Five guaranteed games remain on Mike McCarthy’s contract.
Dak Prescott hopes the Dallas Cowboys keep his head coach longer.
The Cowboys quarterback can’t meaningfully impact his team’s performance as he recovers from season-ending surgery to repair his hamstring tear. Which annoys him.
“Your coach looks like he’s playing on his last contract and [I’m] Almost feeling helpless that I can’t help him in this situation, especially a guy that you trust so much and you trust to be your head coach,” Prescott told Yahoo Sports during a Zoom call Tuesday afternoon. “Control what I can control, help and support Mike as much as possible.”
In nine seasons with the Cowboys, Prescott played for two head coaches. He relies on his experience coaching Jason Garrett, who is in the final year of his contract in 2019, to guide him this season. Prescott said he was pleased to hear team owner and general manager Jerry Jones said last week that it was “not crazy” to consider McCarthy returning for a sixth season and beyond.
“I trust him wholeheartedly,” Prescott said of the partnership with Dick’s Sporting Goods. “I don’t necessarily want to get into the nuts and bolts of it all, obviously, but I think he definitely deserves a chance — another contract and a chance to coach this team into more influence. ‘On his terms’ might be a better way of saying it.
“But I trust him wholeheartedly.”
The Cowboys posted three straight 12-win seasons from 2021 to 2023 under McCarthy. They made the playoffs each of McCarthy’s years while Prescott was healthy for more than half the games but fell well short of their postseason goals. The Cowboys haven’t advanced to the NFC Championship, much less the Super Bowl, since the 1995 season.
After the 2021 season, the San Francisco 49ers upset the Cowboys in the wild-card round, 23–17. Dallas was the only division winner to lose in that round.
The following year, Dallas defeated the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the soon-to-retire Tom Brady in the wild-card round. But the 49ers eliminated them again in the divisional round.
And after the 2023 season, the seventh-seeded Green Bay Packers defeated the Cowboys 48-32 at home in a game that was much more lopsided than the late-game points suggested. The Packers went up 27-0 with two minutes left in the first half.
The Cowboys, who had previously won 16 straight games at home, had lost six straight before beating the New York Giants on Thanksgiving.
Jones told 105.3 The Fan Tuesday morning that he believes momentum carries over from season to season and that the loss to the Packers continues to affect the Cowboys’ struggles this year.
Can the Cowboys carry off a strong finish to the season in 2025? Interesting Jerry Jones response @1053thefan.
“There’s no question that you can continue to play well from one season to the next. It’s not possible to play as well as we did in the playoffs last year against Green Bay.”
— Jori Epstein (@ZoriEpstein) December 3, 2024
Dallas went 3-5 in Prescott’s game.
“It hurt,” Prescott said of the loss to the Packers. “You have to learn from your lessons [and] You can’t come into a playoff game off to a slow start, especially against a hot team. What Jerry is talking about is a late rally [can help]. I mean, look at Green Bay, a team that almost didn’t make the playoffs last year, went late in the year, made the playoffs, and just didn’t make the playoffs. [but] Make a run and beat us, play San Fran hard at the end and then that’s what carried them this season.
“To win back to back in two games is huge, so we can continue to do that and take some momentum, take some confidence, realize that a huge amount of this team will still be in the team next year.”
With the Cowboys on a two-game winning streak, Jerry Jones said @1053thefan That Mike McCarthy is “steady as a rock.”
“He’s genuine. He’s no BS to these players. I don’t think for a second that the team has given up on recognizing that he’s a great coach.”
— Jori Epstein (@ZoriEpstein) December 3, 2024
After division wins over the Washington Commanders and Giants, the 5-7 Cowboys have a 4 percent chance of making the playoffs, according to NextGen Stats.
The Cowboys next host the Cincinnati Bengals on “Monday Night Football”. The Carolina Panthers, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Philadelphia Eagles and Washington Commanders follow Dallas’ schedule.
Jones and the Cowboys front office will decide the franchise’s coaching future next. Prescott knows his vote.
He wants the coach who helped him sharpen his footwork and timing, teaching him the finesse of the game that propelled Prescott to an MVP runner-up finish last season.
“The guy won a Super Bowl — I know Jerry’s certified for that,” Prescott said. “There’s not a lot of guys or coaches who have done it and someone who can do it from experience? I know how much he means to me.”
