Signs seemed to point toward the Dallas Cowboys retaining Mike McCarthy as their head coach for 2025 after owner and general manager Jerry Jones profusely praised him after their Week 18 finale against the Washington Commanders. 

However, McCarthy's and Jones' conversations regarding the head coach's future in Dallas broke down on Monday as the two sides decided to part ways. That surprised Cowboys Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback and ESPN NFL analyst Troy Aikman, which leads him to believe there isn't a real plan in Dallas, Garrett Podell of CBS Sports reports. He has a point. If the Cowboys were always going to part with McCarthy, why wait a whole week after their season ended and fall behind on interviewing potential candidates? Jones' management of the franchise in recent years has removed some of the shine from the allure of being the head coach of the Cowboys in the eyes of Aikman.

"Well, I thought Mike McCarthy would be the head coach, so this is a bit of a surprise for me today that he's not going to be," Aikman said on "Monday Night Countdown" pregame on ESPN, via Awful Announcing. "It suggests that there's not a real plan. The fact that they haven't had the opportunity to interview a Ben Johnson and some of these others, Aaron Glenn. ... Kellen Moore being a candidate seems logical to me: a guy who has familiarity with the building. He worked obviously with the Cowboys and with Jerry Jones. In fact when Mike McCarthy got the job, it was told to Mike that Kellen would be the offensive coordinator, so that's how much the Jones family thinks of him. Beyond that, it's hard to imagine. As as a coveted job, I don't know that that's accurate."

Of course, no team in the entire league is covered more closely than Dallas, but Aikman doesn't see Dallas as a place where a head coach can run the show on his own terms anymore. That's why he doesn't think Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell, who has led his team out of the NFL basement to an NFC title game appearance in 2023 plus the top seed in the NFC in 2024, would have succeeded with the Cowboys. 

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