In his first NFL head-coaching job, Mike McCarthy worked for a team that didn’t have an owner. Now, he’s working for a team whose owner is also the General Manager — and the most visible and audible person in the entire operation.
Appearing Wednesday on SiriusXM’s Mad Dog Sports Radio with host Adam Schein, McCarthy was asked about this dynamic in Dallas, which includes Jerry Jones conducting two radio interviews per week and regularly meeting with reporters after games.
“I think it’s like everything in this league, you know, there’s jobs and every job has a little bit different job description and job responsibility,” McCarthy said. “That’s just, frankly, the way this organization runs. But my communication with Jerry and the relationship that we have and the ability to talk through things, you know, working for an owner and working for an organization that didn’t have an owner, I mean, Jerry asks all the right questions. And I think it makes everybody better. Because just like anything, you’re gonna have the conversations, the post-game conversations after the game. And I think it’s really healthy. I think it’s healthy for our coordinators and I think it’s just like anything, there’s a line of accountability that goes with it. Now, the radio shows and all that stuff, that’s really just part of the job description of working here in Dallas.”
Most recently, Jones said that he would have preferred McCarthy to try for a touchdown before kicking a field goal at the end of the first half of Monday’s win over the Chargers. McCarthy explained to Schein the decision not to call a time out with eight seconds left and take one more crack at the end zone but to instead let the clock tick down to three seconds before opting for three points.
“Ebb and flow of the game I think is really a variable that you’ve got to learn to navigate,” McCarthy said. “And there’s a discipline to it. Trust me it’s a lot harder to be conservative than to be aggressive. Everybody wants to be aggressive on Sundays. But the ebb and flow of that game, it was herky jerky, bumpy. It was a gritty win. It wasn’t pretty, by no means.”
And those three points at the end of the second quarter provided the ultimate margin of victory. Still, if the Chargers had scored a late touchdown and won by four points, McCarthy would not be hearing the end of it for not trying to score a touchdown at the end of the first half.
