Dallas Cowboys’ Mike McCarthy Still On Hot Seat Entering Postseason
The Dallas Cowboys may end the 2023 regular season with a surprising division title, but it doesn’t mean that Mike McCarthy’s job is safe for 2024.
As reported by ESPN’s Adam Schefter leading into the Cowboys’ regular season finale against the Washington Commanders, the fourth-year head coach’s job will hinge on how the team ends their season in the playoffs.
“If the Cowboys play well in the postseason,” Schefter wrote, “McCarthy would have an excellent chance to keep his job. But if they struggle and end the season with an embarrassing loss, as has happened in each of the past two years, then some say that change could come to Dallas.”
This comes just weeks after it was reported that McCarthy could be in line for a contract extension following Dallas’ five-game win streak, which culminated with a 33-13 beatdown of the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 14.
Via Ian Rapoport of NFL Network:
“That’ll have a course that seeks its own time frame,” said owner Jerry Jones back in December. “I don’t do anything of that sort until the season is over.”
If the Cowboys win this weekend over the Commanders — they enter as -13-point favorites — they’ll win the NFC East despite the fact that the Eagles started out the season 5-0 and as the last remaining undefeated team in the NFL.
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But the division title will be all for naught if Dallas continues its recent history of coming up drastically short in the postseason. It’s no secret that the Cowboys have failed to advance to a conference championship game since the 1995 season. Making matters even worse is that the Cowboys have gone 5-12 in playoff games since the 1996 season, with five of those losses coming at home and two of those losses coming as the No. 1 seed in the NFC.
Furthermore, Dallas has suffered two consecutive losses to the San Francisco 49ers in the playoffs — once as a division winner with home-field advantage back in 2021 and once again in 2022 in the divisional round — and a third loss to the Niners or another elite NFC team before the conference championship would likely spell the end for McCarthy.
McCarthy’s 41 wins with Dallas are actually the most of any Cowboys coach in franchise history through their first four seasons and Dallas has the second-most victories — behind the Kansas City Chiefs — in the NFL since the 2021 season.