Do the Cowboys have to beat the Buccaneers for Mike McCarthy to keep his job? | You Pod to Win the Game
Yahoo Sports’ Charles Robinson and Frank Schwab discuss the speculation surrounding Mike McCarthy’s future as head coach of the Cowboys. If Dallas loses their Wild Card matchup with Tampa Bay, will Jerry Jones say goodbye to McCarthy and hire Sean Payton before the Broncos do? Hear the full conversation on the You Pod to Win the Game podcast. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you listen.
Video Transcript
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CHARLES ROBINSON: Dallas Cowboys lose to Washington 26 to 6 in just a total no-show game. Just an absolute-- you watch it. I mean, there were turnovers.
FRANK SCHWAB: Dak. Oh, Dak, that pick 6. Oh, what are you doing?
CHARLES ROBINSON: You're like, OK, this is now the third pick 6 in what, Four weeks?
FRANK SCHWAB: Something like that, yeah.
CHARLES ROBINSON: It's just the special teams was bad. The defense at times was bad. The offense was bad. Everything about it was just a crap game, I thought, for the Cowboys. The thing is, even with this loss, they're still on Jerry Jones's schedule. When you started the year, Jerry said I want a viable playoff team. Like, he wasn't like you got to win the Super Bowl. Said I think this team is a better team to go on a run than the 2021 edition, which I thought was crazy, but it's turned out to be right.
But he said he wanted a viable team in the playoffs. OK, well, they're in the playoffs now. So they're still actually on schedule. Even with the crap loss to end the season, it's not a great way to go into the postseason. But, to me, this is for-- Mike McCarthy, the season starts now for him. Right now, this is where it starts for, OK?
Jerry Jones went out. He said he had choices, but he stuck with Mike McCarthy because he believed in his ability to get this team over the hump. Well, now you're going to play Tampa. You've got to go on the road. You're going to be on "Monday Night Football." So of course they put that one in the big monster primetime slot, right?
You know, hey, never out of it Tom. Yeah, they're 8 and 9, but it's still Tom Brady. All this stuff. Going to need an extra day to prepare and to heal up. Dallas should beat Tampa hands down, OK? And they had a clunker. They should be pissed off. They should be like this is not who we are. We can't blame this on injuries. We can't blame this on the offensive line not being in a perfect spot right now, whatever.
You are a better team than the Tampa Bay Buccaneers offensively, defensively, I would argue special teams. I think you are a better coached team. I like your coordinators better. Like, I mean, it's straight up. So, to me, this is it. Like, Mike, whatever happened happened. Hell with it. Jerry said they can suck on it for a week. Great. Suck on it.
Mike, your season, your 2022 season begins on Monday. And you better win, because if you don't win, Jerry's quote, unquote, "other choices," the one of which we always talk about, Sean Payton, is just starting his little flirtation with the Denver Broncos, OK? And you know what? Say Dallas drops that game in Tampa and Sean is having his little talk with the Broncos and all this stuff.
And the Broncos probably can't give up a first round pick for Sean Payton. I don't know that Jerry doesn't just sit there and go, nope, I'm not letting this guy get away to Denver. We'll flip a first round pick for him. We'll figure it out. And McCarthy, you think that they beat Tampa, you're fine, but there's a lot at stake here all of a sudden on that Monday night game.
FRANK SCHWAB: I don't want to overreact because I think in the back of Dallas's mind, they knew. Look, we're not winning the NFC East.
CHARLES ROBINSON: They weren't getting NFC East. It wasn't happening.
FRANK SCHWAB: But yet, it's a Washington team that had nothing to get up for. They're starting rookie, Sam Howell, who played pretty well, by the way. They got nothing to play for, and they just boat-raced the Cowboys. This game was just a never contest, really bad look going into the playoffs. And, yes, I think if you follow that up by losing to a bad Buccaneers team, this whole week is going to be, oh, Tom Brady. You never know.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are a terrible football team. They're bad. They're legitimately bad, but so are the Cowboys right now. The Cowboys-- look, even when they were winning, like the game before, the Titans game. That whole game, we're watching that on Thursday night like, OK, your playing Joshua Dobbs. You can't put them away? Like, what's wrong here? And it's been kind of that way.
I backed up the Cowboys. I was high on them before the season. But the past four or five weeks have just been kind of meh football for them, and that's a long time in the NFL. If they go and blow it against the Buccaneers and Sean Payton is out there and Jerry realizes it's now or never. Either you're going to get Sean Payton or you're not, who has been the apple of his eye forever. I agree with you. Yeah, if they lose Monday night-- as crazy as it is usually to fire a 12 and 5 playoff coach, like, well, this is your shot at Sean Payton if you think that's an upgrade. So I think it's definitely in play.