The Dallas Cowboys will wrap up a disappointing season on Sunday and then team owner Jerry Jones will have to make a decision regarding the coaching staff.
DALLAS — No matter what the final score reads for the Dallas Cowboys in Sunday’s Week 18 finale, they will finish the season with a losing record for the first time since the 2020 campaign. Sitting at 7-9 with one game remaining on the docket, the next course of action after the lackluster year will be determining the fate of the coaching staff.
That decision will fall to Jerry Jones, who was reluctant on Tuesday to show his hand one way or the other in regards to the status of head coach Mike McCarthy.
With the new year just hours away from ringing in, Cowboys owner, president, and general manager Jones made his weekly visit on the Shan & RJ show on Audacy’s 105.3 The Fan on Tuesday to discuss an arduous season after an embarrassing blowout loss in Week 17 which saw Philadelphia claim the NFC East in emphatic fashion over their rivals from Dallas.
The 41-7 loss to the Eagles came after the Cowboys had won four games in their last five tries to begin to cool the hot seat for McCarthy. However, Jones isn’t putting himself on the clock to make a decision about the coach.
“I’m not under any unusual timeframe at all,” Jones said, just days before Dallas is set to finish up a season out of the playoffs after Jones had stated a goal of Super Bowl or bust.
“What I’m not going to do this morning is to get into any indication one way or the other that I’m not interested in having [McCarthy] back,” the team owner continued. “I don’t want that to be the case at all. We got this game ahead of us, but I’ll assure you I’ve been for weeks thinking about how we’ll go forward after this season.”
A week after talking up McCarthy and relaying how proud he has been of the coaching staff during a trying season, Jones doubled down on the sentiment without offering any assurances that McCarthy will keep his job.
“I feel good about Mike McCarthy,” Jones said. “The main thing is, I like the job that he’s done, it’s unfortunate we’ve had the year that we’ve had, but I feel good about Mike.”
How much Jones likes Mike will be decided in the coming weeks. But it is at least noteworthy that Jones entered the season with McCarthy in the final year of his contract and now leaves the year with Dallas out of the playoffs for the first time in four years after a run of three consecutive 12-win seasons.
With the loss to Philadelphia, the Cowboys clinched their first losing season since McCarthy’s first season when they went 6-10 in 2020. The season also included Dallas’ longest losing streak of five games since they lost seven in a row during the 2015 season.
There is a throughput in each of those years with Dallas losing their starting quarterback to season-ending injuries. Like 2020, McCarthy has coached this year without franchise QB Dak Prescott following a Week 9 hamstring injury that ended his year.
The injuries have been a sticking point for Jones, who still believes in the core of his team and that they can come back strong next season with better health.
“When I look at where we are at our talent level, I feel real good that we’ve got the nucleus of a team that can compete.” Jones said, before making his pitch for the future with the return of Prescott. “I think our fans can look forward to the kinds of things that a healthy Prescott, a protected Prescott, does to have the complimentary football that [McCarthy] talks about.”
The Cowboys will finish up their season with a Week 18 clash against the surprising Washington Commanders who snatched former Dallas defensive coordinator Dan Quinn to be their head coach and then saw him lead Washington to the playoffs for the first time since 2020.
Kickoff for the finale is set for noon at AT&T Stadium in what could be McCarthy’s final game at the helm, but Jones remains mum on that decision.
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