The Dallas Cowboys have suffered arguably their most embarrassing playoff loss in recent memory. Sitting as a touchdown favorite over the Green Bay Packers for Super Wild Card Weekend, Mike McCarthy's team laid an egg at AT&T Stadium and their season has come to a shocking end thanks to the 48-32 upset. Now, all eyes are on Jerry Jones to see what his reaction to this latest postseason failure will be and what it could potentially mean for head coach Mike McCarthy.
This is McCarthy's fourth season as the leading man in Dallas and has now gone three straight years with 12-5 regular seasons that have been paired with early playoff exits. Given that inability to crash through that glass ceiling, it begs the question if he is the right coach to lead this team that is filled with elite talent to the promised land.
That's especially true when factoring in that the greatest head coach in league history is now on the market for Jones to pursue in Bill Belichick. The future Hall of Fame coach parted ways with the New England Patriots last week and is now to be had by anyone in the league, and Dallas makes all the sense in the world as his next stop if they move on from McCarthy. They have a ready-made roster that can contend and have the gravitas as one of the blue-blood franchises in the NFL, which should be appealing to Belichick.
Earlier this season when Belichick's Patriots were gearing up for a Week 4 matchup with the Cowboys in Dallas, the head coach heaped praise on the entire organization led by Jones in what was a lengthy opening statement on that Wednesday in late September.
"You know, Jerry [Jones], Stephen [Jones] put together a great organization," Belichick said at the time. "Mike [McCarthy] has kind of evolved things a little bit this year, offensively, with his role in it. Dan [Quinn] does a great job with their defense, which is once again near the top of the league in a lot of categories, most importantly points. Bones [John Fassel] does a great job with the kicking game. They're very aggressive, best returner in football. So, it's a well-balanced team. I think Coach McCarthy has done a really good job balancing the team out. They obviously have some great players down there, eight guys in the Pro Bowl last year, most in the league. That's kind of been their history, always had a lot of very good, high-profile players, going back about as far as you want to go back – maybe not until 1960, but not too long after that."
Judging by Belichick's early season assessment of this team, he likes what he sees. And, now that he's on the market, it was always looked at as a fascinating pairing, especially after there was some scuttlebutt before this playoff loss about McCarthy's job status. However, it required an early exit from Dallas to make this idea even a possibility, which has come to fruition.
Now, the ball is in Jerry Jones' court. Does he ride through the latest trials and tribulations with McCarthy? Or does he go big game hunting and make Belichick the next head coach of the Dallas Cowboys?