Retaining Mike McCarthy means another big Cowboys regular season. Don't ask about the rest

This is For The Win's daily newsletter, The Morning Win. Did a friend recommend or forward this to you? If so, subscribe here. Have feedback? Leave your questions, comments and concerns through this brief reader survey! Now, here's Christian D'Andrea on Mike McCarthy's return in Dallas:

Mike McCarthy won 12 games in each of his first three seasons as head coach of the Dallas Cowboys. You don't fire a head coach who'll give you a dozen wins each year.

Mike McCarthy is also 1-3 in the playoffs in three seasons as head coach of the Dallas Cowboys, a team that hasn't been to the NFC conference championship in nearly 30 years. Those guys *do* get fired.

That's why, days after suffering a 48-32 thrashing at the hands of his former team, the Green Bay Packers, it was an actual news item that a guy who is 36-15 at the helm of the Cowboys is returning for a contractually obligated fourth season.

There are two ways to look at this.

The first is that it may produce the NFC East's first repeat champion since 2004. McCarthy gets back an MVP candidate quarterback in Dak Prescott, one of the league's most prolific wide receivers in CeeDee Lamb, an offensive line with up to three different 2023 All-Pros (if Tyron Smith re-signs with the club) and a defense loaded with stars like Trevon Diggs, DaRon Bland, Micah Parsons and whatever a 32-year-old DeMarcus Lawrence can still contribute. To blow it all up at head coach and start over would be a tough sell, and a few tweaks could be all the team needs to find glory.

The other, more pessimistic view, would be to say McCarthy has been a disaster when his team needs him the most. His one playoff win with the Cowboys was over an 8-9 Tampa Bay Buccaneers team with blocking so bad it finally forced Tom Brady into retirement. While he's had eight teams win 10 or more games over the last 11 years, only two have made it as far as the NFC title game. Two of his three season-ending losses in Dallas have come as a betting favorite.

In short, here's where Mike McCarthy brings the Cowboys in the regular season:

And here's where he ends up in the playoffs:

Everyone's bound to backslide in the postseason thanks to a more robust level of competition. But McCarthy goes from one of the NFL's best teams to being roughly as good as the Derek Carr Las Vegas Raiders. The other two teams on their regular season tier from 2021-2023 are the San Francisco 49ers and Buffalo Bills, who have each won at least three games in the postseason in that stretch and been to at least one conference title game, with more potentially on the way.

The Cowboys? They're 1-3 with a newfound tradition of waving goodbye to their offense at the first sign of adversity. Dak Prescott is a top five regular season quarterback in that span, tossing 96 touchdowns in 45 games while recording a 101.8 passer rating and 0.190 expected points added (EPA) per play, fourth-best in the NFL. In the playoffs he's got nine touchdowns in four games (good!), an 89.5 rating (decent) and 0.100 EPA per play (17th best out of 32 playoff quarterbacks).

This is the McCarthy curse. It's a lot of things -- clock management, a questionable use of challenges (only three in the last two seasons, winning one), an occasionally baffling viewpoint on player usage (see Ezekiel Elliott's carries vs. the Niners in last year's playoffs) -- but the biggest issue is his inability to make anyone better in the biggest games of the season. While other teams climb, McCarthy's teams search for the path of least resistance. When they can't find one, they collapse. Sometimes with a whimper and sometimes with the bang of a 48-16 fourth quarter deficit against the Packers.

Team owner Jerry Jones clearly expects more, but why? Retaining McCarthy is a less expensive, higher floor, risk averse move than trying to bring in Bill Belichick, Jim Harbaugh, Mike Vrabel or a hot young coordinator like Ben Johnson or Bobby Slowik. Unfortunately, history suggests it has no meaningful upside.

Since his 2010 Super Bowl run McCarthy has won exactly one playoff game as an underdog of more than a single point (two games as an underdog total). And it came in Dallas, against the Cowboys, because Aaron Rodgers was effectively a super hero that winter.

But, sure, maybe this is just a war of attrition. Maybe this is a battle between Zapp Branigan and the Killbots and all McCarthy has to do is keep sending talented teams into the thresher until the rest of the NFC shuts down from the fatigue of beating them. Perhaps time is not linear like we thought and everything that worked in 2010 will once again be relevant in 2024.

Or maybe the Cowboys will blast off in the regular season, earn the buy-in of fans across Texas once more, then fly their spaceship directly into the sun in a futile effort to teach us something. Armed with the last three years of McCarthy data, it's probably gonna be the latter.

The Pacers still have a long way to go

The Indiana Pacers snatched up the big chip of this year's NBA trade season before anyone else could have the chance to.

Related: Trade grades for the Pacers and Raptors after the Pascal Siakam deal

Pascal Siakam is a Pacer. Indiana is pairing a top-10ish player in Tyrese Haliburton with a top 25-ish guy in Siakam. That's always a good thing. Is it enough to compete for the East? Maybe not.

Our Prince Grimes says hold on just a second. It's too soon for all that.

"Indiana is the only top-eight team from either conference to rank in the bottom-third of the NBA in defensive rating. It’s a very similar sort of dynamic as last year’s Sacramento Kings, who were a nice story with a league-leading offense in the regular season, and put up a fight in the playoffs but lost in the first round. They just weren’t ready yet, and neither are the Pacers. And that’s OK. Teams don’t just go from out the playoffs to title contenders in one year.

That doesn’t mean the trade wasn’t worth making. Siakam brings the Pacers a step closer to the team they need to be in order to compete with the likes of the Boston Celtics and Milwaukee Bucks. They’re probably just another move away from getting there."

Prince is probably right. As great of a talent as Siakam is, he's probably not the player who pushes Indiana over that hump and into the Eastern Conference Finals. For that, the Pacers will need someone else to step up. Maybe Myles Turner finds his shot again? Or Benn Mathurin leaps forward?

There's also the potential that another move could be made for Indiana. It still has all of its picks beyond 2026 and has interesting prospects like Mathurin, Jarace Walker and Andrew Nembhard in hand. They could be flipped into another meaningful contributor.

Regardless of what comes next, though, Indiana is in a really good spot here.

The injury bug is brutal for TCU

We've seen teams that haven't quite been able to shake the injury bug before with multiple players out at one time with various ailments. But, man. What's happening with TCU's women's basketball program right now feels unprecedented.

The Horned Frogs just forfeited two games in a row because the team won't have enough healthy players to actually play, our Meghan Hall writes. While this is unexpected and shocking, it's not exactly surprising.

"The 2023-2024 women’s basketball season has been exciting. The level of play is rising and games are becoming particularly physical as the days tick down to the NCAA tournament. However, with the tougher competition, injuries are piling up.

It’s happened at Texas with Rori Harmon and at Uconn with Azzi Fudd, Aubrey Griffin and several other players. It’s even happened as recently as January 16 with Riley Nelson at Maryland.

So, it’s not entirely surprising that the TCU women’s basketball team has canceled games scheduled for Wednesday, January 17, and Saturday, January 20, to protect the health of its players."

The team lost point guard Jaden Owens on Saturday to a torn ACL and meniscus. Now, the Horned Frogs are holding tryouts to try and get more players on the floor.

This is pretty unprecedented. It's something you'd have expected during the COVID-19 year, not now. But here we are. Good luck, TCU. Get well soon.

Quick hits: RIP Dejan Milojević ... An epic at the Australian Open ... and more

— The basketball world showed so much love to Warriors assistant Dejan Milojević after learning of his death.

— Anna Blinkova and Elena Rybakina play epic, record-setting 42-point tiebreaker at the Australian Open. Here's more from Charles Curtis.

— Michael Penix Jr. to the Falcons? Maybe. Sports Illustrated seems to think so.

— Here are more straight-up picks for the NFL Divisional round from Christian D'Andrea.

— The Packers' path to the Super Bowl would be eerily similar to the path the team took in 2010 — if they can make it that far. Here's Cory Woodruff with more.

— Patrick Beverley really does lock up Jamal Murray. Wow. Robert Zeglinski has more.

That's all, folks! Thanks so much for rocking with us today. We appreciate you. Let's chat again tomorrow! We out. Peace.

- Sykes ✌️