I am one who would not be excited if McCarthy is our new head coach.
Admittedly, I have difficulty articulating my unease. I do not think McCarthy is a bad coach. But despite his record, I do not think that at this time he is an exceptional one. In most years in Green Bay, he won. But in Green Bay, with one of the great (if prickly) quarterbacks in football and one of the great front offices in the league, he had a greater margin of error than his coaching colleagues. And that superlative front office decided after the 2018 season that the Packers would be better served with Matt Lafleur as their head coach.
In Dallas, his first and last years were unexceptional, and his three teams from 2021 through 2023 won in the regular season but faltered in the postseason. It seems that McCarthy's teams largely played up to the level they should have played but on the whole did not exceed it.
And McCarthy has been an NFL head coach, a profession that can age those in it quickly, for 18 years. He is 61 but looks a decade older.
Finally, if McCarthy is the choice, what does it say about how the Saints organization sees its team and its future direction? I believe a McCarthy selection says that we believe we can win immediately, and that we have largely been doing the right things the past three years and that a rebuild on some level is not necessary. I believe that is the wrong diagnosis and the wrong treatment plan.