‘Zero class’ – Jerry Jones slammed by fans over Cowboys’ brutal Mike McCarthy treatment
Mike McCarthy is done in Dallas.
The head coach will not return to the Cowboys for the 2025 season as the two sides could not come to terms on an agreement on the length of a new contract, NFL Network's Tom Pelissero has reported.
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McCarthy, who has been in an exclusive negotiating window with Dallas, is now set to become a free agent and look for a new team.
He spent five seasons with the Cowboys and managed three trips to the playoffs.
According to ESPN, the Chicago Bears and New Orleans Saints are expected to be interested in speaking with McCarthy regarding their vacancies.
Last week, the Bears had an official request for permission to speak denied by the Cowboys.
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With news that McCarthy is likely to be on his way out emerging just days later, some fans have suggested that owner Jerry Jones showed a lack of respect to his former coach.
"Incredibly weak from Jerry Jones. Regardless of their relationship, he should have allowed him to interview when the Bears requested if this was the intention. Really bad look," one person wrote on X.
"Wow that seems a bit dirty to me," another said.
"Absolutely insane and rude thing to do," a third concluded.
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"Awful: Cowboys owner Jerry Jones didn't allow Mike McCarthy to interview for the Bears head coaching job only to fire him days later. Zero class," wrote media personality Dov Kleiman.
McCarthy guided the Cowboys to 49 wins and 35 defeats during his time as head coach.
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He took the job in 2020, having spent 13 seasons with the Green Bay Packers, where he won the Super Bowl in 2011.
Speaking to the Pat McAfee Show on Monday afternoon, ESPN's Adam Schefter discussed the situation in Dallas.
"The two sides are officially parting ways," he explained.
"They met over the course of the last week and had discussions about football - no business discussions, they never got to that - no contract discussions.
"The longer it went on, the more apparent it became. With McCarthy's contract set to expire, and him being eligible to talk to teams at midnight on Tuesday, there was no movement on a new deal.
"Clearly, there was a direction in which the Cowboys weren't going there."
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Schefter went on to call the decision a 'seismic shift' in the NFL landscape.
And while McCarthy is expected to interview with other teams, the Cowboys may already have missed out on one of their potential candidates.
According to , Fox Sports NFL Insider, Bill Belichick would have been interested in the Cowboys job before ending up at UNC.
"It's believed that Dallas would have been interested in him," Schultz posted on X.
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"Belichick and his camp never received any indication during backchannel conversations that the job would open up, which is partly why he ended up at UNC."
News of the shake-up in Dallas comes after a season in which Cowboys owner Jones suggested that he'd consider extending his head coach's contract.
He backed McCarthy during an injury-ridden campaign that saw them lose franchise quarterback Dak Prescott, and championed him amid a stretch in which Dallas won four games late in the season.
The team eventually finished 7-10, with Jones offering more praise to McCarthy on the final day, telling reporters that 'Mike's one of the best coaches that I think there is.'
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But failing to make the postseason in 2024 marked a disappointing end to a season that began with big expectations, and McCarthy will depart having failed to make an impact on that stage.
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The 2021 campaign ended with defeat to the San Francisco 49ers in the wild card round, and while the Cowboys won a road playoff game for the first time in 30 years in 2022 against Tom Brady's Tampa Bay Buccaneers, they fell to the Niners again in the divisional round.
One year later, in 2023, Dallas lost in the wild card round to McCarthy's old team, the Packers.
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