The Big Lead

NFL Poll Predicts League's Most Disappointing Team

Twenty-seven coaches and execs responded to the annual poll by "The Athletic."

By Evan Bleier

Dallas Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy before a game at SoFi Stadium.
Dallas Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy before a game at SoFi Stadium. / Jonathan Hui-Imagn Images
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Winners of 36 regular-season games over the past three years after posting identical 12-5 records in each, the Dallas Cowboys and head coach Mike McCarthy begin the 2024 campaign desperate to hit postseason pay dirt.

As good as the Cowboys have been in the regular season in the past three years under McCarthy, who went 6-10 during his first year running things in Dallas, they've been equally as bad in the playoffs and have gone 1-3, including a humiliating 48-32 upset loss to the Packers in the wild-card round last year.

With 81-year-old Jerry Jones desperate to see his team win a Super Bowl for the first time in three decades and Bill Belichick rumored to be keeping tabs on the coaching situation in Big D, McCarthy will almost certainly have to win a playoff game (or maybe two) this postseason in order to keep his job.

Based on the results of an anonymous poll of 27 NFL coaches and executives conducted this summer by The Athletic, McCarthy, who is in the last year of his contract, is going to be looking for work this winter.

Asked to name three teams that will surprise in a bad way this season, nearly half of the 21 voters who responded to the question picked the Cowboys to disappoint in '24. The Cowboys led the way in the "surprise in a bad way" category with nine votes, followed by the Dolphins (seven), Bills (five), Jets (five) and 49ers (four).

In addition to questions about McCarthy's coaching aptitude and concerns about QB Dak Prescott's expiring contract complicating matters in Dallas, folks around the league believe the Cowboys will feel the loss of ex-defensive coordinator Dan Quinn, who is now the head coach of the Washington Commanders.

“Losing the defensive coordinator is going to be a huge deal, and I think it’s a big difference in scheme from what they did before,” an executive told The Athletic. “They’re plenty talented. It’s just a hard place to win.”

A hard place to win and an easy place to find yourself unemployed if you keep losing early in the postseason the way McCarthy has done. Maybe this year will be different, but the rest of the NFL doesn't think so, for now at least.