Following a humbling NFL playoff loss to the Green Bay Packers, the Dallas Cowboys will have all eyes on them as they move forward. More specifically, whether the Cowboys make a move with head coach Mike McCarthy will be well worth watching.
McCarthy just finished up his fourth season with Dallas and while the Cowboys have made the playoffs in each of the last three years, they have only won one playoff game.
FOX analyst Greg Olsen, a former NFL star, believes firing McCarthy would be unwise.
“I always think an interesting test, any time there’s these conversations, and I’m going to be the first to go on record,” Olsen said on the air on Sunday. “I think the conversation about replacing Mike McCarthy is crazy talk, so let me just preface it by saying that.”
The NFL analyst in the booth offered his take just before the end of a 48-32 Green Bay win over Dallas, providing an interesting thought experiment when it comes to McCarthy.
“I always think the best exercise is if you let go your coach, would anyone else hire him?” Olsen said. “I think the answer with Mike McCarthy is clear. I think teams would jump over themselves to hire him to have this level of consistent success. So if the answer to that question is yes, that answers it.”
McCarthy’s own track record indicates he’d probably quickly catch on somewhere else.
After all, he only spent one year out of coaching after he was fired in Green Bay following the 2018 season. After 13 years in the frozen tundra, McCarthy quickly found work again with the Cowboys in 2020.
And it’s not like McCarthy hasn’t had some major success, even at Dallas.
The Cowboys won 12 games in the regular season in each of the last three years, finishing first in the division in both 2021 and 2023. But Dallas wasn’t able to secure a first-round bye in any of its three playoff appearances, something that also made a deep playoff run more difficult.
In any case, at least one NFL analyst thinks it would be ill-advised to dump Mike McCarthy after this season.
More must-reads: