'I Love Calling Plays,' Says Coach McCarthy - And Cowboys Indicate That's the 2020 Offensive Plan

FRISCO - New Dallas Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy says the decision on which staffer calls the offensive plays "will be in the best interest of the Dallas Cowboys.”

But amid sources suggesting to CowboysSI.com that Kellen Moore will be the offensive coordinator in 2020 but not the play-caller, McCarthy added, “I love calling plays.''

McCarthy, just now digging into his first full week as Dallas' coach, has also added, a few times since then, that the determination is not yet written in stone. But some undeniable facts are in play:

*Coordinator Moore oversaw an offense that finished fifth in the NFL in passing and third in rushing. The offensive was "explosive,'' if inconsistent. But Moore, at age 31 in his first year as a coordinator and just his second season as a coach of any kind, will surely look back at his first season and chuckle at all the things he didn't know.

*Moore’s meteoric rise to coordinator was steered in part because owner Jerry Jones wanted "young minds'' contributing to the process under then-head coach Jason Garrett ... and steered in part because he had the endorsement of QB Dak Prescott.

We will work on the assumption that while the first thing McCarthy did when he got to DFW was something other than meeting with Prescott, all will be on the same page here.

*McCarthy has the passion and skill to design his own offense and call his own plays. In 2015 in Green Bay, McCarthy assigned assistant Tom Clements as the play-caller. That arrangement lasted just six games, as the Packers got off to a 2-4 start.

Was the 2-4 start Clements' fault? Of course not. But why wouldn't the captain of a ship want his hands on the wheel?

The next offseason, McCarthy told Tom Pelissero that he would “never give up play calling again.”

*And here comes 2020 and McCarthy will have by his side the 58-year old top assistant Joe Philbin and the 31-year-old "whiz kid'' and of the three of them, the most qualified person to call plays for the Dallas Cowboys this year is obviously the head coach.

The idea of the "walk-around coach'' isn't a bad one. Jason Garrett gave up play-calling duties with the Cowboys prior to the 2013 season. His on-the-record view of that is that it worked. And last year, with so many young assistants having been elevated? Maybe RedBall's plate was too full to also be the play-caller.

But in Dallas, Philbin on offense, Mike Nolan on defense and "Bones'' Fassel on special teams won't need the same sort of "guidance,'' thus freeing the head coach to do what he's best at. ... and what he "loves.''

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