Dallas Cowboys’ Mike McCarthy has come down with a case of the ‘Jason Garretts’

By this time next year Mike McCarthy could be unemployed, retired, or preparing to coach the Dallas Cowboys for a sixth season under a new contract.

All three are equally plausible for a coach whose record with the team says his contract should be extended rather than let simply run out. But, this is the Cowboys, where “All In” doesn’t mean what “All In” implies.

Of the current 32 NFL head coaches, few find themselves in a more peculiar spot more than McCarthy. He won’t come out and say it, because he’s too smart for that, but he has more than earned the right to say that his work and performance is not only been devalued, but diminished and taken for granted.

On a conference call with the local media on Monday, I asked McCarthy a question about developing young receivers so they would not have to rely so heavily on the newly signed CeeDee Lamb “into December and January.”

“We keep talking about playoffs and things like that, but I don’t know when the hell it became easy to win 12 games in a season. So we really got to get back to winning week in and week out,” he said.

He was waiting to say that. It’s a completely fair response. The fan base, and some of us media horde that covers this team, too, has overlooked those 12 wins in a season.

McCarthy has come down with a slight case of the Jason Garretts.

In 2019, the Cowboys let Garrett coach out the final year of his contract as a “Show us something more.” He had been the head coach of the team for eight-plus seasons, led the team to the playoffs three times, and won two postseason games in his tenure.

He built a competitive team that was always “around it.” The Cowboys routinely played relevant games into the final week of the season under Garrett.

Hiring McCarthy to replace Garrett has proven to be the correct decision. Garrett pushed the Cowboys out of the malaise days of Uncle Wade Phillips to become a consistently competitive team. McCarthy “advanced the ball.”

The Cowboys are 42-25 in his tenure. They have finished 12-5 with playoff appearances in each of the last three years. We have not seen stats like this since the days of Jimmy Johnson.

These records should be worth something, but around here they are worth nothing because we have no memory of the Dave Campo era. This is also symptomatic of North America pro sports, where regular season accomplishments are degraded, and usually mocked.

Under McCarthy, the Cowboys look increasingly like his teams with the Green Bay Packers. He is certainly guilty of some in-game decisions that make you want to throw your remote control into the Trinity River, but overall this is a well coached team that wins.

We have now arrived to the point in the McCarthy discussion about the playoffs; 1-3 with two of the losses coming at home doesn’t look great on the LinkedIn profile. That playoff loss to the Green Bay Packers in January left a lasting impression on the front office.

It’s one thing to lose, and it is quite another to get historically embarrassed in your own building.

If Cowboys owner Jerry Jones decides not to give McCarthy a new contract, the question becomes whom will he find that’s any better. Former New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick is a free agent; he may have had control over personnel decisions in his long tenure in New England, which is usually a “No” from the owner/GM here.

Belichick is also no different than any other head coach who is convinced they can easily manipulate Jerry into his line of thinking.

Belichick also has to manage the perception that the root of the success in New England was more a result of quarterback Tom Brady. Belichick is currently on the media/football analyst tour doing his best to change the reputation that he is a miserable, no-fun curmudgeon.

During the offseason, the Atlanta Falcons passed on Belichick in favor of Raheem Morris. Belichick is 72, and while he may want to be a head coach again, it may not be his choice. His time as “NFL Head Coach” may have passed.

McCarthy will turn 61 this fall, and there is nothing to indicate that he wants to go anywhere. By now, he understands the job, and the specifics of working for Jerry Jones that don’t come up during the job interview.

McCarthy has done a good job, and three straight 12-win seasons should mean something more than an empty “All In.”