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Five days later, thoughts on Mike McCarthy and where I went wrong again: Cowboys riffing
By Bob Sturm Jan 21, 2022
It’s been a long week around here.
Cowboys fans are either sad, numb or just mad that they fell for it again. Some have sworn — like their current head coach who they might like gone — that they have very little interest in watching this weekend’s playoff games because it will remind them of another underachievement of a season. It was two weeks ago when we hashed out the definition of a successful season. I said that the wild-card game is the definition of a “must-win” from more than the obvious idea of keeping a season going, but rather to keep hope alive that the Cowboys are even in the right galaxy. Let’s review that from Jan. 7:
And when they do, they must figure out a way to win it. Must-win. Why would you call it a must-win? Because if you lose that game, the wheels of the entire operation will come off all over again.
Every single person who didn’t want coach Mike McCarthy hired here will rush to a platform of their choosing to repeat how they told us so. They will want him fired and they will want to send him back to his football barn. It won’t matter if there is a good rational decision and thought process. They managed to heal after a crazy 2020, but the injuries justified the silliness. But for this team to be virtually healthy and in the driver’s seat and then in November it surrendered most chances at the top seed and then in January ended up in a mid-level seeding and then lost back-to-back home games ..?
Trust me, he doesn’t want to deal with that, and that will be a top discussion point.
What McCarthy doesn’t get will go directly at Dak Prescott.
You know the drill. Heavy is the head that wears the crown of the biggest contract guarantee in NFL history and then authors a slump that basically lasted the entire second half of the season after teasing the MVP discussion in October. Every Prescott doubter from the Tony Romo faction on will come running with torches to confirm all their priors and this proves that he was propped up by the media and was never very good. The Cowboys will never win with him as QB and they told us so.
No offense, but as someone who does this for a living, allow me to say that I would love to take a six- to eight-month vacation rather than hear that McCarthy and Prescott both need to go for the entire spring and summer. It will be absolutely exhausting, so even though I don’t ever cheer for outcomes, I would like to avoid a one-and-done this year because it will promote poor work conditions for guys like me.
In short, losing in the wild-card round would be a failure of a 2021 season.
So, about that offseason of McCarthy and Prescott facing the music and yours truly certainly not having 6-8 months of vacation time available …
Here we are again at this familiar spot. It allows for introspection which leads to anger that you fell for it all over again. Four minutes before kickoff, I got that familiar sinking feeling. I am sure many of us did. I published out a not-so-cryptic tweet that would summarize my own declining optimism.
I started believing that morning again that they had to start fast or face a long offseason — but they traditionally never do in spots like this. They had to take control of the game early, but of course, they often do exactly the opposite and did that against the 49ers. They finished second in every early battle and dug a gigantic hole. We have seen this game countless times in what can only be called a home-field disadvantage. We have seen them appear nervous and tentative enough times to know that odds were that it would happen again unless this new head coach had authentically changed their wiring. The slow start would then make the entire full stadium follow them down the path of “here we go again” and anxiety would rule the day with a heaping helping of self-inflicted errors and confusing decisions.
It turned out that they showed up for this showdown in about the exact same disposition as every Jason Garrett team before them. The change that was promised and believed in — certainly by me — was nowhere to be found.
What do I have to say for myself? Well, I had seen McCarthy do it before at his last destination. He took a team that used to look similarly as its own worst enemy for years before his arrival and helped transform them into a team that for quite a few years would laugh at pretenders across the field in January, so I was confident that he could do it again. He would play the gambling game well against coaches who thought he was nuts and gain a small advantage in situations like this. His team would welcome a physical street fight. Of course, as his team got older, it started to lose those showdowns, so it is reasonable to wonder if my feelings were factoring in landmark wins against these same Cowboys in 2014 and 2016 and not enough about all of the McCarthy-lost battles around it.
But, maybe that Mike McCarthy doesn’t live here anymore. Because for the next three hours we saw more of the same from this team, this coaching staff, and this entire McCarthy operation. After a few more strategic wrong turns that would become the story of the weekend around the league, he did nothing but cement his poor reputation again as a guy who may not have the same velocity in his fastball as he once did.
Perhaps I need to understand that. Trust me, I don’t like betting on someone to turn this ocean-liner of an organization around and to be dead wrong. That makes me an accessory to the stupidity. And there was plenty of that Sunday. I raise my hand and accept my personal foul.
Now, I would like to have a word with McCarthy.
You see, the whole reason I loved the hire is that it represented a new day. It showed me that like clockwork, there is a time in the Cowboys circle of absurdity that we get to a spot in the story where the Jones family is ready to give the reins over a bit to an established coach. As you may recall, I likened this hire to that of Bill Parcells in late 2002/early 2003. Dave Campo and Chan Gailey were very textbook hires by Jerry Jones and they were compliant and courteous to all of the traps and trimmings of the football circus. So, in this exercise, after four years of Wade Phillips and nearly a decade of Jason Garrett, here we were again with the Jones’ upset at how this needed another course-correction by bringing in an outsider with a ring to steer Dallas back to contention.
I honestly didn’t really think they would ever do that again — hire a coach who could have power over the team and the field. The voice in my head is they only put up with Parcells and his strong and stubborn opinions because they needed a stadium vote. They had to convince the skeptics that they had found the righteous path of winning football games as the one and only priority while quietly getting everyone to approve the largest and most over-the-top stadium in history.
But this one is perhaps the best of both worlds for the Jones family because they quieted those of us who believed they needed to hire a Parcells-like coach, but apparently one who is not nearly as strong and stubborn as Big Bill. Instead, McCarthy seems compliant to a fault in his new location. He appears happy to lend his name, image and likeness to the operation without really putting his foot down often.
Is the offense running off the tracks by a coordinator who doesn’t fully know the answers? Is the wrong running back playing because he is the comfortable choice? Should we run the trick play here, coach, or is that too risky? Is this a good idea? Is this a bad idea? Does this player need to have the riot act read to him? Does this guy need to be benched?
Listen, I try to always have a measured approach to things. I try not to go off the deep end on football matters because I have to believe in what I say. Often, I have readers mad because I haven’t “gone off” on this coach or this QB like they see other places. I think click-baiting people with fake temper tantrums is not good journalism at any level.
So, I wait. I wait until the coach has a chance to demonstrate what he is all about and where this is headed. But, in doing so, I maybe let too many disconcerting signs slide. So let me air some grievances as I riff today.
• This offense needs to be fixed. It is easy to defend and predictable at all the wrong times. It seldom wins ugly against quality defenses or without all of its pieces in place and healthy. It needed to be fixed two years ago to a certain extent because that is what necessitated a coaching change in the first place. They asked McCarthy to keep Kellen Moore around despite not having any sort of relationship and very quickly the No. 1 selling point of getting a head coach with a long and decorated offensive acumen seemed to be largely useless. He would continuously suggest he doesn’t want to get involved in the offense and undercut Moore, but then we wonder what the point was in the first place? At least tell me you are helping this thing evolve with all of the new concepts that must be implemented, lest the operation looks stale and outdated. Because it does. Play design does not equal a cogent scheme. Right now, Moore has convinced me he has great play designs that are fun and fresh, but they do not fill out a menu with enough schematic solutions.
• This roster has to have real competition for spots rather than the contracts deciding who plays. You cannot have a better RB on the sidelines just because you like the starter more. This league will punish you for it and McCarthy knows this. Can he change it? Maybe not. But, he sure as heck better not quietly go along with the ponderous anti-meritocracy that this GM/owner has allowed for years without a fight or we will accuse McCarthy of being clueless, too. Ezekiel Elliott may be old or he may be hurt (or both). But, to let Tony Pollard stand idly by as the season fades away is just absurdity. Again, if that is the work environment that will not move, then at least send a sign in the media that you are trying to change it. Because the complete compliance of not using Pollard as the offense staggers to a stop is negligent. That also goes for the nonsense of the offensive line rotations for the past two years without explanation.
• The gambling of game day was a welcome addition to the way this team conducts itself, but at a certain point, we have to have some limits. If you aren’t dealing with the offensive scheme or structure — as McCarthy basically admits — then you are the game manager only. You then cannot have this many mistakes at key points. I can trade one for the other, but I cannot have a head coach who keeps his distance from his specialty and then gets the clock/trick play opportunity stuff wrong. The end of the game vs. the 49ers was brutal. The fake punt follow-up with a delay of game was worse. Both in the same hour of television is flat-out indefensible. So, I won’t.
I could go on, but this was merely a riff today.
I assume McCarthy will be back. I could be wrong, but I assume that it would be quite a step off a cliff to fire a 12-win coach. But, after 24 months, I could make quite a list that would suggest McCarthy is not running this thing with the level of authority and ownership that is required. The kind who would just pull the play-sheet away from a struggling coordinator and start calling the plays himself. The kind who would take a veteran out the moment he knows he is not the best player to win this game. The kind who knew tactically how to gain an advantage in a playoff game like that. The kind who can still win a Super Bowl.
He said Wednesday that he knows how to win a championship in this league. I agree. He definitely did once. That is why I didn’t mind vouching for his resumé.
But, that version of Mike McCarthy might be disappointed in this current one. This one seems passive and compliant to what is going on around him. If they paid him to just stand there and give them organizational credibility without doing what he knows needs to be done, I hope it was a lot of money and worth it. Because this is far from good enough.
If McCarthy is back for Year 3, he needs to start inserting his authority and insisting how things need to be for them to get everything out of their roster and organization. Because if he is unwilling to do this at this point of his career, then he isn’t what they need.
And he definitely isn’t Big Bill. Bill was still the same stubborn and strong-willed guy he always was here. So much so that by Year 4, Jerry was pretty sick of him and that led to their demise.
In other words, if the ownership family is still happy with you around here after these two seasons, you might not be what this needs. This thing needs a demanding and stubborn head coach. Not a compliant one who nods at the circus. One who changes it.
Maybe McCarthy isn’t that guy anymore. I am starting to have serious doubts.
