Mike McCarthy deserves a lot of credit for keeping……
Mike McCarthy is doing well in Dallas, despite the blunder against the Bills.
The beginning of Mike McCarthy’s tenure as the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys was anything but auspicious. In 2020, the NFL was on lockdown due to the pandemic, so McCarthy didn’t get to meet with the team until August. Everything was done virtually, and then quarterback Dak Prescott went down with an ankle injury at the end of the season, leading the Cowboys to a 6-10 record and missing the playoffs again for the second year in a row.
When the 2021 season arrived, McCarthy finally got his chance to show off the skills he had developed during his time in Green Bay, where he led the Packers to a Super Bowl-winning season in 2010 (12-5). The Cowboys finished the season 12-5, but they didn’t win a single regular-season game until the first round, when they lost at home to the 49ers. In that game, quarterback Cooper Rush replaced ailing quarterback Brett Hundley.
McCarthy’s finest work in Dallas may have come in 2022, when Prescott broke his thumb in the Cowboys’ season opener against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Despite the injury, McCarthy held the team together as the Cowboys went 4-1 in Rush’s absence. It’s hard to ignore how impossible it is to go 4-1 without your starting quarterback, and the fact that left guard Tyron Smith only played in four games didn’t make matters any easier. The Cowboys went 12-5 that season and ended Tom Brady’s career on the road, only to lose to the 49ers a week later.
The Cowboys had a high draft pick in the first round of this year’s draft, DeMarvion Overstreet, but he went down with a torn ACL in the first week of training camp. Before the Cowboys’ Week 3 game against the Arizona Cardinals, fellow first-round pick, Trevon Diggs, went down with a season-ending knee injury. The Cowboys are 10-4 and have an outside chance at the NFC East championship, though it’s unlikely. Dallas has made the playoffs for the third year in a row for the first time since going six in a row from 1991 to 1996.
Of course, making the Cowboys contenders in the NFC every season is great because the bottom line is to give yourself a chance by making the postseason. However, McCarthy has to take the next step and get the Cowboys past the second round of the playoffs, something they haven’t done since their last Super Bowl campaign in 1995. So, there’s still work to be done on McCarthy’s part because it’s about winning titles in Dallas, but the job he’s done so far should be respected, especially with some of the obstacles he’s been dealt with.
