In the pettiest of ended relationships, there's one goal: Win the breakup. The Dallas Cowboys have failed miserably in that regard after moving on from Mike McCarthy.
Just 25 games into his Cowboys head coaching tenure, Brian Schottenheimer is already on the hot seat, at least from outside the building. Jerry Jones seems as committed to his coach as ever, despite a disappointing start to this season.
Meanwhile, McCarthy is thriving in his new role with the Pittsburgh Steelers. He has an Aaron Rodgers-led team sitting atop its division at 6-2 and is much closer to a playoff appearance than the Cowboys are.
McCarthy won this breakup, and it's not remotely close.
Cowboys can't help but regret Brian Schottenheimer decision after watching Mike McCarthy's Steelers success
It would be revisionist history to claim that, because of McCarthy's early success with the Steelers, the Cowboys never should have fired him. The decision to move on was rational at the time. The head coach had produced regular-season success, but he could never get the job done in the playoffs.
Any franchise with the intention of winning a Super Bowl would have at least considered moving on.
But the decision to replace him with an internal promotion of Schottenheimer deserves a bit more scrutiny. The hire felt uninspired at the time, and it hasn't aged particularly well. Hindsight is always 20-20, but many saw this coming at the onset.
Schottenheimer is now 10-14-1 as the Cowboys' head coach, and he has still only won back-to-back games once. He can hang his hat on his offensive production, but the offense was already a top-ten unit under McCarthy when Dak Prescott was healthy.
Dallas' search for McCarthy's replacement never felt like a serious process. While exciting options like Ben Johnson and Liam Coen were hired during that cycle, names like Deion Sanders, Pete Carroll, Robert Saleh, and Leslie Frazier headlined the Cowboys' search.
If those were the best options, Dallas would have been better off sticking with McCarthy.
Now, the Steelers' head coach is making the decision look even worse. He has built a competent team in Pittsburgh, which is far more than Schottenheimer can say. With the benefit of hindsight, firing McCarthy set Dallas back multiple years.
Mike McCarthy still hasn't answered the question he couldn't face with Cowboys
Of course, McCarthy still hasn't gotten the playoff monkey off his back in Pittsburgh. Cowboys fans saw him lead a few strong regular seasons, but he was unable to translate those wins into playoff success.
He established a baseline of competence (one that sounds nice in Dallas at the moment), but that competence quickly became stale when its limited ceiling became apparent. He won 12 games in three consecutive seasons and only produced one playoff win during that stretch.
Until McCarthy can turn his regular-season prowess into wins in January, Cowboys fans will still be able to justify his firing. After all, this start to the year has been typical for the Steelers, too. But if he can win a playoff game or two with this Pittsburgh roster, the Cowboys will be in shambles.
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