FRISCO — Mike McCarthy is 73 games into his coaching tenure with the Cowboys.
He’s about to enter the most critical juncture of his time with the franchise.
Unexpectedly sitting at .500, coming off a 38-point loss at home, the Cowboys hit the road to face San Francisco. While true that the Niners have their own issues at the moment, the team is bolstered by the knowledge it destroyed Dallas by 32 points one year ago and ended their post-season the previous two seasons.
Recent history and current events collide to make this game something of a tipping point. If the Cowboys don’t play appreciably better than they did in losing to Detroit, this season could begin to slip away for a head coach who finds himself in the final year of his contract.
“I don’t agree with the thought process,” McCarthy said of the assertion Monday as the players returned from their bye week. “This is an opportunity to get to four wins. That’s really where we’re at.
“I think it’s too early to even think like that.”
The stakes from week-to-week in the NFL are so significant that teams often find themselves at a crossroads. This is one for Dallas.
But McCarthy doesn’t think that way and he doesn’t believe his players should, either.
“We can’t operate like that,” McCarthy said. “I don’t operate like that and refuse to.
“You’ll never be consistent in your performance if you want to swing on that pendulum. So that’s not something that I really entertain.”
McCarthy was noticeably upbeat during his press conference. Only part of his mood should be attributed to the fact he took a brief break late last week to attend the ELO concert with his wife and friends at the American Airlines Center.
The coaching staff met for three days last week to analyze data while discussing what to tweak, what to discard and how to proceed. McCarthy met with owner Jerry Jones on Thursday.
The players, many of whom McCarthy saw at the facility last week even though they were off, reported back to The Star at 9 o’clock Monday morning. McCarthy addressed the team at 11.
“We went over the analytics of how we’re playing,” said defensive end Micah Parsons, who remains unsure if he’ll be able to return against San Francisco due to a high ankle sprain. “We’re defeating ourselves. We’re not getting enough turnovers, we’re not getting the ball back enough and we’re not capitalizing on the turnovers we do get.
“I think collectively, all around, we have to do better. He [McCarthy] reflected himself how he has to do better and how the offense has to get going and moving.”
Turnover ratio is a primary focus. The Cowboys are a minus-6 in the metric that subtracts offensive giveaways from defensive takeaways. Only Tennessee and Las Vegas are worse.
Dallas finished at either plus-10 or plus-14 in that category in each of the last three seasons.
Identifying the issues is the easy part. Correcting them is the key.
That began after McCarthy’s address when the team broke into what he calls across the hall meetings. This is where the players spend time with coaches on the opposite side of the ball to increase their understanding of how they are being played. It’s another way to dig in on fundamentals and technique and show tendencies.
Let’s use rookie left tackle Tyler Guyton as an example. He was shown by the defensive line coaches that the way he opens his hips on his second step leaves him susceptible to a bull rush.
Practice will also be tweaked going forward. The GPS readings the club uses to track the intensity level of the players are actually higher across the board than they were the last two seasons.
That tells McCarthy it’s not about effort. It’s about detail and what the staff is emphasizing.
There will be fewer individual drills as the focus shifts to group work.
“For example, line movement has been constant,” McCarthy said of what defensive fronts have done. “We have started two rookie offensive linemen [since] Week 1, so they’ve been stunting and gaming us since we got off the bus.
“We’ve been practicing it. But it’s not enough, so that’s something we’ve got to really focus on.”
One thing he has not focused on is the criticism outside of the building from Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman and others.
“If it’s not about winning, if it’s not about self-improvement, we really don’t have any time or energy for it,” McCarthy said. “I do appreciate you giving me an opportunity to talk about all this nonsense here.
“It’s awesome.”
Catch David Moore and Robert Wilonsky as they co-host Intentional Grounding on The Ticket (KTCK-AM 1310 and 96.7 FM) every Wednesday from 7-8 p.m. through the Super Bowl.
Twitter: @DavidMooreDMN
Find more Cowboys coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.
