anybody have a subscription to the athletic ?? interested to read this one
Here's Sturm's take from there:
By Bob Sturm 4h ago
I witnessed every single snap of the Mike McCarthy era in Green Bay.
It isn’t often that the two teams that I follow most closely in the NFL overlap, but this is probably the most significant one in a long, long time (no disrespect to Randall Cobb intended). They have one of the most historic and intense rivalries in the entire sport, and given that I was born in Wisconsin and raised on Packers football only to eventually earn a job following the Cowboys for a living in 1998, I may be in a unique position.
I considered showing you the Xs and Os to demonstrate how things will be different than during Jason Garrett’s regime, but I think there will be plenty of time for that. I also considered looking at the hire from the perspective of how Stephen and Jerry Jones arrived at this decision, perhaps offering you a few freshly baked second guesses on which direction they should have gone.
Instead, I have come to the conclusion that the best way to handle this might be from the same perspective I will use to analyze draft prospects in the days and weeks to come. When I break down a prospect, I grab a stack of tapes and tell you everything I have learned about a guy; what I like, what my concerns are and how he fits with the Dallas Cowboys (if they pick him). Well, this one is pretty clear: The Cowboys have picked McCarthy, and I have watched this man’s every move since 2006. This profile will be significantly longer than that of a normal draft prospect, but that is because I am not relying on my normal 200 snaps to evaluate a prospect, but over 200
games — 204 in the regular season and 18 more in the post-season, including four NFC Championship Games and a Super Bowl at AT&T Stadium. There is one human who has ever won a Super Bowl in North Texas, and the Cowboys have hired him as the ninth coach in franchise history. Let’s get to work!
MIKE MCCARTHY – HEAD COACH
Mike McCarthy is 56 years old and was born and raised in Pittsburgh. He played college football at the community college and NAIA level, attending Baker University in Kansas before staying in the area as a graduate assistant for two seasons at Fort Hays State, several hours to the west. He returned home to Pittsburgh in 1989 to begin as a graduate assistant at Pitt for three seasons, at which time he famously also worked in a tollbooth on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Nearly every single biographical piece you ever see of the coach will definitely not miss that item of trivia. It serves as proof that he was willing to do whatever it might take to make a living in football.
He was able to work on the staff of Marty Schottenheimer from 1993-1998, first as a quality-control man low on the staff willing to do anything to help (you perhaps have seen video of him catching passes from Joe Montana in 1993-1994), then doing well enough to be thrust into the job of QB coach from 1995-1998 in Kansas City, where the Chiefs featured post-Montana QBs in Steve Bono, Elvis Grbac and Rich Gannon. Schottenheimer’s reign and his ultra-conservative view of football had played out by 1998 and a 7-9 season eventually got him fired. McCarthy was looking for work.
He landed in Green Bay in 1999 in what will be best known as the forgotten year of head coach Ray Rhodes, but McCarthy became Brett Favre’s QB coach. He was part of a challenging and dramatic 8-8 season; Mike Holmgren had just left for Seattle, interested in “buying his own groceries.” Rhodes and his staff probably never got a fair chance, and the staff was fired after the team missed the playoffs for the first time in a very long time. McCarthy needed a job again, and this time he was on to New Orleans, where fellow Pittsburgher Jim Haslett was assembling a staff and needed an offensive coordinator. In five seasons as New Orleans’ OC, the Saints were always in the top half of the league in points scored. McCarthy was generally seen as a success due to his work with young QB Aaron Brooks, RB Deuce McAllister and WR Joe Horn.
By 2005, he would join Baltimore defensive coordinator Mike Nolan, who had just been named the new coach in San Francisco and would bring McCarthy to town to work with the No. 1 pick they would draft. The question was whether they would take hometown 49ers fan Aaron Rodgers with that pick or Utah QB Alex Smith.
McCarthy preferred Smith, and the franchise agreed, paving the road for the irony of never really spending too much time on Smith but 13 seasons with Rodgers (who like other great athletes, has a memory like an elephant and perhaps never really forgot the perceived slight). Anyway, that year in San Francisco featured a lot of Tim Rattay and Ken Dorsey at QB. Predictably, it went poorly. The 4-12 record set the tone for the Mike Nolan run in San Francisco, but in no way affected the desire for Green Bay to hire him 14 years ago this week.
The Packers knew that McCarthy would be perfect for two jobs in Green Bay, and his 1999 season certainly prepared him for the incredibly unique challenge that is the Packers head coaching position. Job No. 1 was to revive the career of Brett Favre — as the legendary quarterback had fallen to the very bottom of the NFL in 2005. Job No. 2 would be to ultimately develop Rodgers when Favre’s career ended. Somehow, the three-time MVP had rediscovered the freelancing and turnover-prone ways of his early career, and it had only gotten worse under Mike Sherman. The lack of real weapons around him continued to cause issues and the rift between QB and coach widened when GM Ted Thompson passed on the opportunity to sign, trade or draft help for Favre. Instead, he drafted his replacement.
That’s certainly not the best environment to start your career as a head coach, as there was drama and tension around each corner. McCarthy would have to figure out how a terribly unique job — perhaps the only one of its kind where there is no owner at all — would work with arguably the most powerful player in sports under your charge. Favre was popular enough in his own state that if you uttered the name “Brett” in a public place, numerous young boys would all turn their heads simultaneously.
With that exceptionally lengthy backdrop set, let’s go through what Mike McCarthy did during his tenure in Green Bay from 2006-2018:
Photo by Tim Kamke/Getty Images
POSITIVES:
The positives are immense. It didn’t take long before McCarthy’s no-nonsense approach quickly resonated with the Packers fanbase and media. Like Pittsburgh, the brand is not the brand. The brand is winning football games. The Packers attempt to win championships like those that came before them, and the idea is to do so with a muddy jersey on a grass field under the sky or in the snow with a brand of gritty football suitable for NFL Films slow motion. McCarthy embraced that and understood it. It wasn’t necessarily power football as much as it was gutty football. They would enjoy street fights and welcome physical challenges while, of course, airing it out with Favre. Perhaps his greatest accomplishment was the revival of Favre’s career, which appeared dead and gone. The surprising final chapter of Favre in 2007-2009 with the Packers, Jets and Vikings in three consecutive seasons of winning football was unlikely to happen without McCarthy reaching him and getting him to return to efficient QB play, resisting the urge to always double down. Favre did not return to a Super Bowl but reached the NFC Championship Game in 2007 and 2009 with superb seasons. A coin-flip to go to the Super Bowl at ages 38 and 40 was unheard of at the time, and McCarthy had plenty to do with that.
Over the decade from 2007-2016, Packers offenses were outstanding. Favre would leave after 2007 with tremendous acrimony, and from there a whole new and nearly unprecedented soap opera would surface between the quarterback and his former team. McCarthy had very little to do with creating this mess; the QB he inherited was ready to take over the franchise. But he had to deal with it. And he did so quite well while developing a young and unproven QB in one of the noisiest transitions ever. During that stretch, Green Bay had a top-10 scoring offense in seven of the 10 years and finished sixth in the NFL on average. In terms of yardage, they averaged 10th. This all while playing a predominantly passing-based offense outside in Northern Wisconsin. More importantly, they made the playoffs in nine of those ten years (a mark that was only tied by New England).
The revival of Favre and the development of Rodgers are the clearest reasons for his success in Green Bay, but there is so much more to his run of success there. He absolutely set the tone for the franchise through much of the decade with the ability to unite and inspire a football team contending with a lot of health issues and adversity. Like the Cowboys, the Packers are many different teams’ biggest rival. They are the biggest game on the schedule for pretty much every team in their division, and that can certainly wear down a team’s mentality and resolve, especially if they are an annual fixture in the playoffs. McCarthy seemed to soak in that opportunity to meet the challenges head-on.
Before we get into more specifics, let me give you one more item beyond the revival of Favre and the development of Rodgers that made that decade of excellence possible.
It was 2013. The Packers lost Rodgers in the first quarter of a Monday night game played on November 4th against the Bears. The QB’s shoulder hit the turf and his collarbone had been broken, a familiar sight for Cowboys fans. In 2010 and 2015, we saw Dallas lose seasons this way. In 2013, the entire Green Bay franchise sunk the same way and all hope was gone as they lost that night and went 0-4-1 in their next five games. They found themselves entering December 5-6-1 after a 5-2 start with a healthy Rodgers. Everyone quickly began saying that everything — from coach to teammates — was useless without the QB.
I might argue this is where a coach who can inspire a team he has built can make a difference — and the other part is getting anything from the QB position. The Packers frantically signed an unemployed Matt Flynn to replace Scott Tolzien and Seneca Wallace, who were completely ineffective. They were blown out on Thanksgiving and the season appeared over. Their next three games — Atlanta, at Dallas, Pittsburgh — would be huge struggles against teams with healthy QBs, but they would need to win those games to win a bad division that year. With Flynn finally playing, they beat Atlanta, went to Dallas and overcame a 26-3 halftime deficit to Tony Romo and won the thriller 38-37 in a must-win game for both teams. Flynn then had Ben Roethlisberger on the ropes and lost another unreal game 38-31 — but because the Bears stumbled themselves, the Packers would play a Week 17 play-in game for the divisional title in Chicago and Rodgers would return to save the day. Yes, Rodgers would get the credit for an amazing fourth-down TD to Randall Cobb that day in Chicago, but any close observers saw a coach and a backup QB keep the team alive until that last escape on the final day. It wouldn’t have mattered without the win in Dallas.
Whether it was Rodgers in 2013 or the Super Bowl year in 2010 when the team set a record for most players on injured reserve, McCarthy truly meant “next man up,” and the team won plenty of games despite a very poor health record of keeping their guys on the field. In this sport, you had better be able to withstand some availability adversity and still win. McCarthy often was able to pull that off.
STRATEGIC DECISIONS
Over his 13 seasons in Green Bay, McCarthy would certainly gain a label for being conservative. Part of it is warranted. But when it came to “going for it” on fourth down, especially in non-fourth-quarter situations, almost nobody would go for it more (Jason Garrett has certainly been just the opposite, as our previous studies would indicate). The Packers ranked fourth in most times they went for it, but only 26th in conversion rate. That actually suggests that despite poor results, McCarthy still saw the value in the gambles. On 4th-and-4+, they actually went for it the most times in the NFL during his tenure and converted with the ninth-best rate. So, in this regard, don’t call McCarthy conservative.
Here are the 4th-down-and-4+ attempts in situations before the fourth quarter from 2010-2018 (years in which Garrett and McCarthy were both at their posts) to show you the incredible differences in the way they approached these situations:
4th down and 4+ (1Q-3Q), 2010-2018
| Rank | Tm | Plays▼ | ToGo | Yds | 1st% |
|---|
| 1 | GB | 24 | 6.3 | 10.3 | 50.00% |
| 2 | BUF | 18 | 8.3 | 5.1 | 27.80% |
| 3 | PHI | 18 | 6.8 | 5.8 | 27.80% |
| 4 | WAS | 18 | 6.8 | 5.8 | 22.20% |
| 5 | CAR | 16 | 6.3 | 8.7 | 50.00% |
| 6 | KAN | 15 | 7.1 | 7.6 | 46.70% |
| 7 | BAL | 15 | 9.8 | 10.1 | 33.30% |
| 8 | CLE | 14 | 6.1 | 15.5 | 50.00% |
| 9 | HOU | 14 | 6.6 | 7.4 | 21.40% |
| 10 | ATL | 13 | 5.8 | 3.2 | 53.80% |
| 11 | JAX | 13 | 6 | 14 | 38.50% |
| 12 | SFO | 13 | 7.2 | 10.8 | 46.20% |
| 13 | NYG | 12 | 7.4 | 3.1 | 25.00% |
| 14 | OAK | 12 | 9.3 | 6.7 | 25.00% |
| 15 | CHI | 11 | 6.4 | 7.3 | 54.50% |
| 16 | DEN | 11 | 7.2 | 2.6 | 27.30% |
| 17 | MIA | 11 | 7.4 | 2.3 | 9.10% |
| 18 | LAR | 11 | 7.5 | 7 | 27.30% |
| 19 | SEA | 11 | 7.9 | -0.3 | 9.10% |
| 20 | CIN | 10 | 9.9 | 8.5 | 50.00% |
| 21 | IND | 10 | 7.6 | 10.5 | 40.00% |
| 22 | DET | 10 | 8.3 | 14.2 | 30.00% |
| 23 | NOR | 10 | 6.7 | 11.2 | 30.00% |
| 24 | TEN | 10 | 8.8 | 10.8 | 30.00% |
| 25 | NWE | 9 | 6.3 | 14.2 | 44.40% |
| 26 | TAM | 9 | 6.8 | 10.3 | 44.40% |
| 27 | ARI | 8 | 8.3 | 18 | 25.00% |
| 28 | DAL | 8 | 7 | 15 | 37.50% |
| 29 | PIT | 8 | 5.4 | 7.4 | 25.00% |
| 30 | NYJ | 7 | 10.7 | 13.7 | 42.90% |
| 31 | LAC | 7 | 13.6 | 18 | 57.10% |
| 32 | MIN | 6 | 11.5 | -6 | 0.00% |
Over the exact same span of time, McCarthy would go for it 300 percent more often than Garrett. You can’t say they see the game the same way.
Another sign of conservatism would be running the ball on early downs. From 2016-2018 under Garrett and Scott Linehan, Dallas ran the ball more than any team in football on first down. They would not try to hide their intentions, but rather they would run the ball right at a defense — loaded box or not — at a 58.6 percent rate (first in the NFL). Well, Mike McCarthy opted for a run rate of 43.4 percent (32nd in the NFL). If you are tired of first-down runs, you might have come to the right place. Of course, you could also argue Garrett and McCarthy were both wrong in that the Cowboys ran on first down too often and the Packers didn’t run it enough. The Packers were a very strong running team, and it was curious to the league that they refused to run the ball. Some would accuse Aaron Rodgers of changing the plays, but keep in mind he barely even played in 2017. They passed heavily even with backup QBs.
First-down run rate, 2016-2018
| Rank | Team | Rush % |
|---|
| 1 | Dallas Cowboys | 58.6 |
| 2 | Houston Texans | 55.9 |
| 3 | Buffalo Bills | 55.5 |
| 4 | Washington Redskins | 55.1 |
| 5 | Tennessee Titans | 54.5 |
| 6 | New England Patriots | 54.3 |
| 7 | Los Angeles Chargers | 54 |
| 8 | Los Angeles Rams | 54 |
| 9 | Seattle Seahawks | 53.8 |
| 10 | Chicago Bears | 52.9 |
| 11 | New York Jets | 52.9 |
| 12 | Jacksonville Jaguars | 52.4 |
| 13 | Baltimore Ravens | 51.8 |
| 14 | Minnesota Vikings | 51.8 |
| 15 | New York Giants | 51.4 |
| 16 | Carolina Panthers | 51.1 |
| 17 | New Orleans Saints | 51 |
| 18 | Cincinnati Bengals | 50.7 |
| 19 | San Francisco 49ers | 50.3 |
| 20 | Miami Dolphins | 50 |
| 21 | Detroit Lions | 49.9 |
| 22 | Tampa Bay Buccaneers | 49.4 |
| 23 | Kansas City Chiefs | 48.3 |
| 24 | Arizona Cardinals | 48.2 |
| 25 | Oakland Raiders | 47.7 |
| 26 | Indianapolis Colts | 47.5 |
| 27 | Atlanta Falcons | 47.2 |
| 28 | Cleveland Browns | 46.9 |
| 29 | Denver Broncos | 46.8 |
| 30 | Philadelphia Eagles | 46.5 |
| 31 | Pittsburgh Steelers | 46.4 |
| 32 | Green Bay Packers | 43.4 |
It doesn’t just stop there. The Cowboys ran the ball the eighth-most on 2nd-and-10 situations. The Packers ran the ball the 25th-most. McCarthy and Garrett do not see the game the same way. Nobody believes in the “double-up” of deferring until the second half more than McCarthy. For years, nobody wanted to receive if they won the toss more so than Garrett.
McCarthy has won more challenges in replay (47 of 93) than Jason Garrett has challenged (24 of 45). Garrett has coached in roughly 76 percent of the games that McCarthy has and has only challenged 48 percent as many calls.
DISCIPLINE AND ACCOUNTABILITY
For much of his career, McCarthy was often thought of as a no-nonsense presence who had the voice and attention of the team. There was very little question of “who was in charge.” Now, he clearly had no ownership family or confusing front-office setup to navigate. His GM, Thompson, would not populate the roster with red-flag guys and also would pretty much stay out of the locker-room and the media spotlight. In fact, you could easily say that from the start of training camp until the end of the season, McCarthy was the lone voice of the organization above the players. And the players knew it. We certainly assume that won’t be the case here.
One other story comes quickly to mind, and it took place in 2018, when Green Bay was still in the mix. They had a game in Los Angeles and young Ty Montgomery was playing less and less in the offense. Predictably, he was getting antsy about his contract. Well, Montgomery was also the kick returner, and McCarthy told him to take the touchback after the Rams took a 29-27 lead right inside the 2-minute warning. Montgomery felt he needed to make a play so he decided to return the kickoff and attempt to make something happen. He did. He fumbled, and the Rams recovered. He never played for the Packers again, as he was traded to Baltimore two days later. For a player of his resume, that certainly demonstrated McCarthy’s authority.
OH, AND THE OBVIOUS STUFF
From the time McCarthy started coaching in Green Bay until the day he left, he led Green Bay to a record that is 48 games over .500, the third-most wins behind New England and Pittsburgh and the third-most playoff wins behind New England and Seattle. He coached in more conference championship games than any coach other than Bill Belichick and he, of course, won a Super Bowl in Arlington. He is about as accomplished as nearly any coach in the sport during his one and only tenure as a head coach. And yet, because of his star pupil, he is thought to have underachieved in his time there, which speaks to the amazing levels of expectation for any coach of a franchise QB.
Wasting Rodgers’ prime by
only doing all the winning they did is definitely something talking heads mention about Mike McCarthy. Apparently, he only gets credit for the losses and not the wins. But winning a title is very difficult and requires a lot of cooperation from Lady Luck. The fact is that those two — like many of the partnerships listed above — were plenty successful.
Ok, Bob. Are you going to mention the issues? The reasons why pretty much every Packers fan thought it was probably time for him to go in 2018?
Photo by Tim Kamke/Getty Images
CONCERNS:
The concerns probably begin with the way things ended in Green Bay. McCarthy’s final chapter there was ugly, and this seemed to be a sports divorce where, after years of growing together, the QB had enough of this guy telling him what to do. The coach no longer had the respect of his QB. This situation was made more complex because McCarthy was the head coach and the architect of the offense. Normally, in these long-term relationships, those are two different people. The QB can campaign for a new OC to the head coach and get a fresh voice. Yes, there were assistants, but Rodgers and McCarthy would constantly scrap about the play calls and philosophy because there was no real buffer between them in these offensive meetings. Anyone who has followed Rodgers for a moment knows he certainly has no poker face. If he is upset, it doesn’t take long for the 25 million people watching at home to realize he thought the play just sent in was garbage. A certain type of head coach might think his star QB is showing him up for the entire nation to see. He was right.
Rodgers is a genius, and his play speaks for itself. During his prime, he consistently saw things others would not see and then was able to put the ball where it needed to be. He was the very rare QB who made just about all the plays with almost no interceptions. He was Favre without the occasional high-risk fiery explosion loss that we were told came with wins. When Rodgers duplicated most of the good and did not duplicate any of the bad of his predecessor, his standing in Wisconsin rose to ridiculous levels. Add to that his ability to move products and offer must-see TV and, suddenly, McCarthy was trying to coach one of the five most famous athletes in North America in a city the size of Lewisville, Texas. Any chance of you being given the benefit of the doubt in a power struggle with “12” was impossible. Rodgers was no longer being coached, it seemed. His coach had become his caddy. The QB was constantly told that he was right, and the football coach seemed perfect for any blame when Rodgers didn’t have a happy ending to each season. At times, McCarthy seemed so frustrated with his inability to reach his QB that some say he even mentally checked out himself.
There are ways to manage famous athletes, as Phil Jackson has taught us. I assume McCarthy has some theories now that maybe he didn’t try back then, but the relationship started to go over the course of many years, and it was seemingly affecting the performance of the franchise. That it culminated in 2018 with the suggestion that Rodgers was actively “trying to get his coach fired” was really more of a sign that perhaps it was allowed to go on too long. McCarthy’s run had come to an end because both men had run out of solutions to work well together and probably stopped trying. Often, an organization will insist the coach is more important than any one player, but this one player was one of the greatest QBs in the NFL for his entire career. The Packers would clearly try a new coach long before they would discard a still-useful Rodgers.
Ted Thompson stepped down as general manager in 2017. Until then, the Packers certainly seemed to resist change. That changed with the promotion of his successor, current GM Brian Gutekunst. Dom Capers and his defense struggled time and time again, most notably having no idea what to do with a Colin Kaepernick zone read in the playoffs in two consecutive years in 2012 and 2013. But it seemed he could not get fired, and he was allowed to remain the defensive coordinator for seven seasons after the Super Bowl win because either McCarthy or Thompson could not agree he had to go. Other things seemed to require change but would only be addressed as a last resort. Shawn Slocum was the special-teams coach from 2009 until the 2014 NFC Championship game despite some very poor years of overall performance from his units. It finally came to a head in that infamous loss in Seattle after a botched onside kick took those Packers from sure Super Bowl representatives to stunned losers who never recovered.
In all of these cases, a more proactive head coach might have led to a different outcome. Instead, loyalty, which is surely a magnificent character attribute in the real world, perhaps cost the Packers tangible results. We will never truly know, but it did go on the McCarthy dossier of grievances in terms of finding that elusive second Super Bowl.
McCarthy’s two biggest issues would be the following:
- His offensive design did not seem to evolve at the end. Opponents figured out how to deal with it better, and the Packers’ talent advantage diminished with age and free agency. It is overstating things to suggest that the Packers transitioned to a “get open” offense where Rodgers makes things up as he goes, but his famous throw to Jared Cook to beat the Cowboys in 2016 in the playoffs was said to be drawn up in the huddle by Rodgers, which further grew his legend and diminished the respect anyone had for the offensive acumen of his head coach. McCarthy admitted he got away from using motions and complementary route combinations; things did, in fact, grow stale in an age where coaches across the league were peeling back new layers of creativity. McCarthy stopped running the ball enough to keep defenses honest, and it wasn’t because he couldn’t do it. If his offense was his calling card and his offense no longer appeared to trouble opponents, that is an issue. It also seems to be the inspiration behind his evolution here in 2019, trying to self-scout and figure out how next time can be different.
- His conservatism was not all-encompassing, but frustrated observers definitely would point to “taking your foot off the gas” in important games when the Packers would have a lead. This goes back to trying to win with a defense that was often unable to get a late stop. Many believed the best defense is to keep your offense scoring, and that seemed to apply with this Packers team. But they would often run a few times and punt the ball right back in these key moments, counting on the defense to try to get that stop. Often, it wouldn’t end well. The defense was unable to get stops in 2013, 2014, and 2015 in the playoffs at key moments late in the game, and after Rodgers and the gang had tied the score late, they would never touch the ball again. In 2015, in particular, it seemed like a real chance for McCarthy to “go for two” to try to win the game, knowing his defense would likely let him down. It never happened. The other idea of getting too conservative was seen in other playoff games such as that same NFC Championship Game in Seattle in 2014. (Ask any Packers fan what their most painful memory is and I am 99 percent sure you will get this game if they are young; Super Bowl 32 if they are a bit older.) In this game, the Packers were 8.5-point underdogs and built up a healthy lead. The Packers would have five scoring drives before the Seattle comeback, but four of them were field goals, so the lead was 19-7. This reality is made much worse since the first two drives included two different field goals from the one-yard line. It is fair to suggest, I believe, that when you are a massive underdog with Aaron Rodgers as your QB and Eddie Lacy as your bruising RB, you should not settle for three points twice from the one-yard line with the Super Bowl hanging in the balance.
I would not call McCarthy a conservative coach, but there are times where he would stop attacking and start settling. It helped shape his narrative in negative ways. Losing three times in the NFC Championship Game hurts, but knowing that 2007 and 2014 both featured games in which Green Bay absolutely let golden chances get away qualifies both as huge disappointments.
None of these issues are deal-breakers, especially if his biggest issue was dealing with Rodgers at the height of his powers. Let’s just say that this is a rare issue for coaches to deal with and most never have to find out how tough it is.
Overall fit in Dallas:
I think the fit is mostly good and certainly interesting. I believe there will be a massive change in disposition about this team, and the days where it doesn’t seem to take too much to upset things around here should be mostly gone. McCarthy seems to feed off adversity as a coach, and his teams take on that personality. He wants doubts and enjoys the challenges that football always presents.
I think McCarthy’s offensive resume suggests that Dak Prescott’s growth will continue despite also receiving one of the biggest contracts in the NFL. McCarthy accepting this position should reaffirm that the Cowboys’ first priority of the offseason will be to finalize a contract with Prescott because the coach indicated he is looking for a job where a young and talented QB is present. He believes that he can win big with Prescott as his QB.
I believed that McCarthy was not a real candidate here because he is certainly a controlling type who wants to be the voice of the franchise, especially during a crisis or week of an important game. We know in Dallas that Garrett was never the final word, so this hiring seems potentially awkward — or a sign that the front office is willing to lay low in exchange for his services. Maybe he has changed or at least thinks he has. I cannot imagine the McCarthy from Green Bay being OK with having Jerry Jones in his locker room with media gathered around him, discussing his coach’s job security in the moments following a tough loss. I would also imagine he’ll be left exclaiming “Stephen said what?” after the team vice president’s local radio show. I assume the Jones family has not decided to change their ways, so McCarthy’s patience will ultimately be tested. Whether it might be his feeling that this player needs to go or that he doesn’t want to hear the opinions of others in the organization when a media person asks him directly about their comments, this might be a bit of a powder keg in the years to come.
I think the Cowboys have appropriately left their comfort zone of people they know who are tangentially connected to the franchise. I think McCarthy has left his own comfort zone to work in a setting that seems quite a bit different than Green Bay’s setup where there are no non-football distractions for the franchise to worry about.
We certainly don’t know if McCarthy’s ability to beat the Jones family on the field so often had anything to do with the hiring, but you certainly have more respect for your adversaries when they crush your dreams a few times. Those 2014 and 2016 playoff losses to the Packers won’t heal anytime soon, but this should close the door to that era and unlock a new one.
The marriage might be fantastic, but we had all better wait and see how everyone works together. I was told by a source that it often takes someone like McCarthy about two years just to figure out how the building works with the unique politics of the Dallas Cowboys organization. But he certainly is familiar with unique situations. He was compared to Lombardi in his old hallways, and now he can be compared to Landry in his new ones. Let’s hope he someday enjoys a parade here like he did in February of 2011. That was the end of his fifth season, and he just signed a five-year deal in Dallas.
I think this is a very solid hire, and I am optimistic about the program he knows how to build. The Cowboys badly needed a change, and the idea that they left their normal board to go get the “best coach available” for the job should encourage all who want to see this team play deep into January.
Mike McCarthy teams often do.
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