The brutality of sports as a profession

AKA: How does Mike McCarthy still have a job?

Note: After I wrote and scheduled this to be published, a story leaked that the Cowboys will be retaining Mike McCarthy. I stand by everything below that I wrote. As a 49ers fan, I couldn’t be more thrilled about how this is going.

If you are a fan of NFL football - and statistically speaking, you are, if you look at ratings - you saw a few massive upsets this weekend. The Houston Texans not only beat the Cleveland Browns, but did so convincingly. Even more shocking, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers walloped the Philadelphia Eagles almost as badly as the Green Bay Packers shredded the Dallas Cowboys.

(Let me first interject that I enjoy only one thing more than watching the Cowboys lose, which is of course watching the 49ers win. This was a delightful weekend.)

All of these were upsets, but with the Browns, despite Joe Flacco’s incredible resurrection, it’s easy to look at the injuries with Cleveland and the rise of the Texans and see that they were vulnerable. The Eagles basically broke after the 49ers pantsed them mid-season. (Lest you think I’m being a 49ers fanboy, well … I am. But also? They were 10-1, and then went 1-6, including losing in the playoffs.) The Eagles looked listless for the second half of the season and maybe had the worst vibes I’ve ever seen in professional sports.

But nothing - NOTHING - came close to watching the Cowboys lose, YET AGAIN, way before anyone thought they should. This is a team that has won 12 regular season games for the last three seasons. They haven’t made the NFC Championship Game in DECADES. They have Pro Bowlers and All Pros across the roster.

And 49ers HC Kyle Shanahan started game planning for the Packers in the second quarter of the game, because it was already obvious who was winning this.

PUT IT IN THE LOUVRE

Head Coach Mike McCarthy used to coach the Packers and was fired because the team never lived up to its potential. Since joining “America’s Team,” I’ve spent the last few years listening to overconfident Cowboys fans laugh about anyone else’s chances in the NFC, finding it astonishing that anyone thinks other teams have a chance. (Seriously, I’ve had these literal conversations with people.)

And every year, the team falls flat on its face. This year they became the first team to lose to a 7-seed (granted, there’s only been six 7-seeds in the NFL playoffs at this point), and were down by four touchdowns. The effort was, in no uncertain terms, disgraceful. Both from the players but also from the coaching staff - the team simply wasn’t prepared for this game. I don’t really believe in teams looking past opponents, but they clearly expected to win. Star LB Micah Parsons (who apparently has his own podcast) was talking about how they’d see the 49ers in the playoffs, something that due to seeding would only happen in the NFCC. The last time the franchise appeared in that game was 1996, about three years before Parsons was born.

Things happen - it’s HARD to win in the NFL or really any professional sport. It’s why sustained excellence is so revered and appreciated. But at some point one has to look at a record and figure out where the buck stops. In some franchises, the organization simply doesn’t compete for talent - whether it’s poor drafts, not paying for free agents, etc. Others have crap facilities that make players hesitant when they’re doing free agency tours. Dallas has none of that. I am no fan of owner Jerry Jones, but the man pays for excellence. Instead, he has this.

The prior two seasons, the 49ers had the pleasure of ousting the Cowboys, both of which ended with the Cowboys either running out of time without a timeout, or calling the weirdest play I’ve ever seen which ended with Ezekiel Elliott playing CENTER and finishing his Cowboys career by getting outright trucked into oblivion.

I rarely ever root for someone to lose their job, but … what are we DOING here? I know Jones kept Jason “The Clapper” Garrett on as head coach for what felt like decades, but how can these continued losses be anything but related to how the team is being coached and prepared? Losing is one thing but getting outplayed in every aspect of the game is entirely another.

I don’t understand how Mike McCarthy has a job. Coaches salaries are not public, but estimates suggests he’s probably paid around $5-6MM a season. He’s by all accounts a lovely person who the players like a great deal.

Happier times.

But he can’t get the most important part of his job right. It’s harsh, but this is supposed to be one of the most elite positions in sports, coaching the Dallas Cowboys. I can only think that Jerry Jones hasn’t fired McCarthy yet because he’s not sure who he can replace him with (which of course, is another good point - will a new coach be any better at clearing this hurdle? Let’s hope not.)