Signs seemed to point toward the Dallas Cowboys retaining Mike McCarthy as their head coach for 2025 after owner and general manager Jerry Jones profusely praised him after their Week 18 finale against the Washington Commanders.
However, McCarthy’s and Jones’ conversations regarding the head coach’s future in Dallas broke down on Monday as the two sides decided to part ways. That surprised Cowboys Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback and ESPN NFL analyst Troy Aikman, which leads him to believe there isn’t a real plan in Dallas. He has a point. If the Cowboys were always going to part with McCarthy, why wait a whole week after their season ended and fall behind on interviewing potential candidates? Jones’ management of the franchise in recent years has removed some of the shine from the allure of being the head coach of the Cowboys in the eyes of Aikman.
“Well, I thought Mike McCarthy would be the head coach, so this is a bit of a surprise for me today that he’s not going to be,” Aikman said on “Monday Night Countdown” pregame on ESPN, via Awful Announcing. “It suggests that there’s not a real plan. The fact that they haven’t had the opportunity to interview a Ben Johnson and some of these others, Aaron Glenn. … Kellen Moore being a candidate seems logical to me: a guy who has familiarity with the building. He worked obviously with the Cowboys and with Jerry Jones. In fact when Mike McCarthy got the job, it was told to Mike that Kellen would be the offensive coordinator, so that’s how much the Jones family thinks of him. Beyond that, it’s hard to imagine. As as a coveted job, I don’t know that that’s accurate.”
Of course, no team in the entire league is covered more closely than Dallas, but Aikman doesn’t see Dallas as a place where a head coach can run the show on his own terms anymore. That’s why he doesn’t think Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell, who has led his team out of the NFL basement to an NFC title game appearance in 2023 plus the top seed in the NFC in 2024, would have succeeded with the Cowboys.
“I do think the Cowboys are a high-profile team, and whoever is head coach of that team is certainly going to draw a lot of attention. I think most football people that take over as head coach want to do it on their terms. That’s hard to do,” Aikman continued to say. If you take a Dan Campbell for instance, if he’s with the Dallas Cowboys? It’s hard to imagine that he is, and it’s hard to imagine a lot of coaches might be. I love the Dallas Cowboys. I played there for 12 years. I wish them well, but to say that it’s a coveted job, I’m not sure I would necessarily agree with that.”
The Cowboys have spent an NFL-low $20.47 million in free agency since the end of last year’s Super Bowl, per OverTheCap.com, and that lack of investment in their roster outside of the draft hampered Dallas greatly once the injury bug hit. The team’s depth was severely lacking as the Cowboys stumbled to a 7-10 record in 2024 in an injury-plagued campaign. Between Aikman believing Jones refused to invest in McCarthy with a contract longer than two years and that lack of free agency spending, he doesn’t see Dallas empowering its head coaches. In fact, Aikman hasn’t seen Jones truly empower a head coach to have a say in personnel decisions since his Pro Football Hall of Fame head coach Jimmy Johnson’s time with the team ended following back-to-back Super Bowl wins in 1992 and 1993.
“I don’t think they would have spent the four days if there was not a thought that [McCarthy] was going to continue as head coach. There was something in those conversations I’ve been led to believe that could have been the length of a contract,” Aikman said. “Never got into the actual terms of what the money was going to be, but if the contract was going to be a two-year deal vs. a five-year deal, was that a no go for Mike McCarthy? Or where does it start? Somewhere along the lines, what looked like was going to be conversation that was going to secure Mike for a deal didn’t happen. … I think coaching matters in the NFL. I think we would all agree coaching matters, players matter. You have to have both, but just bringing in someone, no matter how qualified they might be, I’ll reiterate I think Mike McCarthy is an outstanding football coach. He’s proven that in this league. … You also have to empower that head coach. That has been what has been missing in Dallas since Jimmy Johnson walked out the door.”
So who might consider being McCarthy’s successor in Dallas? Here is CBS Sports’ look at the head-coaching candidates for the Cowboys’ late-starting search.
Go to Source
Author: Garrett Podell
January 13, 2025 | 9:35 pm
