Why Dallas Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy got his first ball after winning in Pittsburgh

PITTSBURGH – In his 18th season leading an NFL team, Mike McCarthy experienced two brand new achievements in the early hours of Monday morning.

First, the Dallas Cowboys earned a thrilling win over the Pittsburgh Steelers (20-17), giving McCarthy his first regular-season win as head coach over his hometown team. Then, in a celebratory locker room after a marathon game day, the Cowboys presented McCarthy with the game ball.

He said he believes it was the first game ball he received during his three decades in the NFL.

“I think so, yeah,” McCarthy said. “And I’ve been doing this for a long time.”

The Cowboys (3-2) endured a nearly 90-minute thunderstorm delay before starting the game against the Steelers (3-2), then withstood a wave of errors to earn their third road win of the season. Quarterback Dak Prescott hit wide receiver Jalen Tolbert at the goal line on a fourth-and-four for the game-winning touchdown with 20 seconds left.

McCarthy grew up in the Greenfield section of Pittsburgh and attended a private high school in nearby Homestead, Pennsylvania. He began his coaching career while working as an assistant at the University of Pittsburgh in the late 1980s and early ’90s.

Entering Sunday’s game, which rolled into Monday morning local time, McCarthy had a 0-4 record against the Steelers in regular-season competition. However, he scored the biggest win of his career against Pittsburgh, leading the Green Bay Packers in the 2011 Super Bowl against his once-favorite team.

After the win over the Steelers, McCarthy has now earned at least one regular-season victory over every NFL team except the Packers, whom he coached from 2006 to 2018. It was a fitting end to a meaningful journey, said Prescott.

Prescott and the other Cowboys quarterbacks visited McCarthy’s parents’ home Saturday night and learned about the coach’s background.

More than 24 hours later, Prescott watched as McCarthy took the game ball at Acrisure Stadium, about seven miles from the neighborhood where the coach grew up.

“It was huge,” Prescott said. “I love him. Great head coach. He’s very, very proud to be from Pittsburgh. Greenfield at that. And you hear it every time anything contains references from this place. So last night I had to take a little tour and visit some of the areas he was talking about to paint this picture in my head. … It meant a lot to me to be able to give him the game ball.”