Did the Cowboys miss their best opportunity to win a Super Bowl? | You Pod to Win the Game

Yahoo Sports’ Charles Robinson and Frank Schwab discuss whether Jerry Jones would part ways with Head Coach Mike McCarthy following his Cowboys 23-17 playoff loss to the 49ers. With changes likely coming to not only the roster but the coaching staff, did Dalas squander what may have been their best chance to win a ring? 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

[VARIOUS SPORTS SOUNDS]

FRANK SCHWAB: Somebody asked Jerry about, well, is McCarthy coming back? And he basically just gave the I-don't-know answer. Yeah, I don't think there's any chance. This is just not Jerry Jones' M.O. Like, he kept Jason Garrett around probably four years after he should have. Like, he's not canning McCarthy after a playoff loss.

Like, I get it. It was a tough loss. Very frustrating. Very disappointing. But you're not firing a head coach after this, right?

CHARLES ROBINSON: No, no, I didn't take it as that. I took it as Jerry was like, I'm not getting into the granular stuff right now. Like, we're talking about what just happened. The despair I'm feeling at standing up in front of you and, once again, saying how disappointed I am.

I thought-- what I took away, though, that I thought was interesting was he brought up this idea of like, hey, we've got this group. Basically, I'm paraphrasing here. You have to strike when you have this group of players together.

And he's effectively saying, because, look, you don't know what's gonna happen in the next couple of months. The league is all about robbing from good teams and giving to bad teams, all these different things. I think what Jerry is staring out and looking at, he's saying, I've got these two coordinators that are both hot commodities on the head coaching interview circuit.

I might not have either of these guys the start of the 2022 season. That's definitely possible. And, oh, by the way, these two coordinators might be the best part of my coaching staff. It might not be Mike McCarthy. It might actually be Kellen Moore and Dan Quinn, who I think is probably gonna win Assistant of the Year in the NFL this year, this game notwithstanding.

And then I think he also sits there, and he says, OK, well, with the roster, guess what, there's also some potential changes that we're gonna have to make with the talent base because of salary questions. Like, some guys, either we don't like where their salary's at anymore. Some people we might have to move on from in order to, you know, make some adjustments or some room with our cap.

I see Jerry Jones sitting there going, man, this addition that we really liked and that had this cohesive sort of magic over the course of the season, [CHUCKLES] it might be drastically different when next season starts. And, oh, it might be drastically different in two really important leadership spots, with the defensive and offensive coordinator, which can change everything.

If Dan Quinn changed everything when he came in, him leaving could change everything on the way out. And I think this is gonna be the team. If they falter and they struggle for the next three, four, five years, however long it is, they'll look back and go, remember 2021? That's when we had it. We had the team there. That was the squad, and it didn't happen.

And it's gonna be one of these teams that just-- that tombstone is going to be there for Cowboys for the next, you know, 10, 12, 15 years, where they look back at 2021, and say, look what we left.