Cowboys legend blasts Mike McCarthy decision
Dallas Cowboys legend and Hall of Famer Emmitt Smith made it known during a Thursday appearance on the CBS Sports Radio “Maggie and Perloff” program that he isn’t thrilled with the state of the franchise this offseason.
“Our team just seems to be lost,” Smith said about the Cowboys, per Bridget Hyland of NJ Advance Media for NJ.com. “I cannot put my finger on why it looks so, so bad.”
Smith was then asked why, if his assessment is correct, Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones kept Mike McCarthy as Dallas’ head coach following the club’s 48-32 wild-card playoff loss to the Green Bay Packers on Jan. 14.
“Because I’m not the GM,” Smith directly responded.
McCarthy’s Cowboys went 12-5 across each of the past three regular seasons, but he’s guided the club to only a single playoff victory. While Jones didn’t show McCarthy the door after the Green Bay game, the 60-year-old coach is out of contract after next season and seemingly isn’t close to signing an extension.
“I think our team and organization right now give the appearance of becoming a great organization, of being a great team, and they sell everybody on it every year,” Smith said. “And selling people on it and getting the ratings around it is something that’s important, but I think there are things that are much more important than all of the hype.”
Jones would’ve generated plenty of “hype” by hiring former New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick as McCarthy’s replacement. There continue to be whispers among those covering Super Bowl LVIII suggesting that Belichick has stayed a free agent this offseason in part because he believes the Dallas job will become available roughly 11 months from now.
“I’ve never known the Cowboys organization to be a hype organization, but I think when you look at our teams, we make the playoffs, we look like we’re capable of going all the way, but we don’t,” Smith continued. “I think that’s a mental block, I think it’s part of preparations of players not meeting the challenge and the expectation of becoming great and establishing dominance as an individual player and as a group of men. And I don’t see that consistently from our team and from our organization.”
Fellow Cowboys legend and Hall of Famer Troy Aikman previously backed Jones giving McCarthy one final chance to complete a lengthy postseason run with the franchise. It remains to be seen if Dallas merely making the NFC Championship next winter would be enough for McCarthy to earn a new contract from Jones.
