Mike McCarthy returning to the Dallas Cowboys illustrates the one, big winner
Around the same time he decided to keep his head ball coach, Jerry Jones was likely informed that his home away from home has landed the one of the biggest one-day sporting events in the world.
This isn’t a problem, but it’s a problem.
According to The Sun, Arlington and AT&T Stadium have been selected as the host city/venue for the 2026 World Cup Final.
The news organization out of the United Kingdom reported that Jerry’s venue beat out MetLife Stadium in New Jersey; Arlington will also be the main hub for FIFA, ahead of New York and Miami.
(Rankings I never expected to see in my lifetime: 1. Arlington, Texas. 2. New York City. 3. Miami, Florida.)
This is such a win for Arlington, Dallas, Fort Worth, AT&T Stadium, for Texas, for the Dallas Cowboys. And it yet it has nothing to do with the part of the Cowboys that you hate yourself for loving.
There is always something else going on with the Cowboys that has nothing to do with football, and everything to do with the franchise.
Because Jerry Jones warned us when he bought the team. At his introductory press conference, in 1989, Jerry said, “The Cowboys are America. They are more than a football team.”
The Cowboys season just ended in a historic flop, and a few days later the franchise learns it will host the FIFA World Cup Final. You see this in Philadelphia, after the Eagles just lost in their wildcard game?
Or Pittsburgh? Or in Los Angeles, when the Lakers flop and flounder again?
Only with the Cowboys is this all perfectly logical. Even when they lose, they win.
On Thursday, head coach Mike McCarthy met with the media at The Star in Frisco to discuss that he will return for a fifth season for 2024. We won’t know for about 12 months if this will be a fifth and final season.
Despite that Jim Harbaugh, Pete Carroll, Bill Belichick, and a host of other “name” coaches are available, Jerry elected to keep this Super Bowl-winning coach. Given the overall record of McCarthy’s tenure, sometimes that little devil you know looks good.
”We have established a championship program. Just not a world championship program yet,” McCarthy said Thursday. “I know how to win.”
Most of the numbers back him up.
“I came to Dallas to win a world championship, and that’s why I’m standing here,” McCarthy said. “Buy into us.”
That verb choice is a coincidence but Coach McCarthy uttered the word that matters. Not, “To win”
“Buy.”
Since Jerry bought this team in 1989, no franchise in the world has professionalized sports better than the Dallas Cowboys. Win or lose, the Dallas Cowboys are open 24/7, and everything is for sale.
Let’s go back to that same press conference in 1989, when Jerry said, “There is no substitute for winning. I know that’s a cliche, but we must win. We will win. Win is the name of the game.”
Once you “turn pro,” Jerry learned the priority is not winning. The priority is margin. This is part of Jerry’s legacy to sports.
As the most valuable pro sports franchise in the world, who is going to argue with the Cowboys’ results under Jerry?Winning helps the margin, but one element to Jerry’s legacy will be his ability to make a loser a profitable.
Having won 12 games and made the playoffs in each of the past three years under McCarthy, no one can say the Cowboys are losers. Since Bill Parcells’ final season with the team, in 2006, the Cowboys have been pretty good.
You’d think law of averages would eventually work in their favor in one of these playoff appearances; but every time their Achilles in that season always snaps in January.
All of us who “bought” this team, in 2023, were lying to ourselves. Denial is always an essential element to buying the Cowboys.
The Cowboys inability to stop the run was eventually going to get this team. They don’t have the linebackers, and the interior of their defensive line isn’t good enough.
The Cowboys inability to consistently run the ball demanded that quarterback Dak Prescott be some combination of Batman/Wonder Woman/Green Lantern/Super-Man.
Those flaws were always going to end the Cowboys. We just didn’t think the end was going to be so soon.
Not in the first round, at home, against a team that finished 9-8. Not in a blowout where the Cowboys were never actually in the game.
The final judgment on McCarthy’s tenure will come down to how well the Cowboys play in the 2024 “tournament.” If the Cowboys make it to the NFC title game, he will likely be offered an extension.
“I am confident in what we’ve done here,” he said, and he should.
“And I have great confidence where we’re going,” he said. “Not only where we’re going; we’ve got work to do. The job’s not finished yet.”
For you, the abused fan, the Cowboys just need you to buy in.
This story was originally published January 18, 2024 at 2:53 PM.
