There’s a fine line between being confident and being cocky. Which side of it Thursday’s comments out of Dallas about the Cowboys’ Week 14 showdown with Washington fall on depend largely on which team’s colors you happen to be wearing.
In a storied rivalry that rarely needs any extra attention or hype, each locker room now has provided juicy bulletin board material for the other. What is unusual, though, is that it’s not the players who are jawing. It’s the coaches.
Dallas head coach Mike McCarthy, on his first day back in the Cowboys’ facility after a 10-day bout with COVID-19 caused him to miss his team’s win over New Orleans, made waves during a press conference when he was asked about the various ups and downs that have impacted his squad both on and off the field over the first 13 weeks of the season.
“We know what people think of us. We love that. We’re comfortable with who we are, where we are,” McCarthy told reporters Thursday. “But I’m excited about what’s in front of us. We’re going to win this game; I’m confident in that.”
To state the obvious, that’s not exactly Joe Namath using the word “guarantee” as he sits poolside with starstruck reporters prior to Super Bowl III. Nonetheless, McCarthy’s confident prediction made its way back to Washington head coach Ron Rivera in short order.
“I think it’s interesting; I don’t think it’s important,” Rivera said, per the Washington Football Team’s Julie Donaldson. “I think that’s the big mistake, because as far as I’m concerned, you do that for a couple of reasons. One is, you want to get in our head. And so I’ve told our players, ‘That’s interesting; it’s not important. What’s important is our preparation, getting ready to play on Sunday.’ Secondly, he’s trying to convince his team. So, again, I think that’s another mistake. Because he’s now made it about him and what he said. It’s not about his players anymore. So I think that’s a big mistake. That’s why, to me, you don’t do those things. What you do is you focus in, you get ready, and you play football. We show up on Sunday, and we’ll see what happens.”
Rivera may say it’s not about the Cowboys players now. But they say they have no problem with McCarthy putting out there publicly what they all feel anyway.
“I love it. It makes us go harder,” said running back Tony Pollard, who will reportedly be a game-time decision Sunday with a foot injury. “It just shows that he believes in us, he puts his trust in us, and everything he has, he’s behind us all the way. As a team, it just makes you go harder when you know your coaches are out there defending you, keeping your name up, so it’s big.”
“[Expletive], yeah,” quarterback Dak Prescott agreed. “Obviously, if you’re preparing for this game, if you’re a Dallas Cowboy, if you’re a fan, you expect to go in and win each and every game. I don’t think he’s said anything different than everyone in this building’s thoughts; he just voiced it. Now we have to make sure that we’re accountable for our words. I think that’s all that is, the coach setting the tone for the week. His first day back, making sure everybody understands where his mind is and where this team’s mindset is.”
Cornerback Trevon Diggs expects an afternoon of “smash-mouth football.”
“I feel like everybody knows the importance of this game,” Diggs said Thursday. “Everybody knows the importance of the situation. And that’s always the mindset every week, for us to win. So I wouldn’t expect him to say we’re going to lose.”
By Friday, McCarthy wasn’t interested in spending any real time talking about his comments… or Rivera’s criticism of them.
“Context is important, and I think sometimes that gets lost, ” he said in Friday’s presser. “But it’s irrelevant what anybody thinks- anybody thinks- about what I said in here yesterday. I was talking about my team. I can always coach my own team. And that’s where I’m at with it. We have great confidence in what we’re trying to do. It was an honest answer to a question.”
McCarthy’s prediction was a stronger-than-usual statement, though, when compared with the cliched coachspeak that fans and media have become accustomed- and often conditioned- to.
But even if it’s braggadocio-laced bulletin-board material, it doesn’t concern McCarthy’s boss in the slightest.
“I don’t get hung up on the bit about the guarantee. That should be his attitude. He expects to win. He thinks we will win. I expect that. I would be shocked if he couldn’t make that kind of statement,” Cowboys owner Jerry Jones told 105.3 The Fan on Friday. “Having said that, I’ll tell you what: He’s raring and ready. He’s been penned up, and that’s reflected in his demeanor as well as how he’s articulating his feelings.”
They’re the feelings of many a Cowboys fan this week. After a very strong September and undefeated October- even through a slew of missed games by key starters- Dallas won just one of four November tilts. Now with a seemingly-mostly-healthy roster, they enter the final stretch of games that will determine the division, and the first test will be against their most hated rival, who comes in on a somewhat unlikely four-game winning streak.
But while the stakes are plenty high as it is, it’s also Dallas-Washington. So for every bit of pregame back-and-forth to be magnified, well, that’s just to be expected.
“We as a franchise, we as the Cowboys, we put it out there. And we know we do,” Jones said. “We ask folks to look at us, be interested in us, follow us. We know a bunch of people look at us because they’d like to see us lose. That’s sport. That creates the excitement, the reason I’m in it, and the reason we are engaged. And so yes, the answer is: I like all of this kind of additional color to the interest in the game. Of course, you really don’t have to color this game. It has everything going for it. Much at stake. It’s right here at the right time. This is the fourth quarter that we’re in, of the year. Football is at its absolute apex, and we’re sitting here basically fighting, literally, for the marbles, and we need to win this game.”
Perhaps it’s not a surprise then, that one of McCarthy’s first actions when he returned to the team was to show them a video compilation highlighting the historical significance of the club’s longstanding history with Washington.
But if he’s making no bones about his own mindset, that he expects to come away with a victory, then maybe it really is- as they so often say in coachspeak- just another game.
“I mean, what am I supposed to say?” McCarthy laughed when asked on Thursday. “Yeah, we fully- I fully- expect to win every game I’ve ever competed in. I mean, that’s what sports is all about. That’s what the NFL is. Trust me, I understand how hard it is. They’re working hard, we’re working hard. But we’re clearly planning on going to Washington to win the game.”
No bulletin-board material required.
Even if he himself accidentally provided plenty of it.
“I don’t spend any time on it, frankly,” the coach explained to the room full of reporters. “With respect to your jobs, I think it’s a waste of your time. I think if we have to worry about print and things like that–Â I’m more focused on the real stuff. I think it’s important you go through the week to identify how the opponent’s going to play you, the things you’re expecting. But by Friday, they’re just blank faces to me.”
They’re just blank faces to me.
Call it one last addition for the Washington bulletin board.
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