The Cowboys’ playoff drought refuses to end. But head coach Mike McCarthy is more focused on “winning week in and week out.” And Stephen A. Smith, for one, is not impressed by this approach.
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McCarthy recently hit back at criticisms about the Cowboys’ lack of playoff success, and highlighted the Cowboys’ success in the regular season, saying,
“We keep talking about playoffs and things like that but I don’t know when the hell it became easy to win 12 games in a season.”
This seemed to have irked Smith, who did not mince his words against McCarthy’s postseason failures on ‘First Take.’ Outraged by McCarthy’s lack of vision for the postseason, Smith blamed the HC for the team’s failure to win big games despite dominating during the early run in the regular seasons:
“If you, at this point, are not prioritizing winning when it counts in the postseason you’re not the person that deserves to be the head coach of the most popular franchise in all the sports.”
He even went as far as saying that the upcoming season could be the end of McCarthy’s tenure in Dallas:
“Far as I’m concerned, listening to Mike McCarthy right there, that’s why I expect this to be his last year coaching the Dallas Cowboys”
After failing to reach postseason success in the past two years, McCarthy’s stress on focusing on the weekly progress of the team rang a little hollow for Smith.
In 2023, the Cowboys were able to claim the NFC East title with 12 wins. However, they failed to make any impact among the top teams and crashed out in the first round of the playoffs with a 48-32 loss against the Packers.
Dallas has won 24 games in the regular season in the past two seasons under McCarthy, a record rivaled only by the dominant Chiefs. And Bart Scott seems to think it’s the regular season success that is holding back the Cowboys from postseason success.
Cowboys are fighting for job security, not the glory
The former linebacker claims that the lack of focus on playoffs has affected the mindset of the whole team, leaving them only concerned about “job security”. According to him, an overall myopic approach to the season and lack of preparedness for big games has pushed the Cowboys into a rut:
“Now the players are saying well you know what long as we have a good season we’ll still have job security, we’ll still be okay. No that’s not the point.”
Speaking from his own experience as a former player in the NFL, he added:
“We play this game, we put a lot on our bodies man…The only reason why we do it is for the glory. And if we’re not playing for the championship, I don’t want to be a part of it.”
Mike McCarthy has had a stellar record with the Cowboys but stats don’t win championships. And this year could be his ultimate test. A successful playoff run will shut down the haters but could another failure mean his departure as the head coach of America’s Team?
