The unthinkable has happened: Mike McCarthy won't be returning to the Dallas Cowboys in 2025, as the team allowed his contract to expire. With the two sides not being able to agree on a new contract, McCarthy is a free agent and can explore other options for the next part of his head coaching career.
Cowboys fans are going to be thrilled about this and even the former players are speaking up, including ones who never even were a part of the McCarthy era.
Former Cowboys receiver Dez Bryant wasted no time throwing shade at McCarthy, noting on X that this was a "Great move for the Dallas Cowboys!"
Dez Bryant is thrilled about Mike McCarthy's departure from Dallas
Great move for the Dallas Cowboys!
— Dez Bryant (@DezBryant) January 13, 2025
Bryant spent eight years with the Cowboys and ranks first in franchise history with 73 receiving touchdowns, third with 531 catches and fifth with 7,459 receiving yards.
Of course, Bryant's most signature moment in a Dallas uniform was his "Dez caught it" controversy that came against McCarthy's Packers in the 2014 Divisional Round. Maybe that is part of the reason Bryant is so excited to see McCarthy out the door, as that game should have marked another playoff shortcoming for a McCarthy-coached team.
Another (more likely) reason is that McCarthy was underwhelming during his time as Cowboys head coach. While they won 12 games in three straight seasons, Dallas consistently came up short in the playoffs. They never made it out of the Divisional Round and this past season was a complete and total disaster from top to bottom. It felt like a change needed to happen.
In other words, Bryant isn't the only one who's excited to see the team move on. Fellow Cowboys great Michael Irvin has long advocated for Dallas to hire a new coach. Irvin wants Jerry Jones to go after Deion Sanders. While that is unrealistic, it says a lot that multiple former team icons wanted McCarthy gone.
It'll be interesting to see what direction the Cowboys opt to go in from here, especially with Mike Vrabel off the board and Bill Belichick also not looking like a realistic option now that he's officially entrenched as North Carolina's new head coach.
The Cowboys needed to hit the reset button and now they have a chance to do that. From the looks of it, no one is more psyched about that than Dez Bryant.