With Mike McCarthy returning, let’s examine the main reasons his job was in question

Change for the sake of change is a dangerous game. Even when the existing situation has run its course, the smarter decision is often to stick with it a little longer, if an adequate upgrade isn’t on the horizon.

That’s important context to the situation with Mike McCarthy.

How did things reach this point? What led to people holding their breath, awaiting word from Dallas headquarters? Why did owner and GM Jerry Jones have to release a statement to confirm that his head coach, who still has another year left on his contract, will be back to complete it?

Let’s examine the reasons.

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1. The coaching options available

McCarthy is a good football coach who has led the Cowboys to three consecutive 12-win seasons, including in 2022 when Dak Prescott missed five games and led the NFL in interceptions. Bringing back McCarthy isn’t the same as all of those years in the back half of the Jason Garrett era, when Jones ran it back with Garrett despite there being no history of success or future promise.

A big part of the outrage on another year of McCarthy is the combination of his postseason underachievement and the robust market of head coaches getting interviews for work this winter. Some years, there are maybe one or two targets. Other years, big names are available but the right style isn’t. Sometimes the style is there but the experience isn’t.

This cycle is different. A proven offensive coach with a solid resume that includes results at the NFL and collegiate level? Jim Harbaugh is there. Interested in the flavor of the NFL these days, a young offensive mind? Ben Johnson and Bobby Slowik are available. A proven defensive coach in his prime, two years removed from Coach of the Year honors? Mike Vrabel is around. Heck, want to bring in arguably the greatest coach of all time? Bill Belichick is interviewing for jobs.

This year wasn’t the one-name pipe dream of Sean Payton, as was the chatter a couple of years ago. This time, the Cowboys would have certainly landed an option that — in some way — would have injected fresh hope.

Instead, the Cowboys are running it back with McCarthy.

After 24 seasons and six Super Bowl titles with the Patriots, Bill Belichick is available this coaching cycle. (Bob DeChiara / USA Today)

2. The playoff loss

We could lump it all together and call it postseason failure but the loss Sunday to the Green Bay Packers was so abhorrent that it deserves its own category. If McCarthy’s Cowboys lost to the Detroit Lions in the divisional round, the intensity of the dialogue would be different. If they lost to the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC title game, there would be no question about McCarthy returning for Year 5.

The overall vibe following the game was disbelief. Front-office members often provide a sheltered version of the truth when asked about big decisions but when Jones said Sunday night that he was stunned and hadn’t really thought about future decisions, it was believable. He genuinely looked and sounded like a man in shock.

The loss to the Packers was a colossal failure at every level. The team was about as healthy as it could hope for entering the playoffs. The offense was putrid, the defense uninspired and special teams had its mistakes. A team that hadn’t lost at home in two seasons — its last loss coming in Week 1 of the 2022 season to the greatest quarterback ever — fell to a first-year starter making his postseason debut. It was the first time since the NFL went to the new format that the seventh seed beat the second seed. For the second time in three years, the Cowboys were the only home team to lose on wild-card weekend.

When you add up those things, whatever goodwill the head coach has built up with regular-season success vanishes quickly and every option is on the table.

3. A higher bar

When McCarthy was hired, the job description was clear: Deep playoff runs are the expectation and the Super Bowl is the standard.

McCarthy inherited a solid team with a franchise quarterback that was perpetually living on the edge with 8-8 seasons and early playoff exits under the previous regime. This was not Bill Parcells taking over in 2003, overhauling three consecutive 5-11 seasons to build it from the ground up. This was a team on the cusp and McCarthy was a coach with championship pedigree.

McCarthy only had one Super Bowl ring during his 13-season run in Green Bay but he had four NFC Championship Game appearances, which is four more than the Cowboys had in the past 28 years. Barring health issues on the roster, every year that McCarthy doesn’t reach the conference final is a year when it’s fair game to question if he received a passing grade for that season.

Putting 2020 aside, McCarthy is 0-3 in successful seasons in Dallas.

The three consecutive 12-win seasons are great, and yes, it hasn’t been done in Dallas since the glory days of the ’90s. It just doesn’t matter. The New York Giants won 10 games in 2007 and nine games in 2011, but hoisted the Lombardi Trophy at the end of those seasons. Regular-season success, no matter what it looks like and how many division titles it includes, is not the bar and it’s not why McCarthy was brought in to coach the Cowboys.

4. No shining moment

What was the Cowboys’ big win this season?

The thrashing of the Philadelphia Eagles at AT&T Stadium in early December looked good at the time. In retrospect, it was just the Eagles spiraling toward a crash ending. Beating the Lions was solid, but it was a home win against a team that had wrapped up its division and was playing a bit loose, going for two (which led to the controversial ending) at the end of regulation when an extra point would have extended the game.

Aside from that, the Cowboys came up short — in most cases, way short — when they had an opportunity to make a statement. They didn’t even belong on the same field as the 49ers in October. The Bills ran them out of Highmark Stadium in Week 15. They failed in the clutch in Miami. The Packers embarrassed them at home.

In 2022, McCarthy could hang his hat on the 4-1 stretch without Prescott or sending Tom Brady into retirement in the playoffs. Despite all of the individual accolades, there was nothing to show for this season.

All of the aforementioned reasons to question McCarthy read like an indictment against him and reasons to not bring him back to finish his deal. It wouldn’t have been surprising if the Cowboys went in another direction, but they chose not to. What does mean for next season?

Only four times in NFL history has a coach won a Super Bowl in his first year with a new team. Three of those coaches had Hall of Fame quarterbacks (Johnny Unitas, Joe Montana and Peyton Manning). Despite the litany of options on the market, it’s conceivable why Jones felt a fifth year with McCarthy — the year he won the Super Bowl in Green Bay — was the best option for the 2024 season.

After winning the division in 2023 and earning a first-place schedule in 2024, the Cowboys will have plenty of opportunities to get a few of those big wins. The Eagles, Lions, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Baltimore Ravens, Cincinnati Bengals and Houston Texans are among the teams that will visit AT&T Stadium next season. The Cowboys will face the 49ers, Eagles, Pittsburgh Steelers and Cleveland Browns on the road.

That schedule won’t be a walk in the park but the exact fallout of the regular season hardly matters. The Cowboys have to do enough to get into the playoffs, and string together their first deep run in nearly three decades. If that doesn’t happen next season, McCarthy’s time in Dallas will end.

(Top photo of Mike McCarthy: Ron Jenkins / Getty Images)