Cowboys legend says he would have fired McCarthy-report
Cowboys legend says he would have fired McCarthy-report
If he had been Dallas’ general manager, Cowboys icon Jerry Jones would have
dismissed head coach Mike McCarthy, but McCarthy was kept on despite yet another
poor postseason showing.
The main factor in Jerry Jones’ induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame as the owner
and general manager of the Dallas Cowboys is the team’s three Super Bowl victories from 1992 to 1995.
Hall of Fame running back Emmitt Smith, the NFL’s all-time leader in rushing yards (18,355)
and rushing touchdowns (164), was a major factor in those teams’ victories. Smith,
like many Cowboys supporters today, is fed up with Dallas’ current situation after the team lost
to the seventh-seeded Green Bay Packers 48-32 in the wild card round despite owning the NFC’s best record.
Speaking from the Super Bowl radio row in Las Vegas on Thursday, Smith said of his Cowboys,
“Our team just seems to be lost” on CBS Sports’ “Maggie and Perloff” radio show.
“I just cannot put my finger on why it looks so, so bad.”
The Cowboys became the first team to win 12 games in three consecutive seasons without winning
a conference title after losing three of their four postseason games during this streak.
Many supporters of the club wanted head coach Mike McCarthy fired for the faceplant.
Nevertheless, Jones made the decision to keep his head coach, who has the best career
win percentage of any coach in franchise history with a 42-25 (62.7%) regular season record.
“This team is very close and capable of achieving our ultimate goals,
” Jones said in a statement after seeing his record rise. “The best step forward for us will
be with Mike McCarthy as our head coach.”
Smith made it quite evident that he and Jones do not share the same opinions when co-host
Andrew Perloff questioned him about why he believed McCarthy was kept for the last year of
his Cowboys contract.
Smith said, “Because I’m not the GM.” “To be honest with you, I thought that move would
have been made because of how bad it looked.”
Smith feels that when it comes to Dallas’ on-field performance, Jones and the Cowboys
are putting more emphasis on flair than substance, noting an apparent mindset
block in between the franchise and postseason success.
“I think our team and organization right now give the appearance of becoming a great
organization and being a great team,” Smith stated. Every year, they pitch it to everyone.
One thing that is crucial is selling it to people and then obtaining evaluations for it.
There are, in my opinion, some things that are far more significant than the hoopla.
Although our teams often make the playoffs, I’ve never known the Cowboys
organization to be a hype machine. Although we don’t, we give the impression
that we can go the entire distance. I suppose that’s a mental hurdle for some reason.
I believe it’s a part of players’ preparations to not rise to the occasion and
expectations of being exceptional.
Dak Prescott, the starting quarterback for the Cowboys, has a 2-5 playoff record
after the team’s most recent postseason collapse. Among players with at least five playoff starts,
he is tied with Alex Smith (2005–2020) and Billy Kilmer (1961–1978) for the worst record in
NFL history. Smith stated that the 36-year-old passing touchdown leader for the 2023 regular
season has to get better at practicing. He used the Cowboys’ close 20-19 victory against the
Detroit Lions in Week 17 as an illustration of his argument.
Smith said, “I think it’s preparation,” when asked why Prescott hasn’t been able to assist in
leading the Cowboys past the postseason divisional round. “I can only think of one game,
and this is what it all comes down to in my opinion. We’re having fun.
“With three minutes remaining, I believe they are virtually, if not completely out of timeouts.
We just need to keep milking the clock. Guess what happened instead? We toss the ball three
times in a row [after Tony Pollard’s first-down run play results in a seven-point gain that is later
overturned by a tripping penalty]. How clever is that? Horrible, really. All you have to do is either
kneel or sprint the rock. It doesn’t concern me. The quarterback doesn’t even take a sack when
you pass the ball for the third time and he throws it out of bounds to end the clock.
That indicates to me that he was either ill-prepared or forgot he was playing the game.
McCarthy stated, “The thing is, we’re trying to put it away.”
“Obviously, you call plays that make you feel good, but we struggled all day to get to first down.
We had a ton of second-and-long plays, and I was able to witness our first-down penalty.
The idea was to attempt to still get within striking distance on third downs.
Smith obviously disagrees with Jones’s suggestion to reinstate McCarthy in 2024,
as well as McCarthy’s opinions of the play-calling at the end of that particular game.
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