Cowboys must make a coaching decision. Jerry Jones has been thinking about his next step ‘for weeks’

The Dallas Cowboys must make a decision.

They could renew head coach Mike McCarthy’s contract for the 2025 season and, if extended, likely beyond. Or they could commence interviewing coaching candidates and chase a new hire.

What the Cowboys can’t do, when their season ends Sunday night: Sit pat.

Because with McCarthy coaching the final year of his contract, they do not have a head coach under contract for next year.

“We’ve got this game ahead of us,” Jerry Jones said Tuesday morning on Dallas radio station 105.3 The Fan, “but I’ll assure you that I have been, for weeks, thinking about how we go forward after this season.”

So what’s the team owner and general manager thinking?

Ah, there’s the rub.

Jones’ microphone-happy persona prompts him to accept interviews often. But he knows drawing out franchise decisions does not conflict, and arguably aligns well with, his commitment to keeping his team relevant. See: the Cowboys extending wide receiver CeeDee Lamb in August at training camp’s end and then quarterback Dak Prescott hours before the season opener.

The last time the Cowboys didn’t renew a coach, the news broke during the Philadelphia Eagles’ wild-card game. With the 7-9 Cowboys already eliminated from the playoffs, a similar announcement timeline would not be shocking.

Does Jones want to move quickly?

“I’m not under any unusual timeframe at all,” he said.

The Cowboys could extend McCarthy, who has won 59 percent (49-34) of regular-season games in five seasons. Dallas has been one of the more successful regular-season teams in his tenure. But when the Cowboys hired McCarthy in January 2020, they championed hopes he could take the team to deep postseason levels that have eluded the franchise since the 1995 season. Instead, the Cowboys’ NFC championship appearance (much less Super Bowl title) drought approaches three decades.

After three straight 12-5 campaigns that earned playoff berths, the Cowboys lost nearly every star player for extended time this year. Prescott; right guard Zack Martin; pass rushers DeMarcus Lawrence and Micah Parsons; and cornerbacks Trevon Diggs and DaRon Bland all miss extended time.

The Cowboys won four of five games in a stretch after Prescott’s season-ending hamstring injury, shifting the tenor of public conversation. Jones heard that sway.

“I think the fan sentiment has shown that Mike’s certainly got the kind of coaching background and coaching success that would make him a very qualified coach in the NFL,” Jones said. “So all of that’s there. What I’m not going to do this morning to get into any indication one way or the other that I’m not interested in having Mike back. I don’t want that to be the case at all.”

Jones will weigh the winning streak that predated the Cowboys’ blowout loss to the Eagles on Sunday. And he will weigh embarrassing home losses to the New Orleans Saints, Baltimore Ravens and Detroit Lions that the Cowboys endured with much of their roster healthy.

He argued that the experience young offensive linemen gained this year should portend 2025 Cowboys improvement with or without a coaching change. Account for the defensive injury luck, and the often-optimistic Jones has his case made.

Will that be enough to earn McCarthy an extension? Jones is not tipping his hand.

He continued his intentional praise of his head coach without expressing confidence McCarthy has earned an extension.

“I feel good about Mike McCarthy, and the main thing is that I like the job that he’s done,” Jones said. “Unfortunately we’ve had the year that we’ve had. But I feel good about Mike.”