Coaches have been known to do all sorts of wild things to fire up their guys during team meetings and pregame speeches. Someday, someone compiling those would make for a great book with a chapter on each one.
Mike McCarthy's decision to bring a sledgehammer to their team meeting yesterday certainly warrant a new chapter in that book.
Before their game against Minnesota yesterday, McCarthy brought a sledgehammer to the hotel ballroom that had been transformed into a team meeting room for the day, according to a story Tom Pelissero shared today.
McCarthy admitted doing a poor job of emphasizing their objectives of the week, one of them being to "hammer the ball out of Dalvin Cook's hands," and at that point the Cowboys head coach pulled out a sledgehammer and a staffer rolled in a bunch of watermelons. In a nice touch, each of the watermelons had a different objective written on it.
After reading each objective, McCarthy would emphatically take the sledgehammer to it, going full Gallagher mode on them. By the end, McCarthy was soaked in watermelon juices and pulp, and by the time he got to the watermelon with Cook's picture on it, the players were going wild, and one defensive player jumped up and said "I've got that one coach,' before taking the sledgehammer to it himself.
The Cowboys took the field a few hours after that and played some really inspired football in beating the Vikings 31-28. The effort was a complete 180 from a month ago, when frustrations were reaching a fever pitch in Dallas, with coaches and players sounding off with their frustrations.
The win improved Dallas to 3-7 on the year.
Hear Pelissero share the full story below.