5 inevitable Mike McCarthy replacements after Cowboys fire him in 2025

2. Dan Quinn is the likely promotion from within candidate come 2025

This is the most likely outcome. Depending on if Dan Quinn can get his own team to lead this offseason or not, he may be the candidate Jerry Jones promotes from within to lead the Cowboys, assuming Mike McCarthy fails. Quinn has previous head-coaching experience from his 5.5 years in Atlanta. He is also up for a few jobs across the league in this offseason cycle. Will he be available?

The easiest place people could connect Quinn to would have to be his former employer in the Seattle Seahawks. Admittedly, I am not the biggest fan of him going back to the Pacific Northwest because being Pete Carroll's successor is not a great thing to be, especially if you are a noted protege of his who has already failed once. Quinn probably has more success long-term with Carolina or Tennessee.

However, I think the Cowboys' job is better than the ones he could conceivably end up with in either Charlotte or Nashville. It might be on-par with the Los Angeles Chargers' vacancy, but Jones is still a better owner than Dean Spanos. Of all the potential outcomes on the table, Quinn returning to Dallas for yet another one more year, only to replace McCarthy at some point feels incredibly obvious to us.

Dallas has something special in Quinn, although the Cowboys' latest playoff loss is directly on him.