FRISCO, Texas — At the start of the season, Mike McCarthy said the only guarantee for the Dallas Cowboys is 17 games. For McCarthy and the rest of his coaching staff, now only one more game is guaranteed, on Sunday against the Washington Commanders.

McCarthy and the staff are in the final years of their contracts, and at 7-9, the Cowboys will not make the playoffs for the first time since 2020.

While most of the season the framing of McCarthy’s future has been about owner and general manager Jerry Jones wanting to bring him back in 2025, does McCarthy want to be back, or would he like to explore other options?

“I do appreciate the opportunity to speak on it. I’ve answered this question the same for however many months now, so I think the focus, I need to make sure I’m doing exactly what I’m asking everyone else to do. We need to finish the race,” McCarthy said. “It’s been a challenging year, based on our contract situation for coaches. It’s stating the obvious, but we’ll have time to talk about that next week.”

A number of players, from Dak Prescott to Micah Parsons, have endorsed McCarthy’s return, which he appreciates.

“I think it’s just a reflection of what we have here. Everybody talks about culture and I’m not up here to give a bunch of buzzwords, but we do things the right way,” McCarthy said. “I can attest to that. I’ve done this long enough to have a strong opinion to how to run a program, what’s best for the players. The players are coached. They’re coached with detail. There’s demand there. Accountability. So the basics are in place. But we’re like any other program, we need to get better. There’s a number of areas we need to improve on. but that’s what the offseason is for. This is not the week to be getting into these discussions.”

McCarthy has a 49-35 regular-season record with the Cowboys, but he did not advance past the divisional round in three playoff appearances. Jones has praised McCarthy’s work with an undermanned team as injuries piled up this season, but he has stopped short of guaranteeing a return.

“I think the future is bright and we have a lot of things in place here,” McCarthy said. “We need to take a step back after next week and obviously a lot of decisions got to be made, a lot of business decisions got to be made because of our contract situation, and that’s what we’ll do.”

For the Cowboys coordinators, Mike Zimmer (defense), Brian Schottenheimer (offense) and John Fassel (special teams), this is not the first time they have dealt with expiring deals.

“People in the real world do this all the time,” Zimmer said. “They don’t have long-term contracts, so I honestly don’t think it’s a big deal.”

Zimmer became emotional when discussing his son, Adam, who died in 2022 and served as an assistant for him in Cincinnati and Minnesota. Zimmer spent two years out of the NFL after an eight-year run as the Vikings head coach.

“I don’t want to get real personal here, but I needed it partly for my son,” Zimmer said of his return to coaching.

Why?

“Adam was a terrific kid, is a terrific kid,” Zimmer said. “Really smart. Loved football. He would’ve gave his left arm to be here and do this. And so I know that he’s upstairs looking down, cheering … every Sunday.”

Schottenheimer’s father, Marty, was a head coach for four franchises, including his final year in San Diego in 2006 when the Chargers went 14-2.

“There’s not much I haven’t seen in this business. I saw what I think is a Hall of Fame coach by the name of Marty Schottenheimer get fired after 14-2,” Brian said. “So what I’ve learned through the years is you’re promised 17 games or 16 games whatever it is and you owe that to your team. You owe that to the players, to the staff, and Sunday is going to come. We’re going o play our last game. We’ll see what happens. But nothing surprises me. Honestly, I don’t get caught up [in it]. I think it’s harder on the family because we’re busy game planning doing different things.”

Fassel’s father, Jim, had a seven-year stint with the New York Giants and went to one Super Bowl. He remembers being in Giants Stadium for the final game when fans chanted, “Fassel must go.”

John Fassel came to the Cowboys in 2020 after his contract expired with the Los Angeles Rams and understands the uncertainty that will come after the Washington game.

“Yeah, it’s going to be stressful, to be honest with you,” Fassel said. “When the game ends and the Cowboys win Sunday night, the first thing everybody’s going to be thinking is, ‘Well, I wonder what’s going to happen tomorrow.’ … I think we all want to be here, and we all get along really good. And I think we’re all good at what we do.”