Mike McCarthy and the Dallas Cowboys find themselves in a precarious position after losing consecutive games.
Dallas heads into NFL Week 17 at 10-5 on the season. It is currently one game behind the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFC East and loses the tiebreaker to the division rival. As of right now, Dallas would open the playoffs on the road against a red hot Tampa Bay Buccaneers team in the NFC Wild Card Playoffs.
What if Dallas suffers yet another early postseason exit? Rumors suggest that McCarthy could find himself out of a job in Big D. ESPN’s Dan Graziano indicates that people outside of the Cowboys’ organization believe McCarthy “could be in trouble” under this scenario.
It’s somewhat interesting in that Cowboys owner Jerry Jones recently noted that McCarthy could be in line for a contract extension after the season. Though, that could very well depend on what the Cowboys do in the playoffs.
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No surprise Dallas Cowboys’ Mike McCarthy is on the hot seat
Dallas has not made it as far as the conference championship game since after the 1995 season. Since then, it’s been all about playoff futility.
For his part, McCarthy has seen the Cowboys lose to the hated San Francisco 49ers in the playoffs each of the past two seasons.
If Dallas is going to buck this trend, it might very well have to win on the road. The team is 3-5 away from home and boasts a 7-0 record inside AT&T Stadium. Their two most-recent losses — to the Buffalo Bills and Miami Dolphins — came on the road.
“It was a juggernaut game. That’s what we expected. It’s a challenge in these games because you know it’s gonna come down to one play. And they probably made a play or two more than we did. It was a hard fought game. We may have to go on the road, obviously, to get this done. I think we got a lot that we can draw from this. We got to play better than we did today, because you have to play above it on the road, and road warriors we will be.”
Dallas Cowboys’ Mike McCarthy after last week’s loss
If Dallas does fail in the playoffs again, it would make sense to move on from McCarthy after four seasons. The Cowboys also have a potential in-house replacement in that of defensive coordinator Dan Quinn who turned down opportunities to interview for head coach jobs during the last cycle. Perhaps, he believes McCarthy is on the hot seat.