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Dallas Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy. Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports

Mike McCarthy details lengthy meeting with Jerry Jones that led to return as HC

By Victor Barbosa | Last updated 1/18/24

Dallas Cowboys fans learned Wednesday that Mike McCarthy would be returning as the team's head coach for the 2024 season.

On Thursday, the 60-year-old gave details of a lengthy meeting he had with Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, a talk that led to McCarthy's return.

Mike McCarthy: “I am very confident in the direction and I like where we are as far as moving forward. He said the loss to GB is still “raw,” and he’s “numb.”
— Todd Archer (@toddarcher) January 18, 2024

Dallas Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy says he had a meeting with owner Jerry Jones yesterday that lasted 3+ hours that “went the whole course.”

McCarthy says he doesn’t want to talk about contract status, or entering his final year, but says he’s confident in the direction of… pic.twitter.com/Il3FQo9wYF
— Mike Leslie (@MikeLeslieWFAA) January 18, 2024

Mike McCarthy: “I know how to win. We will get over that threshold. And I have total confidence in that. And that’s why I’m standing here today.”
— Mike Leslie (@MikeLeslieWFAA) January 18, 2024

The Super Bowl XLV champion with the Green Bay Packers led Dallas to a third straight 12-5 regular season in 2023, a third consecutive playoff appearance and a second division title in the last three campaigns. After falling short against the San Francisco 49ers in the wild-card round two years ago, the Cowboys won their first postseason game in four years in a January 2023 wild-card tilt vs. the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

They were defeated by the Niners again, this time in the divisional round, before earning a home game and the No. 2 seed in this winter's tournament. Despite going 8-0 at AT&T Stadium in the regular season, Dallas saw McCarthy's old club jump out to a 27-0 lead on Sunday, before holding on for a 48-32 victory.

The seventh-seeded Packers advanced to play No. 1 San Francisco in the divisional round, while the Cowboys still haven't made it past the second round since the 1995 season.

Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy: “I have great confidence in where we’re going. We got work to do. The job is not finished.”

McCarthy said he doesn’t and the current players shouldn’t feel responsible for what happened in the Cowboys’ past (28 years without a NFC championship…
— Jon Machota (@jonmachota) January 18, 2024

Mike McCarthy didn’t feel like the Cowboys came out flat against the Packers last Sunday.

“If anything, we were going too fast. …There was a number of times when we were chasing plays and it bit us in the ass.”
— Jon Machota (@jonmachota) January 18, 2024

McCarthy has one season left on the five-year contract that he signed when he was hired as the leader in Dallas in January 2020.

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