Mike McCarthy joined Tom Landry as only coaches in Cowboys franchise history on this list

Mike McCarthy has won a lot as the Dallas Cowboys head coach.

The Dallas Cowboys won a football game on Sunday. This is always a good sentence. Thankfully for all of us this is a sentence that we have gotten used to saying in recent times. Dallas has won seven of their 10 games played so far this season which is a sentence you could have said over each of the last three years. The Cowboys are in fact 7-3 through 10 games for the third year in a row.

Consider that for a second. No one is going to pretend that having 7-3 through 10 next to your name three years in a row is worthy of a banner or parade, but it is pretty uncommon for this team in terms of modern times.

Dallas won seven of their first 10 a total of six times for this entire century prior to 2021 and have since grown the total by 50% over the last few years. Obviously this has all happened throughout the era of Mike McCarthy serving as the team’s head coach and wouldn’t you know, only one other head coach in franchise history has ever done this three times.

Mike McCarthy has joined Tom Landry in Dallas Cowboys franchise history

The measurement here is a team winning at least seven of their first 10 games which is a far more impressive thing than “7-3’ would suggest. Mike McCarthy’s Cowboys have now done this three years running meaning that McCarthy joins one coach in franchise history to have ever done this three years in a row – Tom Landry.

But wait. While McCarthy and Landry each oversaw a team that won at least 7/10 three years in a row (Landry did this many times) they are the only two coaches to have their teams do it three times period. McCarthy’s Cowboys happen to be on a bit of a streak doing it, but no other coach in franchise history ever did it on any three occasions.

No suggestion here that McCarthy is on the same level as Landry, but his impact is clear and obvious. Consider Sunday as an example given that the Cowboys found a way to blow out another inferior opponent, and it was sort of a ho-hum kind of day for them. The Cowboys have become a team under Mike McCarthy where winning is the norm and blowouts are nothing worth freaking out over.

When you talk about the Dallas Cowboys, history plays an obvious role and people measure things against legends and all-time greats. But what we are seeing is quite literally abnormal for the Cowboys which means we should appreciate it a little bit. The Cowboys are a reliably good football team, a feat way more difficult to accomplish than conventional reason would suggest.