Dallas City News

The Dallas Cowboys are really good at winning football games in the regular season. It’s the one thing they’ve been able to hang their hat on for years because they’ve gotten the job done from September through December. Over the last 20 years, the Cowboys have the eighth-highest winning percentage, winning 57.5% of their regular season games. And, it gets even better if you go back just 10 years as they rank sixth, winning 60.1% of their games.

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Sadly, that’s where the fun stops. Once January rolls around, it’s a different story. We all know it’s been nearly 30 years since the team has advanced past the divisional round of the playoffs, but sometimes they don’t even get that far. The Cowboys have a 4-10 record in the playoffs over the last 20 years, putting them in the bottom five for post-season winning percentage.

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Good, but not great. That’s been the Cowboys’ mantra for the better part of two decades, and it leaves us fans scratching our heads. Why do they only go so far? What is the missing ingredient for them to finally go on a deep playoff run? Many good things are happening in Dallas, but something is holding them back. Today, we’ll examine the three most influential factors and place our bets on which is causing them the greatest detriment.

JERRY JONES

The Cowboys owner makes all the final decisions, but to be fair, he is more open to listening to the guys around him than he has been in the past. People like Stephen Jones and Will McClay are mighty influencers, so we’ll lump them together as the front office.

The front office has looked a lot different over the years. It started with Jimmy Johnson’s nose for talent, collecting many top collegiate players when they built their ‘90s Super Bowl teams. Once Jimmy left, Jerry was doing all kinds of crazy stuff. High-risk trades, huge free-agent signings, and spending as much as he felt like. He even front-loaded the contract of Miles Austin to take advantage of an uncapped year in 2010, which the league later penalized the Cowboys $10 million. These days, things are different. With a more cap-conscious offspring managing the books, Stephen makes the Cowboys much thriftier, and they rely heavily on McClay and his scouting department to constantly bring in younger, cheaper players to balance the high-priced stars they retain.

From a roster-building perspective, this team is pretty good. Yes, there are holes, and yes, they continue to balk at using free agency as a means of talent acquisition. There is certainly room for improvement, but overall, the Cowboys are regularly ranked among the top teams in talent. So, overall, how do you feel about the Cowboys front office?

Jerry Jones record: Regular season 312-251 (.554), Playoffs 16-16 (.500)

DAK PRESCOTT

If you believe the Cowboys have had plenty of roster talent over the years, someone else must be messing this up. Usually, that someone who is blamed is Dak Prescott as he’s the most influential player on the football field. That’s just how the blame game works in the NFL. It almost always trickles down to the quarterback.

But is that fair? Is Prescott a guy who can only take this team so far? It’s hard to say. Sometimes, he’s brilliant. He’s a three-time Pro Bowler coming off a season where he finished second in MVP voting. He’s definitely a good player, but is he good enough when it counts the most?

That’s the new narrative when adjusting the goalposts for how Prescott should be perceived, but to be fair, he’s brought this on himself. Outside of a great game against Tom Brady’s Buccaneers in 2022, Dak’s more recent post-season performances have been mediocre to subpar. He’s thrown multiple picks in his last two playoff games and only one touchdown in four of his last six playoff games. While Prescott has been good overall in the regular season, he hasn’t been “the guy” come playoff time when the competition is a little tougher. How do you feel about Mr. Prescott?

Dak Prescott’s record: Regular season 73-41 (.640), Playoffs 2-5 (.286)

MIKE MCCARTHY

Last week, we pointed out that you have to go back 20 years to find the last time the Cowboys had a losing season when their starting quarterback (Vinny Testaverde) was healthy. The point was to argue that the Cowboys have had a couple of good quarterbacks in that span, but also that the front office has provided good pieces around them to keep the wins coming. If you subscribe to that line of thinking, then that only leaves one person to be the fall guy. Mike McCarthy.

When the rubber meets the road, how does McCarthy perform? My esteemed colleague, OCC, recently wrote a good piece highlighting the contrasting differences in success the Cowboys have had between playing good teams and not-so-good teams. They stomp the bad ones but struggle when the talent level is more evenly distributed. Why is this? As he suggests, coaching.

In games against tougher rosters, the Cowboys always seem to be at a coaching disadvantage. And this isn’t just in the playoffs as they’ve had trouble against good teams in the regular season. Come playoff time, that’s all they’re seeing.

And it’s not just about these repeated letdowns against good teams. There are other McCarthy issues as well. The excessive amount of penalties, the head-scratching clock management, the challenge-flag ineptitude, and some of the most laughable plays on special teams have all been on full display in the McCarthy era.

McCarthy has a tough job, and working within the confines of a Jerry Jones-run team is not for the faint-hearted. Credit him for maneuvering through the turbulence that is the Dallas Cowboys. That said, there could be some real coaching limitations with this Cowboys team and it could be limiting how far they can go. And to be fair, the coaching is not exclusive to McCarthy. It’s also Mike Nolan, Kellen Moore, John Fassel, Dan Quinn, Brian Schottenheimer, and all the assistants who play a key role. Whatever they’re doing, it hasn’t been enough in the bigger moments of the season. How do you feel about McCarthy’s coaching ability?

Mike McCarthy’s record with the Cowboys: Regular season 42-25 (.627), Playoffs 1-3 (.250)

There’s plenty of blame to go around. And there’s a chance that change is coming. Prescott is in the last year of his contract. The same goes for McCarthy. And you never know when McClay might have had enough and get a good payday to GM elsewhere. As for Jerry and Stephen? Well, they’re not going anywhere anytime soon. But when you look at the three most influential factors, which one has to go?