Mike McCarthy opens up about first days with new Cowboys offensive staff

Dallas Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy exuded optimism about the direction of his offense as he hit the podium on Wednesday at the 2023 NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis.

Fresh off of all-day scheme meetings with his new offensive staff, McCarthy claims he’s having the “most fun” he’s had yet in Dallas.

The former Packers head coach is adding play-calling duties back on his plate for the 2023 season, leading to more involvement and more meetings.

“This is the most fun I’ve had since I’ve been in Dallas,” McCarthy said. “To go from 8-11:30, talking nothing but scheme. That part’s different… You have to delegate more. Doing this in year four is totally different than doing it in year one, especially with the pandemic we had.

“Offensively, we’ve been in the meeting room the whole time. We’ll do an AM session, a PM session. At night we’ll do the interviews with the prospects. We just want to keep rolling and get as much done as we could this week.”

New Cowboys staff hits the ground running

The Cowboys didn’t have the full offensive staff in Indianapolis to start the week. Instead, they opted to hold virtual meetings with prospects at night, while installing variations to the main concepts the team has used over the last three seasons.

“We played really good offense the last three years,” McCarthy said. “I feel like we’re in the arena of how we want to play. It’s really just building off of that. We don’t want more than 30-35%… We’re not looking at wholesale changes.

“We’re going to stay with the language. The outlook is clearly on making the quarterback successful. We’ve spent the majority of our time on protection and the pass game right now.”

As Cowboys EVP Stephen Jones described earlier in the week, the Dallas offense was just “a click” away from achieving their goals. McCarthy’s staff changes and scheme tweaks could be what the Cowboys and Dak Prescott need to meet expectations in 2023.