FRISCO, Texas — Dallas Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones has backed Mike McCarthy one more time.
Asked on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas on Tuesday whether a wild-card loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on “Monday Night Football” could impact McCarthy’s status as head coach, Jones was emphatic.
“No. I don’t even want to … No. That’s it,” he said. “I don’t need to go into all the pluses or minuses. I’ve got a lot more to evaluate Mike McCarthy on than this playoff game.”
The last coach who took the Cowboys to the playoffs in back-to-back seasons was Chan Gailey in 1998-99. He was fired after a 27-10 loss in the wild-card round to the Minnesota Vikings after a two-year run with an 18-14 record.
Jones has called the quick decision to move on from Gailey so quickly a mistake.
Immediately after last year’s wild-card loss to the San Francisco 49ers, Jones appeared to leave open the possibility of a change; however, he later said he was doing that in part to keep defensive coordinator Dan Quinn on the staff, as he interviewed for a number of head-coaching vacancies.
The Denver Broncos have asked for permission to speak to Quinn for the second straight year.
“I can’t tell you how much confidence I’ve got in Mike and our coaching staff of being on top of where we are with this team right now,” Jones said. “They’ve got every nuance. They understand every frailty that we might have or we might have shown Sunday [in the loss to Washington]. They’ve got everything in their grasp and in their understanding, and I have complete confidence in this coaching staff. It’s outstanding. We’ve got a great chance to go down there and have success.”
McCarthy, who has two more years on his contract, has directed the Cowboys to consecutive 12-5 records, winning the NFC East in 2021. It’s the first time since 1994-95 the Cowboys have had back-to-back 12-win seasons . The record this year includes a 4-1 mark with backup quarterback Cooper Rush taking over for an injured Dak Prescott, who fractured his right thumb in the season-opening loss to the Buccaneers.
With that win, Tom Brady improved to 7-0 all time against the Cowboys, which Jones attempted to downplay on Tuesday.
“When you really think about it, we’re not playing Brady,” Jones said. “We’re playing Tampa Bay, the team. And it’s conceivable that we could make Brady not play well and get our tails beat by the rest of the team. And I’m not trying to be cute. But we’ve got to go play the entire team. And this Brady thing has got to be sensitive. I know it’s there and I respect that. Gives us a challenge to do something we haven’t done before, and that’s beat Tom Brady.”