Mike McCarthy is almost surely on the hot seat as he enters his fifth season as head coach of the Dallas Cowboys, and after seeing the Cowboys’ 2024 schedule, some aren’t sure if McCarthy will make it.
Dallas has a brutal slate for next season, and things really don’t get easy at any point.
Things will be tough for the Cowboys right out of the gate, as they will open up the season on the road against the Cleveland Browns and also have the Baltimore Ravens at home in Week 3.
Fox Sports analyst Craig Carton is not too optimistic about Dallas’ chances in 2024 and thinks McCarthy will end up getting fired midseason.
Carton has the Cowboys beating the New Orleans Saints, New York Giants and Atlanta Falcons through the first 11 weeks of the season, but has trouble seeing the club winning any other games during that stretch.
He adds that the McCarthy watch will be on right from the get go, which is completely understandable given where things left off for Dallas last season.
The Cowboys went 12-5 and won the NFC East in 2023, but ended up getting routed by the Green Bay Packers in the Wild Card Round of the playoffs in spite of resembling legitimate Super Bowl contenders in the eyes of many.
As a result of Dallas’ latest postseason failure, the general consensus was that owner Jerry Jones would fire McCarthy and potentially bring in someone like Bill Belichick to lead the way. However, Jones opted to give McCarthy another chance, and it will probably be his last.
To be fair to McCarthy, he has led the Cowboys to three straight 12-win campaigns with a pair of division titles mixed in. But, Dallas has won just one playoff game throughout that stretch.
Losing in the playoffs has become the Cowboys’ modus operandi for the better part of the last three decades.
Dallas has not made it to the NFC Championship Game since January 1996, and since then, the franchise has collected a grand total of four postseason victories.
So, obviously, minimal playoff success is not just limited to McCarthy. Plenty of Cowboys coaches have come and gone without making any postseason noise over the last 30 or so years.
But if Dallas once again does not make a deep playoff run or, in the case of Carton’s scenario, fails to make the postseason altogether, it will probably mark the end of McCarthy’s run with the club.
If the Cowboys do get off to a 3-7 start like Carton predicts, Mike McCarthy probably will get canned midseason.
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