Category: Mike McCarthy

Report: Cowboys’ Mike McCarthy hires ‘super agent’ heading into final year of contract

From @ToddBrock24f7: Don Yee has represented Tom Brady, Sean Payton, and Jim Harbaugh, among others. He’ll now add McCarthy entering a pivotal 2024 season.

The start of the 2024 regular season is still over four months away, and things have already take a potentially dramatic turn regarding the Cowboys and head coach Mike McCarthy, who is heading into a contract year.

McCarthy has reportedly hired “super agent” Don Yee to represent him, according to ESPN insider Adam Schefter.

Yee, 64, signed Tom Brady while the quarterback was still an unknown senior at the University of Michigan and then went on to represent Brady for the duration of his record-shattering NFL career.

The California-based agent has also represented Rams quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo, former Patriots receiver Julian Edelman, Broncos head coach Sean Payton, and Chargers head coach Jim Harbaugh.

McCarthy has led the Cowboys to three consecutive 12-win seasons and a playoff berth in each of those campaigns, but the team finished just 1-3 in the postseason under him.

It was announced shortly after the most recent loss, a stunning 48-32 loss at home to the seventh-seeded Packers, that McCarthy would not be receiving a contract extension and would coach through the final year of the contract he signed in 2020.

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The move comes just hours after the Cowboys’ annual pre-draft press conference. During that Q&A session, team owner Jerry Jones and executive vice president Stephen Jones spent the majority of the time discussing the current financial state of the franchise, especially getting grilled by reporters on why the Cowboys have yet to sign their three biggest stars- Dak Prescott, CeeDee Lamb, and Micah Parsons- to contract extensions.

Jerry blamed past contracts and the salary cap, while also explaining that he likes to give himself plenty of options as he wait “to see a few more cards play.”

Now it appears that McCarthy is lining up his own options, keeping his own interests protected for however the Cowboys’ 2024 season plays.

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Cowboys full roster heading into 2024 offseason

A look at the Cowboys’ offseason roster as the prepare to build towards another run. | From @KDDrummondNFL

It’s down to the final two teams in the NFL as championship weekend has come and gone. While the Dallas Cowboys were the first team to prove the moment was too big for them in the NFL playoffs, they hardly were the last. After embarrassing the Cowboys in the wild-card round, the young Green Bay Packers had a chance to take out the No. 1 seeded San Francisco 49ers, but choked away a big first-half lead.

The Detroit Lions coaching staff tried to prove they weren’t out of a Wizard of Oz reenactment, and proved more hearty than heady in letting their 17-point lead whither away under pressure. The Baltimore Ravens saw a shot to go to the Super Bowl and abandoned everything they did well in a fit of panic with Patrick Mahomes staring them down. The playoffs are not for the weak, and now 30 of 32 teams are in full offseason mode.

While the Cowboys could still lose defensive coordinator Dan Quinn to one of the final two head-coach vacancies, their thoughts are on the personnel changes they’ll need to make to find better fortune.

With 19 pending free agents and a handful of reserve/future signings, here’s a look at the baseline group they enter the offseason with. The team can carry up to 90 players in the offseason.

Quarterbacks (3)
Running Backs (4)
Wideouts (10)
Tight Ends (5)
Offensive Tackles (4)
Offensive Guards (5)
Centers (1)

Defensive Ends (4)
Defensive Tackles (3)
Linebacker (6)
Cornerbacks (5)
Safeties (6)

Special Teams (2)

 

Is Mike McCarthy’s contract situation motivation or lame-duck doom for Cowboys?

Will the Cowboys refusal to extend Mike McCarthy beyond 2024 result in extra motivation for their head coach or will it undermine him in? | From @ReidDHanson

Following the Cowboys’ upset loss to Green Bay in the opening round of the postseason, it’s safe to say some uncomfortable conversations were had behind closed doors at The Star in Frisco.

Players, coaches and team philosophy were all likely questioned. Fan outrage demanded a pound of flesh, but after moderate deliberation, it was determined there would be no flash and the Cowboys were going to run it back in 2024.

Head coach Mike McCarthy would remain at the helm. And most of his staff is likely to stay in place as well. But just because Jerry Jones was honoring the terms of his original contract did not mean he was recommitting with a shiny new deal. It seems as if the Magic 8 Ball in Jones’ top drawer gave him the old, “ask again later” response.

McCarthy will coach on an expiring deal in 2024. If he meets expectations, he could get a new contract in Dallas or even somewhere else. If he falls short again, he rides off into the sunset, having fulfilled the entire length of his contract and receiving neither extension nor pink slip from Jones.

The carrot or stick approach is nothing new for Jones. He made Jason Garrett coach twice on an expiring deal as head coach. One time it worked and the other time it didn’t. Some coaches respond well to uncomfortable situations such as this; others do not. Which way McCarthy responds is anyone’s guess. It’s not like he has a choice in the matter.

Schefter: Cowboys will not extend Mike McCarthy beyond 2024

From @ToddBrock24f7: Mike McCarthy is expected to coach 2024 on an expiring contract, something Jason Garrett did twice before (but only once successfully).

Jerry Jones and the Cowboys front office have plenty of business to tackle this offseason, with several high-profile individuals expected to enter into contract negotiations with the front office in order to firm up their long-term status with the team.

Head coach Mike McCarthy doesn’t look to be one of them.

According to a Saturday report from ESPN NFL insider Adam Schefter, it is not believed the Cowboys will offer McCarthy any sort of extension as he enters the fifth and final year of the deal he signed in 2020.

The 60-year-old coach would ostensibly, then, helm the team as a “lame duck,” essentially coaching for his job just as his predecessor Jason Garrett did in Dallas twice during his Cowboys tenure.

On the final year of his first contract as Cowboys head coach, Garrett coached Dallas to a 12-4 record in 2014, promptly earning himself a five-year extension. On the expiring year of that deal, the team finished 8-8 and missed the playoffs; Garrett and the team parted ways just days later.

McCarthy has a 42-25 regular-season mark since coming to Dallas and has led the team to three straight 12-win campaigns. But his 1-3 postseason mark has been a massive disappointment, with last week’s 48-32 collapse- at home- to the 7th-seeded Packers leaving many fans clamoring for a change to be made.

In a statement earlier this week, Jones cited McCarthy’s regular-season winning percentage as a reason to stay the course. During his end-of-season press conference the next day, McCarthy told reporters, “I didn’t come here to get another contract or anything other than that. I came to Dallas to win a world championship.”

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If Schefter’s report holds true, the first part of that equation has come to fruition. Now it’s up to McCarthy and the Cowboys to make good on the second part.

If he doesn’t, the Cowboys could be on a search for the 10th head coach in franchise history by this time next year.

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McCarthy: Cowboys have ‘established a championship program. It’s just not the world championship yet.’

From @ToddBrock24f7: The embattled coach spoke of “hard, direct questions” from Jerry Jones that will nevertheless give him a 5th season to try to win in Dallas.

Mike McCarthy hosted his annual end-of-season press conference on Thursday, secure in the knowledge that he would remain the Cowboys head coach for 2024.

That in and of itself is enough to have a significant faction of Cowboys Nation expecting his fifth season with the club to bring more of the same: regular-season fireworks followed by a big fat postseason dud. While the 60-year-old coach repeatedly used words like “raw” and “numb” and “emotional” to describe his feelings about how the team’s latest promising season went up in flames in the early rounds of the playoffs, McCarthy was clear about one thing.

“The reality of it is, this team’s going to change,” McCarthy said. “We’re going to have changes.”

As for what exactly those changes might look like, though, it’s too early in the offseason evaluation process for McCarthy to say.

“We’re just getting started,” he vowed.

Many — and perhaps most –– observers believed Sunday’s embarrassing blowout at the hands of the Packers in the wild-card round would instead be the ending to McCarthy’s tenure in Dallas. The 48-32 home loss marked the third January in a row that saw the Cowboys fail to reach the conference championship and extended the franchise’s Super Bowl drought to 28 years.

And while McCarthy asserted that he and his players “take no responsibility” for the shortcomings of Cowboys squads from past eras, he had a message for supporters who will now have no choice but to continue to look to his group to end a wait that’s closing in on three decades.

“We have an unbelievable fan base, and they should be frustrated. We’re extremely disappointed. Disappointed for them, disappointed in our performance,” McCarthy said.

“But my message would be this: We’ve established a championship program. It’s just not the world championship yet. We know how to win, we know how to train to win, we have the right people, but we have not crossed the threshold [of] winning playoff games. It’s extremely disappointing to sit here talking about it. But I know how to win, and we will get over that threshold. I have total confidence, and that’s why I’m standing here today.”

Jerry Jones had commented that Sunday’s wild-card loss was as shocking a setback as he can remember in his ownership, prompting widespread rumors that McCarthy would be relieved of his duties – even with a year remaining on his contract — in favor of one of the high-profile coaching candidates currently on the open market.

In a statement delivered Wednesday evening that followed reports McCarthy would remain in place, Jones said he had “great confidence” in McCarthy, citing his regular-season winning percentage (higher than any of his eight predecessors, by .002 of a point) as the reason why “the best step forward” for the organization is to continue “the team’s progress under Mike’s leadership.”

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The coach characterized his three-hour meeting with Jones on Wednesday as productive and wide-ranging. And while he conceded there were “hard, direct questions” from his 81-year-old billionaire boss, McCarthy suggested that he never felt he had to go into that conversation fighting to keep his job.

“We talked about everything: the right, the wrong, the indifferent, what we need to build off of. I don’t know if there’s much we didn’t talk about, as far as topics that apply to the football operation. Hard conversation, definitely, throughout a number of points here, but they’re conversations that I personally always look forward to. I’ve never walked out of a one-on-one with Jerry where I didn’t think I was better, one way or the other.”

McCarthy may feel better about his standing with the Cowboys now that his fifth season on the job is secure, but Cowboys fans will likely need a bit more convincing that the team can be better with him still at the helm.

McCarthy talked about having established “a championship program … just not the world championship yet.”

Problem is, that second kind is the only one that anybody really cares about.

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‘We have great confidence’: Jerry Jones makes statement regarding McCarthy’s 5th season as Cowboys HC

From @ToddBrock24f7: Jones promised a “deep review” after the Cowboys’ latest playoff loss but maintains that retaining McCarthy is “the best step forward.”

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones issued a statement Wednesday night shortly after news broke that Mike McCarthy would return for a fifth season as the team’s head coach.

Here is the full body of the statement:

“I believe this team is very close and capable of achieving our ultimate goals, and the best step forward for us will be with Mike McCarthy as our head coach. There is great benefit to continuing the team’s progress under Mike’s leadership as our head coach. Specifically, there are many layers of success that have occurred this season as a result of Mike’s approach to leading the team, both with individual players and with our team collectively. Mike has the highest regular-season winning percentage of any head coach in Cowboys history, and we will dedicate ourselves, in partnership with him, to translating that into reaching our postseason goals. Certainly, Mike’s career has demonstrated postseason success at a high level, and we have great confidence that can continue.

Further, our loss on Sunday is shared by everyone here, not just Coach McCarthy. Our players. Our coaches. Our front office. Myself. There is accountability for our results. I am accountable for our results. The lens we use to view and evaluate Coach McCarthy is holistic. While we’re all disappointed with the result on Sunday and with our playoff record, I am 100 percent supportive of him as our head coach and ability to reach our goals.

We will start our process of review and decision-making regarding everything that impacts our team and roster and, while we’re not going to address specific players and extensions or free agents at this point, it deserves our deepest review and consideration, and it will get it.”

McCarthy, the ninth head coach in franchise history, does have the best winning percentage of all of them… by the slimmest of margins. His .627 mark is just two-thousandths of a percentage point better than Barry Switzer’s .625, compiled from 1994 to 1997.

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Of course, it’s worth pointing out that Switzer’s Cowboys went 5-2 in the postseason over his four-season tenure and won a Super Bowl; McCarthy’s Dallas teams now have a 1-3 playoff record over an equivalent three postseason berths.

McCarthy’s 42 regular-season wins are just two behind the 44 put up by Hall of Famer Jimmy Johnson over his five years with the club. He’ll presumably pass Johnson for third place in both wins and games coached for the Cowboys during the 2024 season.

McCarthy is expected to hold a press conference on Thursday, his annual end-of-season media address.

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Breaking: Cowboys HC Mike McCarthy to return for 2024 season

The Cowboys will have Mike McCarthy return for the 2024 season. | From @KDDrummondNFL

The news has finally landed and there will not be a change atop the Dallas Cowboys coaching tree. Head coach Mike McCarthy will return for the 2024 season, his final under his five-year contract signed in 2020. Based on his regular season results this seemed like a foregone conclusion, but Dallas’ disastrous wild-card round loss clouded the picture.

After finishing 12-5 for the third consecutive season and winning the NFC East for the second time in the span, McCarthy’s Cowboys looked woefully inept in their home defeat against the Green Bay Packers. Dallas lost 48-32, in a game that wasn’t that close, as the only home team to lose among the six games over the weekend. After meeting with him on Wednesday, owner Jerry Jones informed McCarthy he would get the chance to redeem himself.

 

Here’s why Jerry Jones will seriously consider bringing Mike McCarthy back

What if the Cowboys bring Mike McCarthy back in 2024 how do they sell hope to a furious fanbase? | From @ReidDHanson

Tis the season for thought exercises. After the Cowboys were unceremoniously ousted from the playoffs in the opening round, there’s no better time than now for asking the hard questions. And the first questions the Cowboys front office has to be asking themselves is where they go from here with their coaching staff.

Four years into the McCarthy tenure and he still hasn’t accomplished much more than what his predecessor Jason Garrett had. Granted, Garrett never posted three 12-win seasons, but he also never had a roster as well-rounded as what McCarthy has had. And Garrett’s 2-3 postseason record with Dallas stands up to McCarthy’s 1-3, even if it did take the former more years to accomplish it.

The Garrett comparison is an apt one, not just because of the consecutive nature of their terms as head coach, but in the patience exerted towards him from the Cowboys front office.

Garrett served as head coach for the Cowboys for nine seasons. His final 8-8 season in 2019 proved to be the nail in his coffin but many believed he had already coached three seasons too many and the dismissal was overdue.

Jerry Jones doesn’t take coaching changes lightly. Maybe he’s extra patient, maybe he’s extra stubborn, or maybe he’s hung up on the money he already guaranteed. Whatever the reason, Jones doesn’t pull the plug just because the fanbase wants to pull the plug. Such could be the case with McCarthy in 2024.

Head coach candidate rankings if Cowboys replace Mike McCarthy

Ranking our top candidates to take over the headset if Jerry Jones decides to move on from Mike McCarthy. | From @KDDrummondNFL

While nothing has been leaked, the longer the silence remains, the stronger the possibility becomes. Owner Jerry Jones could at any time weigh in on whether or not head coach Mike McCarthy will be returning for a fifth season to lead the Dallas Cowboys.

McCarthy and company are at a bit of a crossroads. For the first time in three decades, the Cowboys are consistently winning, victorious in 12 games for three consecutive years. Yet the playoff success McCarthy was hired to bring about has escaped them.

The blowout defeat, at home in the wild-card round, does not scream team-on-the-rise. So for that reason, Jones may be ready to move on and hitch his wagon to a new head coach. If there is a move to be made, there are a lot of quality potential candidates to choose from.

When it was apparent that Jason Garrett was not going to survive his 2019 lame-duck season, we began running replacement coach power rankings. Of those names, McCarthy was our top choice among coaches who would not require losing draft picks.

At the time, because there were months of buildup, we ranked a whopping 46 candidates. This year there won’t be that extensive of a group.

Of course, what can’t be captured here is how impressive any of these guys are in the interview room. There’s only so much that can be gleaned from the outside looking in. Also to be considered, there are a handful of the best head coaches in the game weren’t actually offensive or defensive coordinators before taking over the big chair. It’s impossible for us on the outside to have much knowledge on these types of candidates.

There’s no way to know whether or not these names will turn into stud head coaches, or if they ever get the opportunity. On the list from December 2019, Dan Campbell was No. 40, three spots behind Matt Eberflus and 20 spots behind Brian Daboll.  One just never truly knows.

‘I sucked tonight’: Cowboys’ Dak Prescott stands by HC Mike McCarthy after epic playoff collapse

If Mike McCarthy’s job is in jeopardy after Sunday’s loss, Prescott says his should be, too. That’s unlikely as a rocky offseason begins.

It took Dak Prescott just nine seconds into his Sunday evening press conference to find the word that Cowboys fans had been feeling all afternoon.

“Just shocked, honestly,” he told reporters as he tried to explain the opening-round postseason loss to the Green Bay Packers that was far more humiliating than the 48-32 score alone would suggest.

Shocked. Yep.

The 12-5 Cowboys had, shockingly, just been wiped off the field- their own field- and prematurely sent into the offseason by the lowest-ranked playoff seed in the conference. And following an outing in which Dallas had no answers in any phase of the game, the leader of the offense was just as lost for suggestions on what needs to happen next to get this regular-season powerhouse over the hump into actual contention for a title.

“I wish I had that answer for you, honestly.”

A growing number of outside observers have plenty of ideas, though, and many of them start with making a change at head coach.

Prescott, for one, isn’t ready to give up on Mike McCarthy. In fact, he doubled down on what the 60-year-old in his fourth year with the club has meant, to the organization and to him personally.

“He’s been amazing,” Prescott said when asked about this latest postseason collapse putting McCarthy’s job in jeopardy. “I don’t know how that can be, but I understand the business. In that case, it should be about me as well, honestly. That guy, I’ve had the season that I’ve had because of him. This team has had the success that they’ve had because of him. I understand it’s about winning the Super Bowl. That’s the standard of the league and damn sure the standard of this place, so I get it. But add me to the list, in that case.”

The dollars and cents, though, would seem to put Prescott and McCarthy in different categories as far as guarantees of their future employment in Dallas goes.

The head coach is now entering the final year of his contract, in a league where lame-duck head coaches are exceedingly rare; common sense says owner Jerry Jones will either- this offseason- extend McCarthy or buy out his final year and move on.

Prescott has a budget-crippling $59-plus million dollars coming his way in 2024 salary cap numbers, a no-trade clause in his deal, and language preventing the team from using the franchise tag on him again. A reworking of his terms is almost certainly coming… unless Jones is embarrassed and devastated enough by Sunday’s total no-show to blow the whole thing up and truly start over.

McCarthy bet on himself for 2023 by firing offensive coordinator Kellen Moore and installing himself as offensive play-caller. When it worked, the Dallas offense was a juggernaut, and the Cowboys led the league in scoring… albeit mostly against bad teams.

But there were several games- including, inexplicably, their playoff bout against his old club- in which his Cowboys looked completely uninspired and wholly unprepared.

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Prescott led the NFL in interceptions a year ago and vowed to turn that around. He did, throwing more touchdowns than anyone this season, earning his first All-Pro bid (second team), and being a legitimate contender for the league MVP award.

But the eight-year veteran said that the team’s wild-card train wreck renders all those accomplishments meaningless.

“A thousand percent,” he explained from the podium. “I’m not a guy that lives in the past, so where my feet are and at this moment? Yeah, I sucked tonight. And that was it.”

For a leader who has been so consistently good during the regular season, Prescott was unable to provide insight on why it never- apart from last year’s opening-round postseason win over 8-9 Tampa Bay- seems to translate to the playoffs, for him or for the Cowboys as a unit.

“It’s tough to give you that answer when I just went out there and we just did that. Unfortunately, that’s what the offseason’s for. And it’s a long, long one.”

But this offseason in Dallas is also going to be a rocky, rocky one.

And maybe that’s not so much of a shock.

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