Changes Cowboys HC Mike McCarthy Must Make to Avoid Hot Seat in 2022

Mike McCarthy may have won the NFC East and made the playoffs in his second season with the Dallas Cowboys, but he should still be looking over his shoulder heading into the 2022 season.

With one of the most dangerous offenses in football and a high-profile team president in Jerry Jones, expectations in Dallas are high. After a 12-5 regular season, hopes were high for a long playoff run. But it didn't come to fruition.

For now, Jones has stood by McCarthy. Per David Moore of the Dallas Morning News, the team president said the coach's job security has never been in question.

However, Jones did mention how hard they worked to retain defensive coordinator Dan Quinn. The former Atlanta Falcons head coach did a great job in turning around the defense in 2021. It should also put a little pressure on McCarthy that there's a head-coaching candidate in the building.

If the Cowboys are going to have success in 2022 and McCarthy is going to hold on to his job, here are three changes he'll need to make.

Among the most important jobs of an NFL head coach is establishing the culture within a team and organization. So when a team is undisciplined, that fall at the feet of the head coach.

There's no way around it. McCarthy's team was undisciplined this season. They led the league in pre-snap penalties with 50. You can debate the validity of some calls between the snap and the whistle, but those penalties directly correlate with discipline, preparation and communication.

Other discipline-related penalties aren't good for the Cowboys, either. They were second in unnecessary roughness, which more often than not comes down to discipline.

The problem reared its ugly head in the Wild Card Round, wherein they racked up 14 penalties for 89 yards in a six-point loss to the San Francisco 49ers.

McCarthy has two strong coordinators, with both Quinn and offensive coordinator Kellen Moore attracting attention as head-coaching candidates.

With both of them on staff, McCarthy doesn't have to carry the burden of X's and O's on either side of the ball. The culture of costly penalties must be addressed and has to be a point of focus this offseason.

There were a lot of areas and ways in which the defense was better under Quinn last year, and McCarthy deserves credit for making the switch from Mike Nolan to the former Falcons head coach.

However, one area still needs work after two years under McCarthy, and that's the defensive line—more specifically, the interior of the defensive line.

The Cowboys were awful against the run in 2020. They were 31st on a per-carry basis, giving up 5.0 yards per attempt. In 2021, they were only marginally better, ranking 24th at 4.5 yards per carry.

That's probably enough improvement that they don't need to make a coaching change, but personnel changes will be mandatory. Brent Urban and Carlos Watkins are both set to be free agents and played roles on the D-line this season.

Both should be allowed to walk, and the Cowboys will need to consider adding talent through the draft. Jordan Davis (scouting report), Logan Hall (scouting report) and Devonte Wyatt (scouting report) have all earned grades of 8.0 or higher from Bleacher Report's scouting department and could be available when the Cowboys are on the clock in the first round.

Rather than hope the existing talent suddenly gets better or going the cheap free-agent route, McCarthy needs to push for actual investment in improving the run defense.

There's a lot of talent on the Cowboys offense. There are a lot of mouths to feed. McCarthy and Moore do not have easy job when it comes to getting everyone involved. However, in the case of two of their playmakers, it was clear they need more touches in the offense.

For starters, there is enough of a sample size to safely say that Tony Pollard has more juice than his much-richer counterpart Ezekiel Elliott. The Cowboys will have $18.2 million wrapped up in Elliott next season, per Spotrac. In an ideal world, that wouldn't dictate that he featured more than Pollard.

That appears to be the case, though. In 2020, the backs were nearly identical when it came to efficiency. In 2021, Pollard was the clear leader. He averaged 1.3 yards more per carry and nearly three yards more per target in the passing game. Yet Elliott had 107 more carries and 19 more targets in the regular season. In the playoff loss, Elliott had 12 carries to Pollard's four and four targets to Pollard's two.

The same attitude of funneling touches goes for CeeDee Lamb. Speaking on 96.7 The Ticket, analyst Troy Aikman criticized the team's inability to get the ball to Lamb against the 49ers (h/t The Athletic's Jon Machota). He was limited to one catch on five targets for 21 yards.

Meanwhile, Amari Cooper and Cedrick Wilson saw 10 apiece, and Dalton Schultz saw eight. In other words, the 49ers dictated whom Prescott targeted in the passing game. Lamb is too talented to take a back seat in the biggest moments of the season.