Mike McCarthy has not secured his spot as the Dallas Cowboys’ head coach in 2025, but the job is not yet vacant.
McCarthy’s contract with the Cowboys expires Tuesday (Jan. 14) but the franchise maintains an exclusive negotiating window and owner Jerry Jones plans to open contract talks Friday with designs on retaining the coach, according to multiple reports.
The Cowboys denied a request from the Chicago Bears to interview McCarthy earlier this week and Jones said in December he expected other teams to show interest because of the coach’s resume and history developing quarterbacks.
McCarthy, 61, said he wants to return.
“I don’t know that I am considering making a change is really what I’m trying to say,” Jones said at the end of the regular season. “Mike’s one of the best coaches that I think there is. He was made the coach here because I thought that, and he’s done absolutely nothing to diminish my opinion of him as a coach.”
Dallas won four of its final seven games despite a significant run of injuries to key personnel, including a season-ending injury to quarterback Dak Prescott and a month without top pass rushers Micah Parsons and DeMarcus Lawrence.
McCarthy missed the playoffs for the second time as head coach of the Cowboys, who also failed to reach the postseason in his first season running the team in 2020. But he posted three consecutive 12-5 seasons before a 7-10 finish in 2024.
