Cowboys’ Jerry Jones Talks Mike McCarthy’s Future: ‘I Like the Job That He’s Done’

Julia StumbaughDecember 31, 2024

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Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones offered a vote of confidence to head coach Mike McCarthy after his team’s record fell to 7-9 with a blowout Week 17 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday.

“I think Mike’s certainly got the kind of coaching background and coaching success that would make him a very qualified coach in the NFL, so all of that’s there,” Jones told Shan & RJ on 105.3 The Fan on Tuesday. “What I’m not going to do this morning is to get into any indication, one way or the other, that I’m not interested in having Mike back. I don’t want that to be the case at all.

“We’ve got this game ahead of us, but I’ll assure you that I have been, for weeks, thinking about how we go forward after this season.”

Jones added: “I feel good about Mike McCarthy. The main thing is that I like the job that he’s done. We’ve had the year that we’ve had, but I feel good about Mike.”

The Cowboys headed into Sunday having won four of their last five games despite the absence of starting quarterback Dak Prescott, but struggled against the Eagles in a 41-7 defeat that left their rivals holding the NFC East title.

This isn’t the first time Jones has expressed his confidence in McCarthy, whom he has praised multiple times this season in his regular appearances on 105.3 The Fan despite the Cowboys being eliminated from playoff contention before Week 16.

Jones said in November after Week 12 that it was “not crazy at all” to say he would consider extending McCarthy. He told the show after Week 14 that he would give McCarthy and defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer “high grades” for their work this season, and added after Week 16 that he was “proud” of his head coach.

McCarthy has led the Cowboys since 2020, but Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer recently reported that “virtually the entire coaching staff” in Dallas is working on expiring contracts this season.

That includes McCarthy and Zimmer as well as offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer and special teams coach John Fassel, per ESPN’s Todd Archer.

After the loss to the Eagles, McCarthy told reporters that the coaches’ expiring contracts had contributed to what he called a “challenging year,” per Archer.

“I think the future is bright and we have a lot of things in place here,” McCarthy said on Monday, per Archer. “We need to take a step back after next week, and obviously a lot of decisions got to be made, a lot of business decisions got to be made because of our contract situation, and that’s what we’ll do.”

Multiple NFL insiders have recently reported that other teams would be interested in hiring McCarthy if the Cowboys decide not to re-sign him.

That decision won’t be made for at least another week. The Cowboys’ coaching staff has one game remaining when the regular season wraps up next Sunday with a Week 18 game against the Washington Commanders.

The playoffs are out of reach for the Cowboys for the first time since 2020, while the Commanders locked up their own berth on Sunday. A win over longtime rivals could still have long-term ramifications for Dallas by helping McCarthy and his staff make their pitches for extensions this offseason.