It wasn't a popular move, but for some people, keeping Mike McCarthy was the right choice.
After several days of online speculation following the Cowboys' embarrassing loss at home in the playoffs, the team announced that Mike McCarthy would be staying on for the 2024 season. Naturally, this caused a huge reaction from the fans, many of whom were ready to try in a new direction after the tough loss.
While the frustration over yet another early playoff exit is certainly valid, the decision to actually fire a coach has to be more than just a reaction to such frustration. Everyone wants to see the Cowboys make a deep run in the playoffs and ultimately return to the Super Bowl. There isn't a single soul in the building of this franchise that doesn't understand what the goal is.
But there's also the simple fact that winning the Super Bowl is hard. He is one of just four current head coaches to have won the big game, but Andy Reid, who has two rings, is the only one to have won it multiple times. Bill Belichick is currently unemployed, but he has been elected six times and is clearly an outlier in this field. Still, Belichick has made the playoffs just once in the last four years (0-1 that year), proving just how difficult this can be.
It's not just hard to win the Super Bowl, it's also hard to win in the playoffs. Only five active head coaches have won a postseason championship, six if you include Belichick. That's less than 20% of the league. Notable coaches with postseason losses include Super Bowl champions Mike Tomlin and Doug Pederson, likely Coach of the Year winner Kevin Stefanski, who just eliminated the Cowboys That includes coach Matt LaFleur.
To look at it from another perspective, there are 31 teams that don't win the Super Bowl every season. Typically, about six teams change head coaches at the end of a season, which typically means that each year about 25 teams retain their head coaches without winning a Super Bowl. That's more than 78% of leagues that choose not to change leadership every year.
That doesn't even take into account the team's success or trajectory. You have to go all the way back to the 2017 season to find the last time a team fired a coach after making the playoffs. That was the Titans, who fired Mike Malarkey after going 9-7 for the second straight year and making the playoffs for the first time. The move was a bit of a shock, but it was part of a long and winding story that ultimately led to a rift between Mularkey and his players.
Tennessee replaced Mularkey with Mike Vrabel, and early results looked promising. Vrabel went 41-24 in his first four seasons, making the playoffs three seasons in a row and reaching the conference championship game in 2019. Things didn't go well, however, and Vrabel had just been fired after two consecutive losing seasons.
The last time a team fired a coach after back-to-back playoff appearances was John Fox, whom the Broncos fired after the 2014 season. Fox had a 46-18 record in four seasons with Denver, making the playoffs every year and reaching the Super Bowl once. He won more than 12 games over the past three seasons, but Denver opted to move him along with Peyton Manning to maximize their Super Bowl berth.
The move paid off, and the following year the Broncos won the Super Bowl with Gary Kubiak as head coach. However, Manning's performance declined rapidly that season, and although he was benched in place of Brock Osweiler, he regained the starting role just before the playoffs began. Denver missed the playoffs the following year, Kubiak retired, and the team hasn't even had a winning season (let alone make the playoffs) since then.
Jerry Jones had to consider such a risk last week. McCarthy has yet to make a mark in the playoffs, but most coaches are guilty of the same thing. That's no reason to wipe the slate clean. The success rate for new coaching hires is also very low, and coaches with head coaching experience, especially Belichick and Vrabel, are leaving after a few years.
Not only did McCarthy bring some stability to Dallas, he was the first Cowboys coach since Barry Switzer to make the playoffs three years in a row, but he also had a year in which Dak Prescott had the best season of his career. He will retire in . That happens with McCarthy calling the plays, and Prescott unashamedly expressing his joy at making new play calls.
Retaining McCarthy is not only about retaining a coach who consistently competes in the postseason, it's also about continuing to support a franchise quarterback. Asking Prescott, the longest-tenured starting quarterback in the NFL, to adapt to a new offense for the third time in three years simply isn't a recipe for success. It's especially unwise to do so after Prescott (not to mention CeeDee Lamb and Jake Ferguson) had the best year of his career.
The Cowboys could have found another head coach who would do better in the playoffs, but that's a surprisingly low-probability bet. And for the first time in literally decades, the Cowboys have a coach who can consistently lead them to the playoffs. It's natural for fans to expect more, but they can't play in the Super Bowl unless they make the playoffs first.
The Cowboys have the best chance of achieving their goal by keeping McCarthy until 2024. Like every offseason, Will McCray and the personnel department look to shore up weaknesses on the roster and give McCarthy talented players who can compete for championships.
Retaining the coach doesn't mean the Cowboys won't try to fix what went wrong this past year. It means they're being realistic about the best path forward, even if it doesn't satisfy the fan base at the moment.
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