Mike McCarthy declined to speak in-depth about his status with the Dallas Cowboys with his contract set to expire after the season.
“I do appreciate the opportunity to speak on it,” McCarthy said Monday, according to ESPN’s Todd Archer. “I’ve answered this question the same for however many months now, so I think the focus, I need to make sure I’m doing exactly what I’m asking everyone else to do. We need to finish the race.”
He added: “It’s been a challenging year, based on our contract situation for coaches. It’s stating the obvious, but we’ll have time to talk about that next week.”
McCarthy and his coaching staff are in the final year of their contracts amid a season where Dallas won’t make the playoffs for the first time since 2020. The Cowboys had become a fixture in the playoffs with three consecutive 12-5 campaigns from 2021-23.
The Cowboys haven’t advanced past the divisional round of the postseason in their three playoff appearances under McCarthy.
Prominent players such as Dak Prescott and Micah Parsons have advocated for McCarthy’s return next season despite a 7-9 record with one game remaining.
Owner and general manager Jerry Jones has praised McCarthy’s work this season after the team sustained significant injuries across the roster. Prescott, Zack Martin, CeeDee Lamb, and Trevon Diggs – all starters – have been out of the lineup at times for Dallas this season.
However, Jones hasn’t tipped his hand regarding whether he’ll extend McCarthy and his staff after the season. Despite the uncertainty of his future, McCarthy said there should be optimism for Dallas looking ahead.
“I think the future is bright, and we have a lot of things in place here,” McCarthy said. “We need to take a step back after next week, and obviously a lot of decisions got to be made, a lot of business decisions got to be made because of our contract situation, and that’s what we’ll do.”
The Cowboys will close out their season Sunday against the Washington Commanders.
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