Dallas Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy undergoes successful surgery for acute appendicitis

Dallas Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy underwent successful surgery for acute appendicitis on Wednesday.

McCarthy, who missed practice after experiencing abdominal pain after arriving to The Star early in the morning, was expected to be released late Wednesday.

The team said McCarthy anticipates coaching on Sunday night when the Cowboys (9-3) host the Philadelphia Eagles (10-2) in a 7:20 p.m. showdown for first place in the NFC East.

But it was not a good start to the week for the Cowboys, who have won six of the last seven games, including four straight. And certainly not a good morning for McCarthy.

Cornerback Jourdan Lewis said it was a shock that McCarthy wasn’t at the team meeting this morning and an initial downer when special teams coach John Fassel told the Cowboys about his situation.

“We were a roll man and then you know, our leader you know, gotta have a surgery,” Lewis said. “So I mean, I know he’ll get back healthy, but it’s kind of like a downer. Because like I said, we’ve been on a roll. Just to have him to start the week, the month off like that.

“[Coach Fassel] said it best. We just got to make sure that we show that we’ve been working and make sure that he feels our energy, even when he’s not here. But it was a shock.”

The Cowboys’ three coordinators will run practice until McCarthy returns.

Defensive coordinator Dan Quinn handled McCarthy’s duties at his previously scheduled press conference on Wednesday. And offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer will do the same on Thursday.

Quinn arrived at the Star early Wednesday morning with McCarthy. Quinn said the head coach didn’t look good.

He complained of stomach pain and initially tried to fight through it, Quinn said.

“I saw him early this morning,” Quinn said. “He just didn’t look good. He said man, ‘I’m hurting’. Went down to see the doc and it turned out to be more than just a stomach bug. Thankfully, he got it worked on quickly and get him back here rocking soon.”

The players were curious about McCarthy’s absence from the team meeting and were informed of the situation before practice.

All were relieved that it was caught early.

“It was stomach pain. He’s like, ‘Ah, I don’t feel good, you know?’,” Quinn said. “So when something’s wrong, you don’t feel right. So he’s an early riser so when you see him there, we kinda pulled up at the same time, walked in together so he was going right over to see Jim and thankfully did right there. As tough as he is, like, ‘I’ll fight through it,’ and then next thing you know you’re like, ‘This is not good.’ Glad he went, got squared away. Good news for him, he’s a fast healer. So he’s been through them before so we certainly expect him back quickly, getting his procedure done today.”

Quarterback Dak Prescott had the same mindset

He ran into McCarthy when he came about 6 am and he was walking out with head athletic trainer Jim Maurer.

Prescott initially didn’t think anything of it when his coach told he had a stomach ache because Prescott dealt with a stomach virus last weekend.

“He said, ‘I think I got what you got’,” Prescott recalled. “I said ‘that’s not fun’.”

Prescott he found a few hours later that it was something a little more serious.

“I was like, ‘Go get some medicine be good by the end of the day or tomorrow’,” Prescott said. “Probably an hour before it came out publicly, I found out in the quarterbacks room up and understood that he was going straight into into surgery. It sucks for him. He’s going to be upset because it other things outside of the game.”

Quinn and the Cowboys expect McCarthy to be ready for the Eagles game Sunday.

“You think that tough Irishman is gonna miss this game? We certainly expect him to be rocking by game day,” Quinn said.

Said Prescott: “His plan is still call the game. He plans to be on the sideline. I don’t know if that is going to happen. But I don’t think it’s going to be that big of a deal. For us, it’s about making sure we handle business and take stress off his plate. But he is going to call me cussing.”

Quinn credited McCarthy for being organized and having a schedule and plan in place so they could easily step in and take over in his absence.

It was Quinn who replaced McCarthy as head coach in 2020 when he had to miss a game against the New Orleans Saints due to COVID-19.

“You always have to have a contingency plan,” Quinn said. “Mike is great about that. I think we all learned a lot a few years back in COVID. Coach down, player down, how does that go? He’s done a fantastic job of mapping, not just him but me, anybody else who could be in that same spot to say hey, this is the next step and this is how we go. We’re super organized and ready for that.

“We’ll hold it down for practices. Knowing him, he’ll be online tonight wanting to go through red zone and third down and everything else. We expect him to be rocking by game day.”

The biggest difference for McCarthy and the Cowboys if he is forced to miss a game is that he is now the team’s play caller, unlike in 2020 when he was simply the walk around head coach and the-fired Kellen Moore was the offensive coordinator.

A play caller not only calls the plays on game day but he stills the game plan and the script in practice.

Schottenheimer will handle those duties if McCarthy is unavailable.