Could Cowboys' 'Atrocious' 'Clock-Management' Issues Cost McCarthy His Job?
ARLINGTON - The Dallas Cowboys, having already clinched the NFL playoffs, improved to 11-5 on the season on Saturday night, defeating the Detroit Lions in a chaotic and controversial 20-19 fashion.
That makes it a clean season's sweep here at AT&T Stadium for the Cowboys, who finish the regular season 8-0 here. Under coach Mike McCarthy, they've now won a staggering 16 games in a row in this building. And should they win at woeful Washington next week, the Cowboys will have been a 12-5 playoff team three years straight.
"He’s coached three playoff teams in a row,” Jones recently said of McCarthy. “He’s done an outstanding job.”
The implication here is that McCarthy, who has 2024 left on his contract, is not only secure for next year but also maybe in line for an extension. But ...
Some critics ponder how Jones might react should Dallas nose-dive in the postseason. And more immediately, some critics are examining this nail-biting win wondering whether its their imagination that McCarthy too often struggles with late-game clock (asset) management.
Our counterargument: Somehow, in the pressure cooker and the mind-fog of the moment, every single coach in the NFL errs in ways those of us sitting in the press box, or watching at home, or seeing it all so clearly due to our Madden expertise find mystifying.
To wit: Dallas had this thing won, leading 17-13, when safety Donovan Wilson’s grabbed an interception with 2:05 remaining in the game.
That gave the Cowboys the ball at the Detroit 29-yard line. The 93,000 folks here at AT&T Stadium started to both relax and celebrate. So did many on the Dallas sideline. The Lions had their two timeouts, but this was simply drain-the-clock time. All McCarthy's Cowboys had to do was avoid mistakes, eat clock, maybe get an automatic Brandon Aubrey field goal, and go make some New Year's reservations.
But no. On first down, the Cowboys were penalized 15 yards for tripping. Maybe a poor call by the refs.
“The penalty on first down,'' McCarthy said, "I gotta see it (to review it on tape.)''
On second and third down, McCarthy also opted to throw. Quarterback Dak Prescott lobbed a deep pass for Brandin Cooks that fell incomplete. But ... why?
“We’re trying to put it away,'' McCarthy said. "You call plays you feel good about.''
And there is validity to that. The coach and the QB see a weakness and believe they have the perfect way to exploit it? Sure. But couldn't the game have been all-but "put away'' with much less risk?
"I’m trying to get into striking distance on third down, is all I’m thinking about,'' McCarthy said.
But Mike - You were already in "striking distance.'' If instead of "striking'' by throwing, why not "strike'' by running three times?
Ideally, the Lions, following Aubrey's 43-yard field goal to put Dallas up seven, would have just under a minute and no timeouts to drive the length of the field for a TD.
Instead - because the Cowboys only ate up 15 seconds after the ostensible “game-ending” interception - the Lions had 1:41 remaining with with to work, and Lions quarterback Jared Goff capped the drive with an 11-yard touchdown pass to Amon-Ra St. Brown with 23 seconds left.
Fortunately for Dallas - and this establishes out position that all of these coaches go into that mind-fog at time - Lions coach Dan Campbell pulled an equally awful gaffe. He called for the 2-point conversion attempt, and the win. And once the refs had (wrongly?) penalized them to negate Goff's 2-point scoring pass to (eligible/ineligible) lineman Taylor Decker ... Detroit was backed up to the 7-yard line.
And Campbell still went for it! And then went for it again! Oh, and failed.
Cowboys win. McCarthy's decision cluster was "atrocious,'' as many NFL experts noted on social media. So was Campbell's.
Does that equal a level of ineptitude that will cause Jerry to fire McCarthy, as some believe should happen? Using that logic, shouldn't Campbell, the leader of a team that is also 11-5 and playoff-bound - also be fired?
As we've said all along: There are those who, from the day four years ago when McCarthy took this job, who chose for whatever reason to dislike the hire - and in some unfortunate cases, to even dislike the person.
We've also said all along that while Jones is suggesting that McCarthy is here to stay, circumstances do change. And if you cannot recognize that, you must not have noticed the Jerry Jones-Jimmy Johnson Ring of Honor lovefest here in this building.
It has been often written that McCarthy has a "history dating back to his days in Green Bay of bad clock-management decisions.'' And it is so.
What doesn't get written about is the truest mystery: Why does every coach, with any sort of longevity - including the recognized all-time greats lik Bill Belichick and Andy Reid - also have the same "history''?
