Power struggles between Jones and McCarthy causing Cowboys drama

Since Jerry Jones became the owner of the Dallas Cowboys in 1989, he’s made some interesting decisions on who to hire and fire at the head coach position, and the question of control has always been at the forefront.

Beginning with the firing of Tom Landry and hiring of Jimmy Johnson, Jones was already pissing people off. Landry was a beloved part of the Cowboys organization as their first-ever head coach, a 29-year tenure, and two Super Bowl victories. But with the last championship occurring 11 years prior, Jones wanted to see a change. So he hired Arkansas teammate Jimmy Johnson.

That’s when the power struggles first began, eventually leading to a nearly 30-year-long feud between the two. After taking the Cowboys to two Super Bowl victories in the 90s, Jones decided he wanted Johnson to have less decision-making power and himself to have more, creating a war between the two that eventually led to Johnson’s firing.

Now, take away the Super Bowl victories and it looks like history is starting to repeat itself with current head coach Mike McCarthy - at least in some ways. As we all know, the Cowboys won one more Super Bowl after the firing of Johnson, under coach Barry Switzer, but have had very little postseason success since then, winning just four playoff games in 27 years under six different coaches, and Jerry Jones.

McCarthy was hired ahead of the 2020 season and has since put up a 42-25 regular-season record and 1-3 playoff record. The regular-season record makes McCarthy look like one of the best head coaches in Cowboys’ history, but that playoff record shows that the Cowboys have been failing when it comes to making big wins. But who is really to blame for that - quarterback Dak Prescott, McCarthy, or Jones himself?

Complicated relationship between McCarthy and Jones

After a 12-5 regular season last year, the Cowboys lost in the Wild Card round to the Green Bay Packers, another postseason failure for McCarthy. And yet, Jones did not fire McCarthy in the offseason. He’ll have one more year to look for playoff success with the team, but that could prove difficult after an offseason lacking in contract negotiations with the Cowboys’ three best players, and which saw several good players leaving in free agency.

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According to NFL insider Ty Dunne on his “Go Long” Substack, McCarthy is getting “fed up” with Jones, who doesn’t let the coaches have much influence over the players. According to the article, McCarthy is tired of feeling undermined by Jones.

One personnel source noted that despite having a talented team, the Cowboys are “going to underachieve” if the coaches can’t do their job fully.

“You hired him for a reason,” an NFL executive said of Jones’ hiring of McCarthy. “You believed in what their philosophy was. Let him execute the philosophy. If it doesn’t work? Then you move on from him. But when you’re meddling and you’re not only telling the personnel people who to draft and who to sign, but you’re also influencing what plays are called and things like that, it’s just going to hurt what’s going on.”

The Cowboys lost two starting offensive linemen in Tyler Biadsz and Tyron Smith, their starting running back in Tony Pollard, and two of their defensive linemen in Dorance Armstrong and Dante Fowler. Now McCarthy is in the final year of his contract and in the hot seat, with a team with significantly less talent than last season. If all the pressure is on McCarthy to get the Cowboys to playoff success, with no real help from the owner and the expectation that he should be okay with that, then Dallas is in real trouble. And the bigger issue is that it will continue to be a problem regardless of who’s in the head coaching position, as long as Jerry is still in control of things.