Fans Amused As ESPN Cameras Provided A Clear Look At Mike McCarthy’s Play Call Sheet

First, it was Jerry Jones showing off the Dallas Cowboys’ list of names on the team’s draft sheet, and now it’s Mike McCarthy having his play call sheet exposed by ESPN.

Thanks to the wonders of high-definition television, Monday night, during the Dallas Cowboys’ win over the Los Angeles Chargers, ESPN cameras gave everyone a good look at a big piece of Mike McCarthy’s game plan.

“Nobody even needs to see it it’s so predictable,” one fan joked on X (formerly known as Twitter).

“How can you read all that?” someone else asked. “It [sic] feeling like I’m gonna have a stroke just looking at it.”

“80% of it says ‘run into a wall on first and second down to set up 3rd and long,'” another joked.

“It’s like the Cheesecake Factory menu and people wonder why WRs are running the wrong routes,” read another comment.

Perhaps the complicated play call sheet had something to do with McCarthy’s baffling clock management decision before halftime.

Not even Joe Buck or Troy Aikman understood the logic of kicking a field goal with the ball on the Chargers’ 17 yard line, eight seconds left and two time outs.

Even more confusing was the fact that it appeared the Dallas coach wanted the referee to wait until there were three seconds left before calling the time out and kicking the field goal.

Luckily, it didn’t come back to bit Mike McCarthy as the Cowboys squeaked out a 20-17 win at SoFi Stadium.

After the game, the media, of course, asked him about the peculiar decision.

“We just decided to play it safe,” said McCarthy, according to NFL reporter Michael Gehlken. “I just felt the way the game was going — I think we had a holding penalty earlier on the series. I just wanted to make sure we got the points and get out of there.”

As for the play call sheet being exposed to the world on TV, at least Mike McCarthy isn’t the first NFL head coach to have that happen to him this season.