Jerry Jones has backed the Dallas Cowboys to break their playoff curse next season, using a basketball analogy to express his comfort with his team’s present situation on Tuesday.The Cowboys’ third consecutive 12-win season ended in an embarrassing wild-card round loss to the Green Bay Packers in the playoffs. Furthermore, Dallas had won the NFC East prior to the postseason.
Jones elected to continue with head coach Mike McCarthy for a fourth season following the shocking first-round loss, despite the latter’s 1-3 playoff record over the previous four seasons.
According to Michael Gehlken of The Dallas Morning News, the 81-year-old millionaire told reporters at the Reese’s Senior Bowl about his recent employment choice and goals for next season: ‘What I’d say is that I hope it’s the same in the first playoff game, when we’re seeded second. I hope it isn’t any different than when we received the second seed.
‘Now, let’s talk about how we can make it different when we play that game and win, OK? We need to improve our stopping abilities, become more physically active, and, most importantly, run better. We need to accomplish these things.
Despite another wild-card loss under head coach Mike McCarthy, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is confident in his team’s long-term prospects.
‘So, my point is, when I look at it, I think we made a fantastic decision four years ago by hiring Mike McCarthy, and he’s had some terrific in-season success. He’s now come up short three times, advancing us to the playoffs.
‘But I appreciate how he’s sticking around the rim, and I like what the team has done to keep him there. So, I believe the response I would give is that I am aware that we are hovering about the rim.
‘We’re not getting the ball in, but when you hang around the rim – let’s not dismiss hanging around the rim – where we are right now with the guys we have, and I’m thinking about it from a holistic standpoint.’
McCarthy won a Super Bowl and three additional NFC championship games during his 12-plus seasons as Packers coach. That is why Jones hired him in 2020, after ten years of seeing Jason Garrett’s teams struggle to get beyond the divisional stage.
Dallas’ most recent NFC title game appearance came during the 1995 season, when the team won their fifth Super Bowl triumph.McCarthy’s fourth season as Dallas’ head coach was his first as Dak Prescott’s play-caller, but that is anticipated to change in the summer as the Cowboys look for a quarterbacks coach.
Prescott led the NFL with 36 touchdown passes and a career-high completion percentage of 69.5 percent, but he maintained a streak of inconsistent postseason play. Prescott is 2–5 in the playoffs.
McCarthy is not anticipated to obtain an extension with the Cowboys and will coach the 2024 season on an expired deal, sources told ESPN earlier in January.