular season job. This year’s team had a higher point differential than any of the Cowboys’ SB winning teams. But his playoff struggles are real. I’d only swap him out for a clear upgrade like Belichick. Don’t really think Vrabel moves the needle enough.
End of the day, you still have to make the playoffs and swapping out Dak for someone else will likely endanger that.
It will be facinating to see what happens if the Cowboys move on from McCarthy. If BB can coexist with Jerry, that would be a good fit. But I wouldn't be surprised if they wanted Harbaugh. Maybe even Vrabel if they wanted a BB-lite who could potentially stick around for a while.
Yeah despite yesterday’s performance which was bad (garbage time stats not withstanding), I think you bring back Dak and get a real disciplinarian head coach who is going to clean up all the little things that always show their ugly face in the playoffs.
QB is the most important position in the sport, and Dak is objectively an excellent QB. You are almost certainly going to regress with anyone else. The playoff failures are an obvious concern but I don’t really see another route without a total tear-down rebuild which seems very silly with this current roster chalked with talent.
It has to be a coaching/culture change track you take this offseason versus a full blown roster tear-down.
QB is the most important position in the sport, and Dak is objectively an excellent QB. You are almost certainly going to regress with anyone else. The playoff failures are an obvious concern but I don’t really see another route without a total tear-down rebuild which seems very silly with this current roster chalked with talent.
It has to be a coaching/culture change track you take this offseason versus a full blown roster tear-down.
And yes, bringing back Dak requires a monster contract. But there really isn’t another good option unless you’re prepared to waste the rest of CeeDee/Micah Parsons/Trevon Diggs (woulda been nice to have him yesterday)/Bland’s prime of their careers.
There hasn’t been much indication that Trey Lance is going to step in and be a savior.
There hasn’t been much indication that Trey Lance is going to step in and be a savior.
And that's really going to be why McCarthy doesn't survive IMHO....the sell on McCarthy was he can win in the playoffs. It's been the opposite with a 1-3 record. He may have survived if the team showed up on Sunday but still lost....but the team didn't show up in a huge game. They had all the stars lining up for a deep playoff run when Philly collapsed and Dallas snagged the 2 seed....guaranteeing they wouldn't have to face the 49ers until the NFCCG....so to not show up against a 7 seed known for their bad defense is unforgivable.
This is a great post and, truth be told, I actually think what you are describing the team needs is what Belichick is best at: imposing a culture of accountability across an organization. Even more than his coaching prowess and preparation, Bill has an incredibly unique ability in this way.
I think the issue is 100% whether Jerry can cede that control— he will always want the best and flashiest talent—and I see no reason to believe he can.
Yeah I'd be shocked if BB accepted a Dallas HC job, but I'd certainly embrace it if he wanted to coach for a few seasons in Dallas. Best case scenario is maybe someone like Jim Harbaugh....he would be good for the discipline side which is what this team has sorely been missing and he's the type who might get the most out of Dak in the big moment. I think Mike Vrabel would be a good fit too, but he's prob not coming here either for the same reasons BB wouldn't.
But I'm not expecting that even if it's slightly plausible. There's a chance McCarthy actually survives and they just change up the defense or they just hire some new Jerry Jones puppet at HC. But Jerry really needs to look long and hard at how bad he wants this team to win in the playoffs. This isn't some fringe team that needs big upgrades in talent. They have the talent to be elite and win right now. They've had 3 consecutive 12-win seasons and most of their stars are 25 or younger (CeeDee 24, Psrsons 24, Bland 24, Trevon Diggs 25, Ferguson 24) sans Dak who is 30 which is still on the young-ish side for QBs. But they need a leader of men who keeps everyone focused and disciplined with their eyes on the prize.
You know who'd be an interesting fit in Dallas ... Pete Carroll. A "name" coach who has won a Super Bowl, has never demonstrated a need to have final say, and has shown an ability to motivate.
Won't happen, but it'd be interesting.
Of course, maybe McCarthy stays.
Won't happen, but it'd be interesting.
Of course, maybe McCarthy stays.
Coaching aside, is it going to be possible for Dallas to extend Dak, Lamb & Parson all this offseason? I think that all three are only signed through 2024...
yes. Parson has a 5th year option on the end and they have a ton of long term cap room, shouldn't be tough to arrange the salaries to make it work (if they choose to).
Okay, so probably Lamb & Dak now and Parson's this time next year. They really do have a ton of cap space available...
of course one reason they have a ton of space is a lot of holes to fill, but yeah their cap is in pretty good shape to lock up the key pieces and fill around that
My guess is they extend Dak and CeeDee...and wait for Micah after next season.
They could theoretically wait until next year for CeeDee too, but they have to extend Dak now because otherwise he's a 59M hit next year. They aren't swallowing that. But I don't think they'd want to risk a holdout with CeeDee if they went into 2024 with just the one year remaining so that's why I think they'll get both of them done.
The Cowboys are in a pretty good situation for the cap with the excellent drafts they have had recently, but that doesn't mean they can be reckless. If they play their cards right, they should have a solid 3-4 year window to get over the hump here.
They could theoretically wait until next year for CeeDee too, but they have to extend Dak now because otherwise he's a 59M hit next year. They aren't swallowing that. But I don't think they'd want to risk a holdout with CeeDee if they went into 2024 with just the one year remaining so that's why I think they'll get both of them done.
The Cowboys are in a pretty good situation for the cap with the excellent drafts they have had recently, but that doesn't mean they can be reckless. If they play their cards right, they should have a solid 3-4 year window to get over the hump here.
Carroll had final say on personnel decisions in Seattle. He might not have the same need for full control as BB but his arrangement with Schneider gave him a lot of power.
McClay has done a really good job with personnel which is the primary reason I find it hard to imagine BB going there.