NFL fines Mike McCarthy, Cowboys to lose 2023 OTA for violation of non-contact rules

Dallas Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy has been fined $100,000 by the NFL for leading workouts that were excessively rough. This punishment has been handed down to him for the past two years in a row. The league officials made their call after watching a tape of the team’s practices. Check out the best bookmakers for betting on the NFL!

“I actually had a very good conversation with the league office,” McCarthy said about the fine.

On the other hand, the Cowboys will also lose an organized team activity (OTA) practice for the offseason of 2023 due to this year’s violation of the league’s non-contact rules.

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“I thought it was informative,” McCarthy said. “I think they’re in a very tough spot. Not as tough as my spot because it came out of my pocket. But I think, first of all, we do it right. There is no doubt about it. our players try to do it right.”

The Cowboys were fined last year alongside the San Francisco 49ers and the Jacksonville Jaguars for engaging in overly physical training. McCarthy was fined $50,000, while the team was assessed a $100,000 punishment and a forfeited OTA for the current offseason.

McCarthy said the league considered suspensions from seven to nine games and used the event as a teaching moment.

“I think like anything in life, if you’re punished for trying to do too much the right way as opposed to not doing enough the right way, I think that’s a healthy experience to learn from.”

McCarthy’s defense

All NFL teams are permitted 13 total offseason training sessions, 10 of which are OTAs and a compulsory minicamp for three days.

It appears, though, that the league authorities have had it with the Cowboys’, particularly rough training. Teams are not permitted to practice with full pads or engage in any contact drills. When the linemen are squaring off or when a receiver faces off against a defensive back one-on-one, the game may get rough.

Despite the training violations, McCarthy claimed that numerous players remained in the region to have workout sessions and favorable schoolwork from the younger players were two of the reasons he reduced the number of offseason workouts.

“I thought they knocked it out of the park,” McCarthy said of his players and coaching staff. “I thought they hit a home run as far as maximizing their time with our players.”

The Cowboys used only nine of their allotted 12 in 2022, wrapping up their offseason on a Tuesday. The team had a club outing to Top Golf on Wednesday, and McCarthy let them go on Thursday after they had finished weight training. Teams throughout the NFL have recently begun a tendency of wrapping up their offseason programs earlier than in the past.

McCarthy will be starting his third year with the Cowboys. The squad just finished a 12-5 season in which they won the NFC East for the first time in three seasons before losing in the NFC wild-card round to the 49ers.

“I think there were seven to nine plays that we looked at as a group, and frankly, the majority of them involved younger players, so to me, it’s a learning experience,” McCarthy added.