Report: Cowboys ex-HC working with Texas QB Quinn Ewers ahead of combine
Mike McCarthy is taking the upcoming season off from coaching in the NFL, but he's reportedly hard at work with one of this year's marquee-name draft prospects all the same.
The former Cowboys head coach, who parted ways with the team in January, took himself out of the running for any of the top jobs in this hiring cycle, announcing late last month that he would step back from coaching in 2025 in order to prepare himself for an opportunity in 2026.
But the 61-year-old- who during his long career has famously worked with quarterbacks including Joe Montana, Brett Favre, and Aaron Rodgers prior to joining up with Dak Prescott in Dallas- is said to be taking a new highly-touted prospect under his wing leading into the NFL scouting combine and draft.
According to NFL Network insider Tom Pelissero, McCarthy has been prepping Texas passer Quinn Ewers to throw in Indianapolis on Saturday. The Longhorns quarterback is coming off an oblique injury that he dealt with throughout the 2024 college football season.
While Miami's Cam Ward mulls whether to throw at this week's combine, Texas' Quinn Ewers is healthy and ready to roll, with a little help from a well-known QB developer. @gmfb @nflnetwork pic.twitter.com/hcGQaAJIA2
— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) February 25, 2025
Described by Texas coach Steve Sarkisian as a strain that Ewers suffered in early September, the injury is now said to have been a tear of the muscle that got worse over the course of the Longhorns' 13-3 season, a campaign that ended with a 28-14 CFP semifinals loss to eventual national champs Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl Classic at AT&T Stadium.
Now recovered from that injury, Ewers is looking to re-establish his draft stock after impressive performances during the season by the likes of Cam Ward (Miami), Shadeur Sanders (Colorado), and Mississippi's Jaxson Dart.
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Per Pelissero, McCarthy says he has been 'impressed with Ewers as a young man' and explained he's felt like 'a kid in an ice cream shop, just talking ball' with the San Antonio native and Metroplex high school product, who will turn 22 next month.
Cowboys chief operating officer Stephen Jones said this week that one of the team's goals this offseason is to draft a quarterback for development in the middle to late rounds.
Ewers is generally projected to come off the board possibly late in the first round or, more likely, somewhere in the second or third round.
But if a team (other than Dallas) selects him, happens to have a rough season, and then finds themselves making a head coaching change in 2026, it sounds like Ewers may already know a guy.
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