Mike McCarthy views being a lame-duck coach as a “challenge.” Cowboys owner Jerry Jones seems to view it as an opportunity.
This is the third consecutive time the Cowboys have let their head coach play out his contract. Jason Garrett’s Cowboys went 12-4 in 2014 in the final year of his contract and despite a playoff loss to the Packers, the Cowboys gave Garrett a five-year, $30 million deal. That contract expired after an 8-8 season in 2019, and the Cowboys parted ways.
If McCarthy gets a contract extension, it will mean the Cowboys played well in 2024.
Jones offered two words when asked why McCarthy didn’t get a contract extension after a third consecutive 12-win season.
“Green Bay,” Jones said, via Calvin Watkins of the Dallas Morning News.
The Cowboys were the only home team to lose in the wild-card round, falling to McCarthy’s former team 48-32.
“Mike has shown me that I want to have him, and he’s qualified and he’s excellent and the players are excellent and he’s shown me that he could be our coach for years to come,” Jones said. “He sits next to me in the draft. I really call on him a lot. If you can’t get along with Mike McCarthy, you can’t get along.”
Jones took offense to the term “lame-duck coach.”
“I don’t agree with you,” Jones said. “I understand the term, and I understand how it fits. I don’t look at it that way. There’s a point in there, I know our fans would like it if everybody were on a low contract, but if they won a Super Bowl, they’d get rid of [everybody]. I’m talking about every coach, every player, I’m talking about everybody. I know that’s the fans’ sentiment. I know that for a fact that you don’t domino if you don’t [win a Super Bowl]. But if you get it, it’s glory hole. Oil and gas term of hitting the big well.”
Jones expects McCarthy to win with less this season after the Cowboys did little in free agency and have yet to sign any of their three superstars — Dak Prescott, CeeDee Lamb and Micah Parsons — to extensions. Lamb is holding out of training camp.
The Cowboys haven’t played in the NFC Championship Game since 1995, and barring McCarthy putting an end to that franchise streak, Jones could be back in the coach market.
Bill Belichick remains free after not getting a job this offseason, and Jones was asked Thursday about his relationship with the second-winningest coach in NFL history.
“I think he may be the best coach, certainly of my time in the NFL, and I happen to be part of a team that had the great Tom Landry, and I’d put him right there,” Jones said. “Bill’s a friend and a great coach.”
