Mike McCarthy will not return as Dallas Cowboys coach, AP source says

DALLAS (AP) — Mike McCarthy is will not return who train for Dallas Cowboysthat continues three decades since their last Super Bowl title, a person with knowledge of the decision told The Associated Press on Monday.

The person spoke to AP on condition of anonymity because a decision has not been made public. They said Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and McCarthy agreed to part ways. It’s possible the two sides could settle, but McCarthy will now talk to other teams as a free agent.

Coach’s contract expired after a 7-10 season. Dallas was 12-5 each of the three years before that, but still hasn’t advanced past the divisional round of the NFC playoffs since its last Super Bowl at the end of the 1995 season.

McCarthy’s contract expired Jan. 8, and the Cowboys have an exclusive negotiating window through Tuesday, but the parties decided to part ways before the deadline.

At least one other NFL team asked during that time to speak with the 61-year-old coach who won a Super Bowl with Green Bay.

Next season will be the Cowboys’ 30th since winning the last of their five Super Bowl titles.

Before taking the Dallas job after a full season without a coach, McCarthy was with the Packers for 13 seasons and had a 125-77-2 record from 2006-18. He was 10-8 in the playoffs and led Green Bay to a Super Bowl title at AT&T Stadium, the Cowboys’ home field, 14 years ago.

There were also three other NFC championship games for McCarthy in Green Bay, and that’s what Jones envisioned — and more — when he hired the coach in 2020 after Jason Garrett never made it that far in his 10 years.

McCarthy finished with a 50-38 record in Dallas, including a 1-3 mark in the playoffs. That included last season, when the Cowboys were NFC East champions and had won 16 consecutive home games before falling behind by 32 points in the fourth quarter of a 48-32 wild-card loss to the seventh-seeded Packers.

Dallas played the last nine games this season without franchise quarterback Dak Prescott due to a torn hamstring. Top receiver CeeDee Lamb, seven-time Pro Bowl guard Zack Martin, cornerback Trevon Diggs and rushing defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence also finished the season on injured reserve.

Garrett had the franchise’s second-longest coaching tenure. Hall of Fame coach Tom Landry coached the Cowboys’ first 29 seasons, the same number of seasons they have now gone since winning a Super Bowl. Jones fired two-time Super Bowl winner Landry when he bought the Cowboys before the 1989 season.

Only 12 NFL coaches have more career regular season wins than McCarthy’s 174, still well behind Don Shula’s record of 328. The only active coaches with more wins than McCarthy are Andy Reid (302 wins over 29 seasons) and Mike Tomlin (183 wins) in 18 seasons).

Jones’ next coach will be his ninth. He hired Jimmy Johnson from the University of Miami, and the Cowboys won back-to-back Super Bowls in the 1992-93 seasons before the college teammates at Arkansas had a bitter split.

Barry Switzer replaced Johnson, a Pro Football Hall of Fame coach, and won a Super Bowl in his second season, but was fired two years later after a 6-10 season. Bill Parcells, another Hall of Famer, led the Cowboys to the playoffs twice in four seasons from 2003-06, but lost in the wild-card round both times.

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Maaddi reported from Tampa, Florida.

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