Who's In Charge? Can Cowboys 'Commit' to Winning With Lame-Duck Mike McCarthy as Coach?
All the key indicators over the last 24 hours were that Mike McCarthy would be returning as Dallas Cowboys head coach. And alas, the breadcrumbs that were dropped proved true as McCarthy will be Cowboys head coach for next season - but without the contract extension that just a few days ago seemed a certainty.
Is that a problem?
McCarthy's "interview" with Jerry Jones must have gone well. Or, more cynically, maybe this result gives validation to our own Mike Fisher's thoughts that Dallas' thinking of moving on from McCarthy was nothing but a "charade."
Cue the collective scream of Cowboys Nation.
And maybe cue a collective scramble in the locker room.
So, as many come to terms with having "Big Mike" as head coach, one thing that owner Jerry Jones will have to do is sell hope to a fanbase that has little to no faith in the current coaching staff and locker room going forward.
And he's already started as Jones released a 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," Jones said. "There is great benefit to continuing the team’s progress under Mike’s leadership as our head coach."
After Sunday's debacle, Cowboys Nation was already getting used to the idea of having a new head coach or at least the search for one beginning as McCarthy's job seemed untenable.
The failings of the team and its coach department in big regular-season games along with the performances in playoff losses, all pointed to shortcomings that needed to be addressed.
Poor attention to detail and a lack of self-discipline have plagued the team under McCarthy. Of course, players deserve their fair share of the blame, but it's easier to part ways with a head coach than a player like Dak Prescott.
If there ever was a time for Jerry Jones to give McCarthy his marching orders, the consensus was this was it.
But why didn't he?
Could it be that McCarthy, in the regular season has overseen three straight 12-5 seasons? Possibly. Could it be that Jerry saw the improvement in Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb in their first year in McCarthy's "Texas Coast Offense" that led the league in scoring and he wanted to see more? Maybe.
Or was it that the current setup is "comfortable" and Jerry truly believes in McCarthy's ability to break a drought of nearly three decades of failure in the postseason?
All could be true.
Now, moving forward the Cowboys seemingly are doing Albert Einstein's definition of insanity: "Doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.”
But this - the decision itself - is not a death knell for the 2024 Cowboys. A side effect, however, could be. What happens when a coach is left dangling on a one-year contract when an extension was once the plan? Do players work harder in support of him? Or do they down-deep know that he's not the ultimate judge in the building now, nor, maybe, the ultimate judge long-term?
That latter phenomenon, basically about who is really "in charge,'' used to happen quite a bit at Valley Ranch, the team's previous headquarters. If a veteran player had a problem, he often didn't go to his coach - he sauntered right down the hall and into Jerry Jones' office.
If you believe in "chain of command,'' that's not good.
And the lame-duck thing? This has happened before. Jason Garrett in 2014 and in 2019 entered seasons on final contractual years. The Cowboys went 12-4 and made the divisional round in '14; that earned Garrett a five-year extension. They went 8-8 in 2019.
And Jason Garrett was gone.
