The Cowboys had confidence in Mike McCarthy’s coaching when Dak Prescott missed most of the 2020 season with an ankle injury. It paid off; Dallas went 12-5 and won the NFC East with a healthy Prescott in 2021.
Will Jerry Jones be patient a second time should the team once again have trouble winning games without Prescott in 2022?
Prescott struggled against the Buccaneers’ defense in Sunday night’s 19-3 Week 1 home loss before suffering a hand injury that will force him to miss “several weeks” of action, per Jones.
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It should be presumed that Prescott won’t be out for the remainder of the season this time, but with the team already 0-1 and shaky backup Cooper Rush likely to be his replacement for multiple games, the Cowboys are facing an early fall out of NFC playoff contention.
The Eagles are the new clear favorites in the NFC East and the Commanders and Giants also have started 1-0. With the reigning AFC champion Bengals on deck at Dallas in Week 2, the Cowboys are staring at an 0-2 start, from which it will be difficult to recover to earn even a wild-card berth.
Jones brought in McCarthy to get the Cowboys back to a Super Bowl during their current window. That is always the expectation in Dallas. It will again be impossible to meet it with Prescott missing significant time.
This is the third year of McCarthy’s five-year contract. There was good reason to give him a pass two seasons ago as the team finished 6-10. But that also was before the one-and-done playoff home fail against the wild-card 49ers last season.
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There was already big-time pressure on McCarthy to at least make sure his team didn’t lose its edge vs. the rising Eagles. Jones could use some of his 2020 vision and see that McCarthy isn’t getting a fair shake with another bad break. Or, he could use the opportunity to go in a different direction and hope to be tied to better fortunes in 2023.
Beyond Prescott coming back at some point in ’22 and thinking McCarthy should win more games, there’s another key difference. Longtime Jones favorite Sean Payton is no longer leading the Saints, He’s biding his time waiting for a return to coaching while serving as a Fox analyst.
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There’s no doubt some of McCarthy’s appeal to Jones was that he won Super Bowl 45 with the Packers in the Cowboys’ home stadium. It would then make sense for Jones to have the man who led the Saints to victory in Super Bowl 44 still on his radar.
McCarthy would have been on the hot seat with opening home losses to the Buccaneers and Bengals even if Prescott had been healthy for Cincinnati.
Jones will be watching carefully to see if McCarthy can get the team to improve its execution with Prescott out again. This time, however, left tackle Tyron Smith and wide receiver Michael Gallup are also on the shelf. Regardless, posting only a field goal in Week 1 was unacceptable for a team that scored a league-high 30.4 points per game last season.
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The offensive-minded McCarthy and young, play-calling coordinator Kellen Moore need to adjust so that Dallas can play better complementary football. It should be easier to do that now than it was in 2020 because, in 2022, Dallas’ playmaking defense can serve as the foundation as the team tries to follow the formula.
There might be no way to compare 2022 to 2021 now, but Jones can compare how this team responds to what happened two years ago. The Eagles aren’t perfect contenders by any means, and even with the Commanders and Giants winning early the NFC East remains weak enough that 10-7 or 9-8 can get the job done.
The last time Prescott went out, McCarthy tried to save face for the franchise and build a bridge to Year 2 of his tenure. This time, he will be charged with keeping the team afloat and in striking distance of first place in the division until a healthy Prescott can help level the field.
There are a lot of tough decisions ahead for the Cowboys. Their 2023 salary cap situation is tricky. Prescott’s latest injury should expedite Jones; decision on whether he wants McCarthy back for next season.
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism