Mike McCarthy details the importance of staff continuity on the Dallas Cowboys

Dallas Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy spoke at training camp about the importance of continuity on his coaching staff in his third year. Dallas improved from a 6-10 record in McCarthy’s first season to a 12-5 record last year, and the long-time NFL coach explained that his operations become easier as a team gets more experience together.

Mike McCarthy on building relationships with staff

“Continuity on coaching staff, to me, is so beneficial on all fronts,” explained McCarthy. “Number one, you look at the coaching profession — the time that you spend together, the commitment, what the families give up. Being in tune, and frankly, getting to know your staff on a personal level more. That’s definitely — look, it’s culture. Coaches operations has a culture of its own too. And definitely being able to grow that has been a benefit.

“But then you get in a pure football component of it, you know, the adjustments are seamless. If you ever wanna sit in an offense or defensive staff meeting, you’re not really dissecting. It’s more check and balance and making sure [of] the efficiency of what we’re teaching, how we’re doing it because we’ve had the time now to have those long conversations. To make a red zone adjustment as far as coverage or make a situational adjustment in between, whether we’re on the defense or we’re going to field goal block.”

McCarthy made it clear that efficiency goes a long way in his coaching philosophy, and the increased speed and learning that comes with it makes everybody’s job easier. With everybody on the same page, coaching takes less time when the team all knows what the overall goal is.

Those benefits — as the Dallas coach explains — can directly translate to wins early in the season when teams are still adjusting to changes and new personnel around them.

“So all of those things, the majority of them you’ve had time to have the longer meetings, discuss some expectations of what we’re trying to do. Efficiency increases pace so operation gets better. Pace of the game is so important to winning, especially early in the year. Mind, speed, all those things. And your staff brings that to you because they have the connection, and most importantly the relationships with our players. And you can just really see the efficiency of our team meetings and then our group meetings, our individual meetings. Our talk-throughs, getting ready for practice.

“We’re in a good spot today compared to where we were last year.”