Mike McCarthy’s critics may be getting a late Christmas gift in Dallas, where the Cowboys coach could be inching towards the door amid a miserable 7-8 campaign.
Now 14 years removed from winning the Super Bowl with the Green Bay Packers, the embattled McCarthy recently hired Tom Brady‘s former agent Don Yee, USA Today has revealed. And that decision has led to questions about McCarthy’s expiring contact and his future in Dallas.
Yee recently negotiated major deals for coach Jim Harbaugh with the Los Angeles Chargers and Sean Payton with the Denver Broncos, but according to the USA Today piece, has yet to meaningfully engage with Cowboys owner Jerry Jones or his son Stephen about McCarthy.
And as USA Today columnist Jarrett Bell posited: ‘McCarthy might opt to bolt and become a coaching free agent.’
McCarthy is 49-33 in regular-season games with the Cowboys, and just 1-3 in the playoffs.
While expressing how proud he was of the team and how they played for McCarthy, Jones still wasn’t ready to address the coach’s contract status – or the lack of a deal after this season.
‘All I can say is what a good job, how good a job he’s doing,’ Jones said. ‘Don´t have thoughts that I would share as to anything about what we do … after we´re through playing this year.’
That will be in ten days.
Nobody was happier to see the report than sports pundit and diehard Cowboys fan, Skip Bayless.
‘PLEASE TAKE ANOTHER JOB, MIKE MCCARTHY,’ Bayless wrote on X.
Having posted that, Bayless expressed some scepticism about the report: ‘Baffled by how any team could be interested in a Mike McCarthy who presided over the Cowboys getting blown out 6 straight times AT HOME starting with last year’s Green Bay Packers playoff game – worst 6-game home stretch in NFL history!’
The Cowboys were officially eliminated from the playoff contention before they kicked off Sunday night.
Still, they then went out and made Jones proud, with a 26-24 victory over the playoff-chasing Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
With all the lingering questions about McCarthy’s future with him being on an expiring contract, and the Cowboys far removed from the possibility of repeating as NFC East champions, they won for the fourth time in their last five games – all without injured franchise quarterback Dak Prescott.
‘Proud of those guys. They wouldn´t give it up out there. So I´m real, real proud of them,’ Jones said. ‘And Mike McCarthy, he just won´t let them not think they´re playing for the Super Bowl out there. He won´t let them do it. So proud of that.’
After three consecutive playoff appearances, the Cowboys were out of contention for a postseason berth with three games to play – the earliest they have knocked out since 2015. That is now two games, next week at the division-leading Philadelphia Eagles (12-3) before the regular-season finale at home against Washington (10-5).
The Commanders’ 36-33 victory over Philadelphia earlier Sunday ended all hope for the Dallas.
What had seemed inevitable, especially after a five-game losing streak before their late-season surge, became a reality, hitting both the owner and his fifth-year coach hard when they saw each other before the game.
‘We both looked like we had lost somebody, and so it was something you had to kind of get over the reality that we weren’t going to to go,’ Jones said.
‘Before the game, it was a real punch to the gut to say the least,’ McCarthy said. ‘You just kind of take that moment to sit back and watch, watch some of the guys warm up, watch the interactions in the locker room. Wasn´t much different than a normal game. You´re just wanting to keep your mind in it, too, and stay focused. I thought our guys did a hell of a job.’
Yee did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com’s request for confirmation.
