IMO the decision by Jerry Jones to keep Mike McCarthy after that terrible playoff loss last January was not only cheap (he didn’t want to have to pay off Big Mac’s last year), it also set up this year‘s team with the unnecessary mental baggage of a head coach who has already shown he is incapable of getting this team on a deep playoff run.
Coupled with the questionable decision to keep Big Mac, the FO made it worse by deciding they would do nothing this off-season to make this roster better than the teams of the last three seasons that could not get past the divisional round.
Look, I hope I’m wrong…I really do. But watching this team through four games, they not only look under-manned in several key positions, they look mentally tired. The evidence is already there that this team could be on the verge of quitting on this staff, which is already hanging over a cliff with the expiring contracts.
Here are the red flags that this team is suffering some mental malaise after last year’s playoff loss:
- Haven’t won a home game since last December, 2023 when we beat the lions 20-19.
- In the team‘s last 3 home games, it averages giving up 40 points a game, and have looked unprepared at the start of each of those games.
- The players probably feel frustrated at the lack of action by this FO in the off-season but can’t take it out on them.
- With the defense losing its two best players for a stretch, it creates more strain on the mental toughness of this team. Can they overcome that?
- If we lose at Pittsburgh, at 2-3 we would face a tough lions team at home again with the mental baggage of the last 3 home stinkers.
- If we go to the bye week 2-4 with the tough schedule ahead, the “quit alert” bells will be ringing.
The other side of this coin of course is “winning cures everything”. If the team can start winning and show it’s capable of “doing hard things”, it can change this course.
But if I take off the fan glasses and just try to be objective, this does not look like a team that believes in itself nor its head coach.
