The Dallas Cowboys are a good football team that repeatedly comes up short in the postseason. It’s been a thing for a long time as they are one of the more successful regular-season teams over the past two decades, but can’t for the life of them get past the divisional round.

Fans, players, coaches, and even those Jones fellas at the top find themselves scratching their heads trying to figure out what’s the missing ingredient. While there are a lot of factors that play into a team’s success and failures, the two biggest scapegoats are always the head coach and the quarterback. Arguments can be made for and against both Mike McCarthy and Dak Prescott when it comes to how far the team has gone, but is there enough evidence to suggest one of these guys holding this team back?

Mike McCarthy
After a terrible first season, the former Green Bay Packers coach has led his team to three consecutive 12-5 seasons. Twice during that time they won the NFC East and hosted a wild card playoff game. McCarthy has faced adversity as the Cowboys coach, losing Prescott in 2020, watching his offensive line go through so many changes over the years, and not having adequate offensive weapons in 2022.

We saw a noticeable improvement in the offense this past season after McCarthy took over from Kellen Moore, but some still wondered how much of this was his doing versus just having more talent available. Not only did they have Brandin Cooks as their second WR instead of Noah Brown, but they were a lot healthier. A few weeks ago, we did a comparison that showed how many starters they missed over the last few years and how their offense performed (in terms of DVOA rank). Here is a summary of those results:

COWBOYS OFFENSE
YEAR GAMES MISSED DVOA rank
2023 11 9
2022 34 14
2021 27 4
Everyone has their thoughts on McCarthy’s influence on the offense. What we do know is that the offense is good and he gets them to the playoffs. However, despite the regular season success, he’s 1-3 in the playoffs as the Cowboys coach. He’d done a good job getting them to play well in the regular season but hasn’t been able to get them over that same NFC Divisional Round hump. And for that reason, some suggest he’s just an extension of Jason Garrett. Good, but not great.

Dak Prescott
As a rookie, he was thrown into action after Tony Romo suffered a back injury in preseason. From the onset, Prescott was off and running. Dak has gone through his own adversity with so many new offensive coaches and new schemes to learn. They’ve also gone through a couple of different wide receiver overhauls as they transitioned from Dez Bryant to Amari Cooper to now CeeDee Lamb.

Prescott has had seasons where he’s looked like a game manager and he’s had seasons where he’s looked like a gunslinger. He’s had three Pro Bowl seasons over his eight-year career, including this past season where he finished second in the league in the NFL MVP voting.

While Dak is great most of the time, he has had moments down the stretch where his performances have been subpar. He struggled down the stretch of 2019 where the Cowboys lost four of their final six games and missed the playoffs. In each of the Cowboys’ last two playoff losses, Prescott has not played well and thrown multiple picks in both games. He’s a playmaking quarterback who gets the job done during the regular season but has struggled at key moments in the playoffs. Some suggest he’s just an extension of Romo. Good, but not great.

Both are at fault
When you look at these two, it’s hard to place blame on one without also placing blame on the other. Both failed to do their job in recent the playoff loss to Green Bay. You can talk about McCarthy’s questionable in-game decisions or inability to get his team to play without committing penalties, but you also have to give him credit for his understanding of how to play the long game. Prescott has never taken a preseason snap under McCarthy, and the coach was ultraconservative in his play-calling early in the year, getting the ball out of Dak’s hand quickly. Prescott’s 17% pressure rate this past season was the lowest of his career. There’s no magic formula to keep your quarterback safe, but whatever McCarthy did last year worked as Dak started every game last season for the first time in four years.

Prescott also deserves a lot of credit. When the offense was sputtering early in the year, Dak took matters into his own hands. He was incredible during a stretch of eight games after the bye week where he threw 23 touchdowns and just two interceptions. The Cowboys were 7-1 over that stretch. As great as he’s been at times, it’s hard to understand what happens during some crucial moments in the season. Prescott appears to work himself up and rushes his play. This can result in poorly timed throws, erratic footwork, and bad reads. When it’s bad, it’s really bad.

McCarthy and Prescott are entering the final year of their contract and often chatty Jerry Jones has stayed rather mum when it comes to talking about these guy’s future with the team. For a lot of us, doubt has crept in whether these guys are capable of leading this team to a Super Bowl. Maybe big changes are still needed, but if so, what would those changes entail?