Mike McCarthy will not return as coach of the Dallas Cowboys, who have gone three decades since their last Super Bowl title, owner Jerry Jones said Monday. Jones said the organization and McCarthy have mutually agreed to part ways. The search for the team’s next coach will begin immediately, he said. “I have great respect for Mike and he has led the team through some very unique and challenging times during his tenure,” Jones said in a statement. McCarthy’s contract expired in January. 8 after a 7-10 season. Dallas had a 12-5 record in each of the previous three years under him, but has still not advanced past the divisional round of the NFC playoffs since its last Super Bowl at the end of the 1995 season. University of Colorado coach Deion Sanders – who played on the last Cowboys team to win the Super Bowl – has a good relationship with Jones and could be a coaching candidate. The two discussed the job, according to a person with knowledge of the conversation. The person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because no formal interview has been arranged, said the team was still in the process of assembling candidates. The Cowboys had an exclusive negotiating window with McCarthy until Tuesday, but the parties decided to part ways before the deadline. At least one NFL team during that time asked to speak with the 61-year-old coach, who won a Super Bowl with Green Bay. Next season will be the Cowboys’ 30th since they won the last of their five Super Bowl titles. Before taking the Dallas coaching job after a full season, McCarthy was with the Packers for 13 seasons and had a record of 125-77-2 from 2006-18. He was 10-8 in the playoffs and led Green Bay to a Super Bowl title at AT&T Stadium, home of the Cowboys, 14 years ago. There were also three more NFC Championship games for McCarthy in Green Bay, and that’s what Jones envisioned — and more — when he hired the coach in 2020 after Jason Garrett never got that far in his decade . McCarthy finished the Dallas game with a 50-38 record, including a 1-3 mark in the playoffs. That included last season, when the Cowboys were NFC East champions and had won 16 straight home games before trailing by 32 points in the fourth quarter of a 48-32 wild-card loss to the seventh-seeded Packers. Dallas has played the last nine games this season and is without franchise quarterback Dak Prescott due to a torn hamstring. Top receiver CeeDee Lamb, seven-time Pro Bowl guard Zack Martin, cornerback Trevon Diggs and rushing defenseman DeMarcus Lawrence also ended the season on injured reserve. Garrett had the franchise’s second-longest coaching tenure. Hall of Fame coach Tom Landry was the coach for the Cowboys’ first 29 seasons, the same number of seasons since winning a Super Bowl. Jones fired two-time Super Bowl champion Landry when he purchased the Cowboys before the 1989 season. Only 12 NFL coaches have more regular-season wins than McCarthy’s 174, which is still well behind Don Shula’s record of 328. The only active coaches with more wins ahead of McCarthy are Andy Reid (302 in 29 seasons) and Mike Tomlin (183 in 18 seasons). Next up for Jones will be his ninth coach. He hired Jimmy Johnson from the University of Miami, and the Cowboys won two consecutive Super Bowls in the 1992-93 season before an acrimonious split between his college teammates at Arkansas. Barry Switzer replaced Johnson, a Pro Football Hall of Fame coach, and won a Super Bowl in his second season, but was fired two years later after a 6-10 season. Bill Parcells, another Hall of Famer, led the Cowboys to the playoffs twice in four seasons from 2003 to 2006, but lost in the wild-card round both times.