Cowboys Coach Mike McCarthy: NFL Schedule Negative 'Impact' On 1 Key Decision

Dallas Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy took a jab at the adjusted, expanded NFL schedule, hinting at the impact it has on the team's offensive line.

Mike McCarthy seems to be wondering why the NFL couldn't let well enough be. The Dallas Cowboys head coach took a subtle jab at the league's recently adjusted schedule, one that added a 17th game to a regular season slate that capped off at 16 for over four decades.

“I think the 17th game impact is real," McCarthy declared during the Cowboys' organized team activities this week. "I have felt it with our team."

McCarthy believes that the Cowboys' offensive line has been particularly affected: Dallas has one of the longest-lasting blocking groupings in the league, but several members (for instance, Tyron Smith) have missed significant time due to injuries.

“History will tell you continuity factors into your wins and losses,'' McCarthy said. "You look at the history of five offensive linemen lining up and starting every game of a season on the win total ... it’s a significant number.”

Despite losing major names for significant stretches, the Cowboys had two blockers (Zack Martin and Tyler Smith) started in all 17 games last season. To McCarthy's point, however, the best teams found a way to keep their offensive protectors healthy: last year's Super Bowl combatants from Kansas City and Philadelphia, for example, each had three blockers start all 17. 

The addition of a 17th game to the schedule (eliminating one preseason game in the process) is part of an evolving NFL slate as the league has continued to strengthen its stranglehold on the American imagination. Other adjustments include an increased prescience on holidays and expanding flexible scheduling policies to national slates on Monday and Thursday nights. Some even believe that the addition of an 18th game to the schedule is inevitable. 

Despite McCarthy's apparent issues with the extra game, it doesn't seem to have thrown the Cowboys too far out of sync in the first two years of its enacting; Dallas' 24 regular-season wins over the past couple are most in the NFC and tied with Buffalo for second-best in the NFL entirely. And in a positive sense, maybe all of this explains what Dallas is doing in its O-line right now at OTAs and then minicamp, with "position flex'' being emphasized. Tyler Smith has been locked in at left tackle and Tyron Smith at right tackle as the Cowboys look at all combinations ... maybe all the better to get them through 17 games.

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Geoff Magliocchetti is on Twitter @GeoffJMags

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