Any good coach is able to recognize the good his team did while not losing sight of the work that still needs to be done if they want to be better. Such is the case for Dallas Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy, who, despite his team’s big win against the Cleveland Browns in Week 1, still sees an opportunity for them to get better.
Cowboys HC Mike McCarthy Acknowledges Mistakes in Impressive Win
The Cowboys, en route to their 33-17 win over the Browns, had many good things to take away from the game, but they weren’t without flaws. McCarthy acknowledged this while talking to the media on Monday.
“I think September football is what the league experiences,” McCarthy starts. “You don’t have the time that you used to have as far as fundamentals and things like that, but everybody’s on the same schedule, so it’s not as if one team has an advantage over the other. It’s just something to be aware of and coach against.
“You want to play cleaner football. We had way too many penalties. Who the hell wants to be part of a game that has 20 penalties?” he continued. “So we’ll spend time on that. We’ll make sure we’re clear with our players on what’s being emphasized.
“It’s ebb and flow of every year. It’s about corrections and solutions.”
In the NFL, you can never take any win for granted. In a league built on parity, oftentimes, the difference between 10 wins and 10 losses is the bounce of a ball. It’s clear from his critiques of their Week 1 performance that McCarthy understands that all too well.
“Regardless of September football, you gotta find ways to win. You can’t lose sight that it was a hell of a win for us. It’s the first road win. A tough environment and a very talented football team. … There’s a lot that went well and in a clear victory for us, and I’m very happy for the start of the season, but … we’ve got details to work on.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
You take the good with the bad and try to learn from it all, especially early in the season when everything feels like a fact-finding mission.
What’s clear is that the Cowboys look like a team that can be a contender. If they want to stay that way, McCarthy knows they’ll need to hone in on the mistakes they made heading into Week 2.
September Will Be a Telling Month for the Cowboys
Off on the right foot, Dallas enters Week 2 1-0 and feeling good about themselves. With three more games left in September, we may have a glimpse into whether this Cowboys team is a real threat or not.
While we acknowledge that nothing should be made as a final proclamation from the first month, schedule makers did Dallas no favors with the start of their season. With two games against the AFC North and a matchup against a New Orleans Saints team coming off a big win themselves, Dallas has its work cut out.
Next up is the Saints team in Dallas’ home opener, fresh off a 47-10 beatdown of the Carolina Panthers. They are followed by a visit from the oh-so-dangerous Baltimore Ravens before ending the month against a bad New York Giants team. However, before that Giants game kicks off, we should have a good sense of where Dallas stands in the hierarchy of the NFL.
From there, the Cowboys enter a stretch of games where they face the Pittsburgh Steelers on the road, followed by hosting the Detroit Lions and then another road test against their kryptonite, the San Francisco 49ers.
With a stretch like that to open up October, not only will every game in September teach us something about Dallas, but every win may matter more as they face arguably the toughest stretch of their season.
So when McCarthy says they need to get back to work and fine-tune their mistakes, he says it is for good reason — Dallas’ schedule is about to ramp up quickly.