ARLINGTON — The craziest coaching idea I ever heard during my time around the Cowboys was the rumor that the club was about to replace Jimmy Johnson with his old rival, Barry Switzer. It seemed the very height of reckless behavior.
It happened.
I would have put last week’s speculation that Jerry Jones should go out and get 71-year-old Bill Belichick to replace Mike McCarthy as No. 2 on the crazy list. And now?
It should happen. It has to happen.
Cowboys fans were ready Sunday for the beginning of a postseason march to the Super Bowl or at least the team’s first NFC championship game in 28 years. Instead, they watched in horror — at least the ones that weren‘t shouting “Go Pack Go” — as McCarthy turned in his worst coaching performance since whatever led Green Bay to fire him back in 2018.
If the Packers’ stunning 48-32 victory was not McCarthy’s last game as Cowboys head coach, then Jones is strictly kidding himself these days, hanging onto delusional regular-season success that hasn’t translated to anything meaningful since Johnson and the Triplets brought him three Lombardi Trophies.
If Belichick has not replaced McCarthy by the end of the week, then all the critics who say the Jones family cares about nothing but its annual No. 1 ranking in Forbes as the most valuable franchise should have a field day. You have to remember why McCarthy is here in the first place. Jason Garrett could produce the occasional NFC East title. He had only one losing season in nine years as head coach although he threw in a lot of 8-8’s. But Garrett’s playoff record was 2-3 and his shining moment was punctured by the “Dez Caught It” anti-climax in Green Bay in 2014.
McCarthy’s playoff teams here are 1-3. The sole victory was over a downtrodden Tampa Bay team, elevated to playoff status by the mere presence of 45-year-old Tom Brady. Other than that, some version of Mike Shanahan coaching tree teams — whether it was Kyle in San Francisco or Matt LaFleur in Green Bay — has undressed the Cowboys and ended their seasons prematurely for three years.
In 2021, the Cowboys had the No. 1 scoring team in the league but were the only one of six home teams to lose on wild card weekend. At least that was against the 49ers. This year the Cowboys were the first home squad to lose again. Hosting a team with an average defense that was 2-5 back in October, the Cowboys trailed by 32 points early in the fourth quarter.
“We picked the wrong day to have a bad day,” said McCarthy, who was uncommonly brief in taking questions after this inexplicable loss. When I raised the question of his job status, McCarthy said only that he had a lot of players who were hurting and that he had not thought of anything beyond the outcome of the game.
He will soon enough. And rest assured Jones, who said Sunday he had not even considered the coaching situation after the game, will do the same. Jerry likes to believe that the club revenues, the incredible TV ratings that the star on the helmet generates despite a lost generation of fans and the magical stadium give his team a leg up on the competition.
So use it. The only franchise that knows it can’t be outbid for Belichick’s services is the Cowboys. Jones turns 82 next season, and Belichick will be 72 before the draft. If you think there will be a butting of heads when a couple of ancient but powerful warriors work together, you’re right, but what difference does that make?
Belichick’s recent New England teams stunk, but that means he made some bad draft and roster decisions in the wake of Brady’s exit. The Cowboys have players, overrated and overpaid as some of them may be. This is not a total rebuild waiting to happen. No matter what you think of Sunday’s performance, teams don’t get to 12-5 three years running without talent.
With Belichick, a Cowboys playoff team would never embarrass itself the way this one did. I’m thinking of the ’98 home playoff loss to Arizona, a 20-7 defeat when the Triplets were nearing the end, as the most recent playoff embarrassment, but it pales compared with Sunday’s no-show.
The Packers, with the youngest playoff roster and a quarterback in his first season as a starter, scored the first 27 points Sunday. Jordan Love is deserving of an enormous amount of credit for that. One would never guess that he’s the inexperienced kid and that Dak Prescott is the $40 million-a-year man who turns 31 in July.
Prescott, Dan Quinn, even CeeDee Lamb — there’s plenty of blame to go around. Dak even said that speculation about McCarthy‘s status might be part of the business, “but in that case there should be (speculation) about me as well.”
The difference is it costs about $60 million on the cap to give up on a quarterback who led the NFL in touchdown passes. McCarthy has one year remaining on his contract. He’s a lame duck for 2024 at best.
McCarthy won a Super Bowl in this stadium 13 years ago. He hasn’t sniffed an NFC title game with Dallas. A team that had nothing to do but win two home games, extend a 16-game streak here to end at least one drought, was ousted in the worst way Sunday.
The same must apply to McCarthy now. Jerry loves the big adventure. Belichick finishing his head coaching career on the Cowboys’ sideline would be the biggest story of the NFL offseason.
If only Jerry has a willingness to look at the truth and the courage to make it happen.