Mike McCarthy wins in December, and the reasons why can be traced back to his first NFL job
DALLAS — The Cowboys have opened December with three consecutive road victories and a surge to the second seed in the conference.
You can thank a former NFL head coach, an Australian historian of religion, a counter-intuitive approach, a relaxed practice schedule and…
Mike McCarthy. Dallas enters Sunday night’s game against Washington with a playoff spot. The Cowboys could secure another NFC East title before they even step on the field at AT&T Stadium.
A productive December has ended a two-year postseason drought for the franchise. It’s not an anomaly, at least not where McCarthy is concerned.
McCarthy has compiled a 41-18 record in this month for a .695 win percentage as an NFL head coach. Bill Walsh (.735), Andy Reid (.711) and Joe Gibbs (.705) are the only coaches in league history with a better December winning percentage.
If Reggie Jackson is Mr. October and Derek Jeter is Mr. November, does this make McCarthy Mr. December? Hyperbole?
Sorry. We got swept up in the holiday spirit. But let’s explore a few of the reasons behind McCarthy’s success in Green Bay and now Dallas. It begins with his first job in the NFL.
McCarthy got his start as a quality control coach on Marty Schottenheimer’s staff in Kansas City in 1993. The program was established. The Chiefs were a perennial playoff team.
Schottenheimer emphasized the importance of playing in December, acknowledging those games are different than ones played in September. He adapted his schedule along the way with the purpose of having his players at their best in the final, full month of the regular season.
“A lot of what we do structurally and the process component of a game, I still use from my time with Marty,” McCarthy said. “The importance of really the fundamental part of your football team has to be heightened, and execution is everything.
“We talk about that now more than ever just because you should be a very good routine and a process through your game planning, the things that you’re doing weekly. So, the ability to beat the guy across from you consistently this time of year has to be heightened because you’re not going to get to where you want to go if it doesn’t flow through your whole football team.
“But, yeah, it was definitely established in that time.”
McCarthy became the head coach of Green Bay in January of ‘06. He made mistakes as a young coach. He’ll readily admit that. But he was always striving to incorporate new ideas or thinking into traditional approaches.
John Dickson is an Australian historian who focuses on early Christianity and Judaism. The author, speaker and lecturer would come through Green Bay once a year and would speak to the Packers at chapel when he did.
Dickson’s message of humility and the power of counter-intuition resonated with McCarthy. It grabbed him as early as ‘07 and didn’t let go. Dickson wrote “Humilitas: A Lost Key to Life, Love and Leadership” in ‘11, a book the Cowboys head coach still cites.
“I’ll be honest with you,” McCarthy said. “I think it’s really the commitment to humility in your personal and professional life, because when you study humility, counter-intuition is a key filter to utilize your thought process and your actions of how you do everything.”
Humility isn’t about thinking less of yourself. It’s about thinking of yourself less and listening to what others have to say.
“Counter-intuition, it makes you check the way you did things as a young man and not everything is absolute,” McCarthy said. “But I think you can also react to counter-intuition, and you can think everything you’ve ever done is screwed up. That kind of goes on right now in a lot of ways.
“So, I think holding onto the things that you truly know work from the past. I think those are fundamental, your foundation that you stick to. I think you have to have that. You have to believe in something as a base, but I think you have to use counter-intuition all the time.
“It’s something that I rely on a lot.”
Push harder. Do more. Break through the wall and keep going. That’s part of the football mentality.
It’s counter-intuitive to say do less in practice, ease off a bit, so you have more to give on the field late in the season. What if the best way to build that edge is to back off?
This is what McCarthy does in December. If you take the practice schedule from Week 1 and compare it to Week 16, you’ll find it’s about 90 minutes shorter a day. Some will say that’s doing less.
McCarthy will say that’s being more efficient in the work that needs to be done.
“Frankly, you have to practice what you preach,” McCarthy said. “Physical, mental, emotional stress is additive. So, being in tune with that and just stress that the players go through later in the year is higher.
“You got to recognize the holiday season and handling success. I mean, we’re having success as a football team. We’re having individuals that are having success probably higher than they may have in the past. So, you have to handle those things and it just …
“It’s not just a power point presentation. The ability to make it flow as part of your work day, I think it’s real important.”
Humility is letting your players know you have pushed your team too hard in the past. McCarthy remembers his first season as the Packers coach. He worked them seven straight days in training camp and noticed they had a hard time getting through the second quarter of the team’s third pre-season game against Cincinnati.
If overtraining is that apparent early in a season, what does it look like five months deep into a season if you don’t adjust?
“He knows the importance of changing the schedule,” receiver Amari Cooper said. “He’s mentioned before that he has run a team into the ground.
“He is very cognizant about not doing it again.”
The players appreciate the way McCarthy makes sure to ease the mental and physical stress on them late in the season.
“It’s definitely beneficial,” quarterback Dak Prescott said. “You talk about a coach who has a lot of success in December.
“Whether it’s the schedule change or the way we’re doing things, you believe in the way he’s got this thing operating.”
Dallas won only six games all of last season. Three of those came in December. The Cowboys are now 6-1 in the month during McCarthy’s brief tenure as head coach.
Can he add another win Sunday night?
“You always want to be playing for something,” said McCarthy, who was let go by the Packers, ironically, in December of ‘18, and then sitting out the next season before joining the Cowboys. “I think that you learn over the years what it takes from a commitment and it takes a lot of you, and that’s the joy of it all is to be competing in December.
“I like the way this thing lays up. We’re fighting for a division title Sunday night. What else can you ask for? I think clearly being out a year you definitely appreciate these opportunities so much more. You’re thankful.
“But, yeah, this is what it’s all about.”