Can Mike McCarthy fix Dak Prescott and the Cowboys?

The Dallas Cowboys have hired Mike McCarthy as their new head coach, and it will be his job to fix Dak Prescott and the rest of an underachieving organization.

The Jason Garrett era officially ended on Sunday, and less than 24 hours later the Dallas Cowboys have a new head coach. Mike McCarthy, who sat out this year after being fired by the Green Bay Packers in the middle of the 2018 season, is set to take the reins for America’s team.

The move gives the Cowboys the coach with the strongest resume on the open market. McCarthy is a proven winner, helping develop Aaron Rodgers into the NFL’s best quarterback and made the playoffs nine times in 13 years in Green Bay. That run included six NFC North titles, eight consecutive playoff appearances between 2009 and 2016, and a Super Bowl title.

While there are concerns that the game passed McCarthy by, as evidenced by his lackluster results in his last two years in Green Bay, there are plenty of reasons for optimism. In an interview with NBC Sports’ Peter King, McCarthy admitted that he has taken the year to really study the game and work on getting up to speed with the modern NFL, a sign that he is ready to embrace the sport as it is now.

McCarthy can also do wonders for Dak Prescott, who set career highs in passing statistics this year but was inconsistent against tough competition. The Cowboys need Prescott to become a proven winner, and there is no better way to do that than pairing him with a head coach who has experienced nothing but success in his career.

This hire should also do wonders for the Cowboys as a whole, who have one of the most talented rosters in the NFL but haven’t gotten nearly enough out of it thanks to inadequate coaching from Garrett’s staff. McCarthy knows what it takes to be a consistent winner in this league, and his arrival alone should make the Cowboys a much bigger threat to win a Super Bowl for the first time since the triplets of Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith, and Michael Irvin were in their prime.