Broadcaster Colin Cowherd has claimed that Dallas Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy could find himself in trouble early on in the season. 

Mike McCarthy came to the Dallas Cowboys with a pretty decent reputation under his belt following his years with the Green Bay Packers, having won a Super Bowl with them during the 2010 season, and compiling a record of 125-77-2 during the regular season, winning the NFC North 6 times and going 10-8 in the playoffs. 

Contrast that to the man that he replaced at AT&T Stadium in Jason Garrett who had a record of 85-67 in the regular season, 3 NFC East titles and 2-3 in the playoffs (two of those losses ironically coming at the hands of McCarthy’s Packers), a reasonable record, but not enough to really take the Cowboys forward as a franchise.

The Cowboys and owner Jerry Jones are a team that are used to winning, having won 5 Super Bowl titles, although their last one came in the 1995 season, but whilst McCarthy has shown some progress, it may well be that he’s running out of time already before the team have to look elsewhere.

The story so far

McCarthy got off to something of a rough start in Dallas, with the Cowboys going 6-10 in his first season in charge, although given various restrictions in the preseason as a result of the pandemic and things not being normal that season, he deserves something of a pass.

Especially because in his second season he lifted them back to being competitive with a 12-5 record and the #3 seed in the NFC, before losing at home to the San Francisco 49ers in the first round of the playoffs. 

But whilst progress is progress, each year presents a new challenge, and if they suffer a bad start to the year, then it might well be that McCarthy’s future in Dallas will be brought into consideration. At least that’s what Colin Cowherd may have been hinting at.

What’s he said?

Speaking on The Herd, Cowherd looked at what the Cowboys’ schedule was like in the early part of the season, and hinted that as a result of, what on paper looks like a tough start, it could well be that McCarthy finds himself under pressure come October: 

“They open with [Tom] Brady and [Joe] Burrow. If they go 0-2, based off how it ended last year, McCarthy is going to be facing heat. They don't get, it's not brutal because they do get… Washington at home. And then they get Detroit and the Bears at home by week seven and eight. But it's, to start the season, it’s Tom Brady, Joe Burrow, a couple of weeks [Carson] Wentz, then Matt Stafford, then you're at Jalen Hurts, who carried his team into the playoffs and we suspect he's better. “You can see Philadelphia late-October, mid-October, two-game lead, Jerry's getting snippy at the postgame press conferences, McCarthy's getting dragged by the local media. So expect Mike McCarthy, if they start the year 0-2, Burrow and Brady and they get them both at home and lose both based on last year's ending, it's going to be bumpy. “You're gonna hear ‘Mike McCarthy, get a new coach’ stuff very early potentially.”

There has been talk about the idea of the Cowboys moving off McCarthy and replacing him with former New Orleans Saints head coach, although Jones did dismiss that as an idea last month. 

But knowing how demanding Jones is to win a Super Bowl, it isn’t impossible to think that a change could be on the way if things don’t improve this season, especially if the team starts slow and can’t recover in time to make a decent challenge.