McCarthy ‘regrets’ his approach to Packers in 2022
The NFL scriptwriter, if there were one, would be deserving of a raise for creating such a masterpiece with this year’s NFL playoff image. Mike McCarthy, the head coach and offensive play caller of the Dallas Cowboys, will be taking on the Green Bay Packers heading into Super Wild Card Weekend.
To put it another way, McCarthy will need to beat his previous team as its leader—a team he repeatedly eliminated from the playoffs—before he can take control of everything in 2023.
This time, McCarthy isn’t going to be playing that angle.
“The drama of it, I’m sure you guys will love, but I will not participate in it this year,” he said after defeating the Commanders to clinch the NFC East title and No. 2 seed. “It’s playoff time. It doesn’t matter who we play, to be honest with you. … We need to play our best football.
That’s fair, but the media and fans can talk about it, so let’s.
It’s truly a perfection of coincidence, or karma, depending upon your belief system but, regardless of which is the actual driver here, you won’t see or hear McCarthy playing up the matchup; and that’s because of the outcome of the previous clash in 2022, when Aaron Rodgers engineered a comeback win at Lambeau Field.
The Cowboys held a firm 28-14 lead in the third quarter before losing 31-28 in overtime.
McCarthy was physically upset following that battle, and it was due to not only the fashion in which the Cowboys lost, but it was also very clearly who’d they lost to — torpedoing McCarthy’s homecoming. He now wonders if his pre-game approach to that matchup did his players a disservice despite, in the moment, his belief that the opposite might’ve been true.
“I felt it was crucial to discuss Green Bay with the squad at the start of each week last year. McCarthy said, “I regret it,” on Monday. “You live and learn, but that doesn’t even need to be a part of our energy foundation. Our commitment is the focus of this game. It makes no difference who we are playing.
That’s my current location. Simply said, there isn’t time for that. It won’t aid in our victory. Furthermore, I have no interest in it if it won’t help us win the game.”
Nevertheless, Dak Prescott and the locker room still remember the events of that tragic November night in Wisconsin.
Since McCarthy’s Packers shut down Prescott’s record-setting rookie season in 2016 by marching into AT&T Stadium with Aaron Rodgers to deliver a 34-31 loss in the NFC Divisional Round, the three-time Pro Bowl quarterback concurs with McCarthy that there’s much more to this game than his head coach’s rematch with the Packers, or even his own.
Granted how the two teams’ 2022 season concluded, Prescott is also not playing games.
“We’re excited for him for this game,” he said. “As much as everybody else knows what this game means for the Dallas Cowboys, it’s got something a little special as well. It’s important to get it for our own being, but the way that we do it will be punctuation for him.”
Jayron Kearse echoes the sentiment of Prescott, revealing that the defensive side of the equation is also signing up for some redemption for McCarthy.
“I’m pretty sure there’s going to be a lot of emotions with Coach McCarthy, and rightfully so, being he’s been there, he’s won a Super Bowl up there and had some great years there,” the veteran safety said. “So, to play them in this wild-card game, I know it’s going to be huge for him.”
What the Cowboys can not allow, however, and to McCarthy’s point, is to let an added emotion cause them to play outside of themselves and lack execution. If that happens, nobody’s goal in Dallas will be achieved, and it’ll likely be a repeat of last year’s matchup anyway. The definition of insanity is to continue doing the same thing but expect different results.
Kearse acknowledges the prevailing headline, but the more important one is to win and advance to the NFC Divisional Round, and more.
“I’m pretty sure he won’t let that get in the way of the things that we have to do — understanding that we’re here for one reason,” said Kearse. “It’s not Mike McCarthy versus Green Bay. It’s the Dallas Cowboys versus Green Bay, and that’s something players need to understand as well.
“We want to go out there and win this for Coach, but let’s understand that it’s a team that is in our way. Let’s not make it bigger than what it is. Being that the playoffs are already huge enough, so let’s not put anything else on it.
“Let’s just go out there and win, because that’s what we have to do in order to achieve the things we set out to achieve [at the start] of this year.”
The truth is that McCarthy has come a long way since his time in Green Bay. After leaving after the 2018 season, he decided to take a year off from football in 2019 before joining the Cowboys in 2020. He had to overcome the COVID pandemic and significant personnel and roster changes in order to finish his third consecutive 12-win season and earn a trip to the playoffs.
And as it stands, the Green Bay side of the equation is even less familiar, as only four players on the whole roster (including the practice squad and injured reserve) were part of McCarthy’s squad in Green Bay: Aaron Jones, Jaire Alexander, Kenny Clark, and David Bakhtiari.
It’s not the same team McCarthy knows, and this isn’t the same McCarthy that the Packers had come to know, at least not in a football capacity.
The fact that there is a street in Green Bay named after him is irrelevant. Hell, he might even win one in the Metroplex if he manages to break the nearly 30-year drought in Dallas.
He will face his old team, the Packers, as the first obstacle on his 2023 postseason path.
Former is a crucial term.
“At the end of the day, this is my team — I’m a Dallas Cowboy,” stated McCarthy. “This is our opportunity and I’m just making sure I’m doing my part, and that’s doing everything [I can] to help win this game.”
You may refer to that as a… Mike drop.
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