Getty Dallas Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy
The Dallas Cowboys are back to the drawing board after a brutal 48-32 loss to the Green Bay Packers and Mike McCarthy’s time could be up. The Dallas head coach is now 1-3 in the playoffs with the team, with fans and media members calling for his job.
The latest? Robert Griffin III. The former Washington Football Team and Baltimore Ravens quarterback announced his take on January 15. In a video, he not only calls for McCarthy’s job, but also tells the Cowboys to hire team icon Deion Sanders.
“I hate calling for coaches’ jobs, but it’s got to be the coach,” Griffin said on X. “A lot of people are saying you should go get Bill Belichick as your next head coach… I know who you need. You need Coach Prime. That’s right – Deion Sanders. Coach Prime knows how to win in Dallas. He knows what it takes to have a championship mindset. He knows how to hold his guys accountable, and he’s a culture changer.”
Hiring Sanders, who has never coached at the NFL level, would be a blockbuster move, to say the least. It doesn’t seem like a likely outcome, but he may be in the running if McCarthy is ousted.
Nick Saban Suggested as McCarthy Replacement
Besides Griffin, plenty of other coaches are being listed as McCarthy replacements. Griffin’s ESPN colleague, Kevin Clark, has suggested another college coach: the recently retired Nick Saban.
Saban could be considered the greatest college football coach of all time, but his stint as an NFL head coach with the Miami Dolphins was an infamous failure. Still, Clark thinks that Saban would be the best overall option.
“The second person I would call is Nick Saban, one of the greatest coaches in the history of football,” Clark said on January 15. “[A] bad rap in Miami. …Some people say, ‘He couldn’t relate to millionaire athletes.’ That is not what happened… He left [for] the college game because he felt he couldn’t control his own destiny once the [Dolphins] doctors said he couldn’t sign Drew Brees.”
Saban retired earlier this month from Alabama after seven national titles and a gigantic legacy. It doesn’t seem like the NFL or the Cowboys could draw him out of retirement, but Clark still thinks the call is worth making.
Comparing Mike McCarthy to Jason Garrett
When McCarthy was brought in, the idea was that he could “finish” a season. Dallas had some regular season success with former Jason Garrett, but McCarthy had a Super Bowl ring to his name and they were looking for postseason wins.
So far, McCarthy has had a better win percentage in Dallas (.627) than Garrett (.559) and has won two division titles in four years compared to Garrett’s three titles in 9 full seasons.
But the issue is that McCarthy is not delivering in the playoffs. He is now 1-3 after the Packers loss. Garrett was 2-3 in knockout games before being fired. While the Cowboys are clearly having more year-to-year success so far, Dallas is still having difficulty making it count in January.