McCarthy's 10 Biggest Cowboys Screw-Ups

Dallas Is Committed To Bringing The Head Coach Back In 2021. But First, 2020 Must Be Dissected: Mike McCarthy's 10 Biggest Cowboys Screw-Ups

Mike Fisher | Dec 19, 2020

FRISCO - Mike McCarthy actually claimed to being "surprised'' this week that he was being quizzed by DFW media about his job security.

“I mean frankly I really am,” the Dallas Cowboys' first-year coach said. “(But) I understand the job and the responsibility of the media to ask questions, and I respect that and I know you respect the fact that I just stay focused on my job.”

And I, in turn, must make a claim as well: I'm "surprised'' he's surprised. You start 3-9, you get questioned about job security. In this town. In every town. Heck, nobody is hesitating to question whether Jerry Jones deserves security at GM or whether Mike Nolan deserves security at defensive coordinator or whether the running back and the linebacker and the kicker deserve security ...

Why should the guy who was directly in charge of the on-field 3-9 product avoid any heat?

Dallas (now 4-9 entering Sunday's NFL Week 15 visit from San Francisco) is fooling itself by believing, as Jones has claimed, that McCarthy has successfully demonstrated experience and football intelligence while properly managing risk-taking, interaction with players and COVID-related challenges.

But ... 3-9? How does that demonstrate successful handling of anything?

That's Jerry's list of the supposed positives. I think it's only fair - while fully understanding why McCarthy will coach here in 2021 - to list the head coach's 10 Biggest Screw-Ups:

SCREW-UP 10: Personnel stubbornness that kept bad players on the field. It took this staff almost until the start of November to realize that defensive Dontari Poe, finally cut on Oct. 28, couldn't play a lick.

Same thing with undrafted rookie Terence Steele. Steele was clearly a "pet cat'' of this coaching staff - and while he might have a future, he is also inarguably the least able of any Cowboy to line up with the 2020 offense.

SCREW-UP 9: Personnel stubbornness that kept good players off the field. Veteran players have been buzzing about safety Donovan Wilson (calling him "The Hit Man'') for months due to his practice aggressiveness. McCarthy and staff went through almost a half-dozen safety candidates before finally letting Wilson play in the second half of the season.

He's now one of the few bright spots on this historically woeful defense.

At the risk of being nit-picky: Why does Rashard Robinson play more than Jourdan Lewis? Why does Brandon Knight, the kid O-linemen who last year's staff considered a good special project, seem a persona non grata to this staff? Why does Randy Gregory only play 20 percent of the snaps? Why doesn't rookie DB Reggie Robinson play at all?

From another angle: Sources in this building have admitted to me they screwed up in not re-acquiring Ron Leary. I think they screwed up in picking Poe over "Snacks'' Harrison, who lives in DFW and told me he desperately wanted to sign here. I think they screwed up on not rolling the dice on Earl Thomas. And I still think they should've bid more aggressively on Jamal Adams.

That's not all on McCarthy, of course. But he does have more say in personnel than he ever had in 13 Packers seasons. Did he contribute to any right calls here?

And one more: How can rookie QB Ben DiNucci one week be a starter and "The Next Marc Bulger'' or even "The Next Tony Romo'' (and those are thoughts from Inside The Star) and the next week be not even worthy of competing with two practice-squadders for the No. 2 job?

Did DiNucci screw up the Cowboys? Or did the Cowboys screw up DiNucci?

SCREW-UP 8: Fibbing about a commitment to being a "four-down-linemen front.'' Unfortunately, his players believed him when he said it - and then lost some trust in him when it turned out to not be the plan at all.

SCREW-UP 7: Ignoring his players' private (and then public) complaints. I know for a fact veterans took concerns to him early in the season, and then only after seeing no results, started airing their grievances (or at least observations) in public. Some of those gripes came in the form of "sourced whispers.'' But sometimes, it was a guy like DeMarcus Lawrence publicly saying to the media that his team lacked "backbone.''

And when the media brought that concern to McCarthy? He did the same thing he did to unhappy players early in the year: He was dismissive. ... and by the time he was roasted in public for the gaffe, announcing that his door is always open to players?

Some players thought, and think, it came too late.

SCREW-UP 6: He knowingly let a "Woe-Is-Me'' attitude permeate his locker room. Yes, a lot of Cowboys got hurt in 2020. But what are you going to do about it? All McCarthy could manage, it seems, is to grant a halftime interview to FOX Sports during a blowout at Washington in which he admitted to reporter Pam Oliver that he'd been fighting a "woe-is-me'' attitude on his roster.

Once you're announcing that on TV, you're not "fighting it'' anymore.

You've lost to it.

SCREW-UP 5: Remember "Fantasy Football Nonsense''? That's what McCarthy said to the media, scolding us about the idea of moving Zack Martin from guard to tackle. He insisted the idea was "nonsense'' ... when so many other football minds (including the people who used to be in charge of the 1990's Cowboys O-lines) have proof that he was wrong.

Later - too much later - McCarthy finally moved Martin to right tackle. And before his injury? Zack Martin played at an All-Pro level there, just as he had at the less-important guard spot.

SCREW-UP 4: He hasn't been able to match wins - or wits - with the historically inept NFC East ... or two other first-year coaches.

If there was ever a chance to take advantage, of a weak division and of the Giants (with not only a first-year coach but also a rookie coach in Joe Judge) and of Washington (with not only a first-year coach but also a coach battling cancer in Ron Rivera, for God's sake) this was it.

Opportunity was gifted McCarthy's Cowboys. But so far, they are 1-3 in the division, with a critical sweep by Washington.

SCREW-UP 3: He claimed not to be a "gambler,'' and told a great story about growing up in a Pittsburgh bar watching losers dump quarters into slot machines.

Great story. No "gambler.'' Rather, a cool, smart risk/reward evaluator.

Except ...

His aggressiveness is actually, by and large, foolishness. The fake punt from his own 24 on fourth-and-10 on Thanksgiving Day - the call being a reverse-pitch pass from a safety to a receiver to a punter - remains one of the most mind-bogglingly stupid calls I've seen in 30 years of covering the Cowboys and 40 years covering the NFL.

And that's just one of many, many examples.

SCREW-UP 2: McCarthy seems to have developed a tendency to say what he thinks the audience (or the owner) wants to hear.

He definitely did so in the interview process last offseason when he told the Joneses that he'd cut up and watched every single Cowboys play from 2019 - later admitting with the laugh that he didn't actually do that.

He probably did so on the subject of advanced analytics, something he always dismissed in Green Bay. But my sense is that in the interview process in Dallas, he sensed that the Joneses thought it important (they spend a fortune on that department here inside The Star).

And so suddenly, after 55 years of not much buying advanced analytics, McCarthy claimed to be a convert. Hmm.

And the whopper told to Cowboys Nation? That he'd fit the players to the scheme and not the other way around. On defense, for certain, that is absolutely not the case. For were it the case, Dallas would simply be playing the same system it played in 2020, when, thanks to largely these same players, they ranked as a better-than-average unit.

In short, McCarthy and his pal, defensive coordinator Mike Nolan, turned aggressive and smart players like Lawrence, Jaylon Smith, Joe Thomas and most of the rest of them into confused, overwhelmed and overmatched losers.

That's a fireable offense ... for somebody.

SCREW-UP No. 1 - I've called it "arrogant and ignorant'': The McCarthy/Nolan decision to install a whole new defense ... without the benefit of spring workouts, a full training camp, preseason games or even actually meeting some of the players face-to-face.

For real: The Dallas Cowboys attempted something never tried before, something that will never be tried again: These coaches thought their teaching skills so brilliant that they could tutor these players (who the coaches did not know) into playing a system (that the players did not know) ... using Zoom meetings.

Again - unforgivable. Fireable.

I detailed this football crime a long time ago; in the last two weeks, Jerry and Stephen Jones have copped to this self-delusional and self-destructive gaffe.

It'll surely be Nolan who pays for the error; the Joneses have endorsed McCarthy strongly - Jerry twanging that even daring to question the head coach's job security is "ridic'lous'' - but have skipped on doing the same for McCarthy's right hand.

“There will be absolutely no change with coach McCarthy,” Stephen said before echoing the coach's own keyword. “I am surprised that someone would question Mike (with) these unprecedented situations that everyone’s been in.''

Frankly, though, the standard around here needs to be so high that "unprecedented situations'' get conquered and that if not, everything gets questioned. And when you add up all the high-profile and highly-obvious errors in Mike McCarthy's first season steering a "ship that's gonna be righted,' as Stephen says?

The only real "surprise'' is the high number of Mike McCarthy "ridic'lous'' screw-ups.

Published Dec 19, 2020

MIKE FISHER

Mike Fisher - as a newspaper beat writer and columnist and on radio and TV, where he is an Emmy winner - has covered the NFL since 1983 and the Dallas Cowboys since 1990, is the author of two best-selling books on the Cowboys.