A less-charitable one, considering Dallas’ breadth of data on McCarthy’s performance and this season effectively being over since October, is this being the latest clumsy attempt at a football telenovela, with the plot twist—surprise, Mike is gone after all!—timed to drop the morning after two of Dallas’ NFC East rivals each won playoff games.

A new NFL head coaching job opened up this week, and thus, another opportunity presented itself to Robert Saleh.

The Dallas Cowboys are starting over with a new head coach yet again and one of the team's former stars believes Dan Quinn's success in Washington helped lead to the decision.