BREAKING: Mike McCarthy to return to Dallas Cowboys for fifth season despite playoff loss
It is official. Mike McCarthy will be returning to the Dallas Cowboys.
The news was reported on Wednesday evening by ESPN following a Tuesday night story from The Dallas Morning News that made it seem incredibly likely. McCarthy will officially get year number five in Dallas.
This just in: Dallas is not making a head-coaching change and Cowboys’ HC Mike McCarthy is returning for the 2024 season, per sources. pic.twitter.com/GHMJuqdxaT
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) January 18, 2024
On one hand this move seems fairly logical given that McCarthy has overseen a Cowboys team that has accomplished a great deal in the last few years. The Cowboys have won 12 games in each of the last three years, been a playoff team in all of them and secured two NFC East titles.
On the other hand, McCarthy has only reached the Divisional Round of the playoffs once and did not even win that game. It goes without saying that he also just oversaw the team’s incredible failure against the Green Bay Packers, his former team, in the Wild Card Round.
It seemed like the playoff loss might have been enough to cause the Cowboys to make a change, but they will not be doing so.
For what it is worth, as of now McCarthy is entering the final year of his contract with the Cowboys. Giving him an extension would seem questionable, so perhaps Dallas will have him go at it while trying to prove himself the way that they let Jason Garrett do so in 2019 in the final year of his own contract.