Decision day is approaching for the Dallas Cowboys and Mike McCarthy.
The Dallas Cowboys were eliminated in the playoffs last season by the Green Bay Packers on January 14th. That was almost one full year ago.
It turns out that the date in question is relevant in the year 2025 as it serves as Decision Day for the team and head coach Mike McCarthy. Despite the fact that Dallas has had just about a year to reflect on the Packers loss and figure out what they want the future to look like, here we sit. On the precipice of a season lost by their grand design with seemingly no north star established once more.
Friday morning, two days before this season ends for the Cowboys, it was reported by NFL Media’s Tom Pelissero and Ian Rapoport that January 14th is the day that McCarthy’s contract with the Cowboys expires. Happy anniversary.
There were some notable things in the report. Let’s get to them.
McCarthy’s contract expires on January 14th, but the biggest tell for the team’s intentions could come well before then
Given that January 14th is a week and a half away it stands to reason that the Cowboys are going to watch each and every single grain of sand drip down from the hourglass so as to fill up their bucket of attention.
Unfortunately for the Cowboys, their hand may wind up being tipped before then. According to the report while McCarthy’s deal is set to expire on January 14th, he and any of his staffers who are also on expiring deals can be requested to be interviewed in the time between the regular season ending and the 14th. Obviously the Cowboys have the right to decline that in the window.
Sources say McCarthy’s contract is set to expire on Jan. 14, nine days after Sunday’s season finale at home against the Washington Commanders.
That gives the Cowboys an exclusive negotiating window of a little over a week, according to NFL rules. But it also serves as a soft deadline to strike a deal or potentially lose McCarthy to another job.
There are two windows of time for McCarthy and Dallas.
As soon as the regular season ends, other teams can request permission from the Cowboys to interview McCarthy for coaching positions and Dallas can choose whether to permit him to interview. Once McCarthy’s contract expires on Jan. 14 — a week from next Tuesday — no permission is required and he is free to interview in-person with other teams and accept another job any time.
Never mind the fact that Dallas has had a window of exclusivity, to use the jargon offered here, for the duration of McCarthy’s time with the team. The point is that if you are another NFL team interested in looking for a head coach – at the moment there are three in the New York Jets, New Orleans Saints and Chicago Bears with more potential ones to come – and Mike McCarthy is someone of interest to you – you are probably not going to burn an entire week and a half of waiting. Right? Right.
Speaking of those Bears, they are reportedly the team that McCarthy would prefer to be coaching (if the decision were up to him obviously) if he is somewhere other than Dallas in 2025. That makes sense given the current list of options, but as noted that could change.
Back to the upcoming timeline though, we are already seeing teams like the Jets interview candidates (they are allowed to because they fired their coach a while back in Robert Saleh). Again, if they are interested in Mike McCarthy then it stands to reason that they will request him well before the 14th . If the Cowboys truly have no intentions of bringing McCarthy back for 2025, then it would be incredibly unkind to deny him an opportunity to move on and to hold him back while the team interviews other candidates for a job that he could theoretically wind up winning himself.
You may scoff at the idea that another NFL team could want McCarthy or that they would prefer him over any other potential candidate. According to the report, and others in recent weeks, McCarthy would certainly be a wanted coach if made available.
A Super Bowl champion with a .610 career winning percentage and 12 playoff trips in 18 seasons as a head coach in Green Bay and Dallas, McCarthy is expected to have interest elsewhere if he chooses to pursue other opportunities. There are few available coaches with McCarthy’s track record as an offensive play-caller and quarterback developer — skills that are at a premium in every hiring cycle and will be again.
McCarthy, 61, has connections with two of the three teams with current head coaching vacancies. He worked with Saints general manager Mickey Loomis from 2000-2004 in New Orleans, where McCarthy was the offensive coordinator, and he interviewed for the Jets job in January 2019.
It would be a poor look by the franchise for McCarthy to be requested by a team between the season’s end, and then for Dallas to deny him, and for the Cowboys to ultimately not bring him back. It is in this sense that we may learn of their intentions long before the 14th. The same line of logic can be applied to McCarthy’s top staffers like Brian Schottenheimer, Mike Zimmer and/or John Fassel if Dallas truly intends on running things back, so to speak, in a more loose sense.
In discussing the upcoming week and decision we have been reminding you all of the saga that was when Dallas moved on from Jason Garrett five years ago. The way the team handled that can be instructive on how they plan on doing so, potentially, with McCarthy.
Consider that there were ultimately five head coaches changed across the league following the 2019 season, Dallas obviously included. Of those five, the Washington franchise and Carolina Panthers fired their head coaches (Jay Gruden and Ron Rivera, respectively) before the season ended which eliminates them from this particular discussion. Ron Rivera took over in Washington as we all know.
This leaves us with three teams for us to look at in this, the Cleveland Browns, New York Giants and Cowboys. Consider that the 2019 season ended on December 29th for each of them. Obviously they all missed the playoffs. Here are their timelines for when they fired their head coaches and hired new ones as well as how Dallas handled their situation in between it all:
Sunday, December 29th, 2019: Season ends for the Browns, Giants and Cowboys Sunday, December 29th, 2019: Browns fire head coach Freddie Kitchens (yes, later that day) Monday, December 30th, 2019: Giants fire head coach Pat Shurmur Thursday, January 2nd, 2020: Browns interview Mike McCarthy for head coach opening Saturday, January 4th, 2020: Giants interview Mike McCarthy for head coach opening Saturday, January 4th, 2020: It is reported that Marvin Lewis and Mike McCarthy would interview for the Cowboys job Sunday, January 5th, 2020: Cowboys finally announce that they are not bringing back Jason Garrett Tuesday, January 7th, 2020: Cowboys hire Mike McCarthy as head coach Wednesday, January 8th, 2020: Giants hire Joe Judge as head coach Sunday, January 12th, 2020: Browns hire Kevin Stefanski as head coach
Besides the fact that it was incredibly messy, at best, for the Cowboys to interview both Marvin Lewis and McCarthy before making an announcement on Jason Garrett – someone for whom they have expressed great affection – consider that they let the two other teams who had head coach openings interview McCarthy beforehand.
You may have never been on board with McCarthy, but the point here is that he was ultimately deemed to be the best option by the Cowboys and they ran the risk of someone else hiring him (twice!) by dragging their feet on the Jason Garrett situation. That is hardly going about things like you are trying to do anything and everything in your power to have things work out in your favor.
This is important to remember as we approach next week and the next wave of firings and/or interviews taking place across the league. If the Cowboys do elect to move on from McCarthy ultimately, then they are running the risk of losing out on potential candidates by dragging their feet (if this is their ultimate choice) until the 14th as it seems like they will.