After playing coy all season about the future of Mike McCarthy and then delaying the inevitable for no comprehensible reason, Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys let their veteran head coach go. The Chicago Bears are in need of a new coach after firing Matt Eberflus and the team is interested in McCarthy. But is it a good fit? Well, former NFL quarterback turned commentator Dan Orlovsky certainly thinks so.
Orlovsky is adamant about McCarthy getting the job in Chicago, according to his official account on X. After pointing out the various quarterbacks McCarthy has helped improve over his 18-year head coaching career, Orlovsky landed on Bears’ rookie passer Caleb Williams. “Caleb last year still played with a question mark way too often; Mike McCarthy will make it an exclamation point,” Orlovsky confidently stated.
There does appear to be mutual interest between the two sides here. The Bears reached out to the Cowboys with a request to interview McCarthy but, with the coach still technically under contract for a few more days, Jerry Jones denied Chicago’s request.
The decision to block McCarthy from taking meetings with other teams seemed to signal that the Cowboys would retain the coach who delivered three straight 12-win seasons before a disappointing 2024 campaign. But no. That was just Jerry being Jerry. As soon as McCarthy’s contract expired, Dallas moved on from the coach.
Will the Bears hire Mike McCarthy as their next head coach?

Now that he’s a free agent, McCarthy can take any meeting he’s interested in. And he will in fact interview with the Bears.
While much has been made of McCarthy’s shortcomings in the postseason, the coach has an 11-11 record with a Super Bowl title since 2006. The Bears, on the other hand, have nine playoff wins over the last 40 years. So a coach with McCarthy’s level of sustained success would certainly be an upgrade.
It’s unclear if McCarthy is Chicago’s top choice as it appears the franchise favors hiring Ben Johnson, who is currently the offensive coordinator for the Detroit Lions and will be one of the hottest coaching candidates available in this hiring cycle.
Still, Orlovsky isn’t alone in seeing McCarthy as a great fit for Williams and the Bears. Green Bay Packers’ legend Brett Farve even weighed in, throwing his support behind McCarthy for the gig in the Windy City.
Nonetheless, Johnson is considered the betting favorite to get the Bears job. As for the Cowboys, they’ve taken a sudden interest in Deion Sanders as a potential replacement for McCarthy in Dallas.