Mike McCarthy vows better days in Dallas

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USA TODAY Sports

Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy promises things will get better. Frankly, they can’t get much worse.

But for a trio of wins that easily could have become losses, the Cowboys would be jostling with the Jets for dibs on Trevor Lawrence. Relative to the team’s expectations entering the season, this has become one of the worst seasons the Cowboys ever have had, so bad that they lost a prime-time game to the Browns.

“We’re not where we need to be,” coach Mike McCarthy said Friday, via ESPN.com. “Clearly. Our record reflects it. We can improve on a number of things. It’s just not one area, one person. Everybody’s 3-9 right now, so we all need to do a better job. . . .

“It’s definitely a challenge. We’re all in this to win. Make no mistake about it. No one is happy. No one likes where we are today. But I think to a man everybody sees the opportunity to continue to build. We still have a number of opportunities in front of us. With that, my focus has always been about improving. We definitely need to improve.”

Indeed they do. It’s gotten so bad that some have wondered whether McCarthy, who has won only 14 of his last 40 games as a head coach, while be the one to preside over the effort to improve. McCarthy, for his part, wants to stay.

“I’m glad to be a Dallas Cowboy,” McCarthy said. “I love it here. This is a phenomenal opportunity. Make no mistake about it. This is not where we intended to be. This is not where we’re going to stay.”

So what can be done to change what’s gone on?

“There’s no doubt that you have to continue to look at everything and be honest about it,” McCarthy said. “I think it goes back to the preparation of a football team. How did you set your schematic schedule in the limited time that we had? Just the anticipation of the changes. Frankly, I don’t think any of us anticipated the amount of it. Are we handling it properly? Did we adjust in midstream as good as we can? So I think, like anything, times like this can confirm what I believe in.”

That may seem like excuse-making, but the reality is that the pandemic threw a wrench into everyone’s plans. Still, the other two new coaches in the division, Joe Judge of the Giants and Ron Rivera of Washington, have managed to cobble together five wins in 12 games, positioning them for a four-game race to the NFC East crown. And Browns coach Kevin Stefanski, who spent little more than a full season calling plays in Minnesota before getting the job, has taken the Browns to nine wins.

“I do believe that we will be much better from this experience and all this adversity is happening for a reason, and from adversity and negative experiences, obviously you have a great opportunity to learn and increase your instincts and your awareness,” McCarthy said. “And I feel that our program and our team will be better for this moving forward. It can’t happen quick enough.”

He’s right about that. The urgency is permanent in Dallas, where the Cowboys will now extend their absence from the NFC Championship game to 25 seasons. In the 25 seasons before that, the Cowboys appeared in 13 NFC Championship games, with seven Super Bowl appearances and five Lombardi Trophies.