All The Wrong in Dallas

Bluestang

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GM

A legitimate general manager should be the most experienced personnel guy in the front office. Period. He is ultimately responsible for the roster every season, good or bad. It does go without saying, he does take input from the scouts and coaches but he is the decision maker on whether the players makes the roster or is sent packing. In an interview on the radio with Hostile, Ted Sundquist also confirmed some things that some people may or may not know. The Head Coach plays an important role within the team, building it the way he envisions with help from the GM. Don't get confused here by thinking that the HC is the ultimate architect of the roster, but more like the construction foreman telling the engineer that he needs certain materials in order to build the structure from the blueprints. Which leads to me the HC position.

HC

The head coach should have some legitimate experience coaching, and should have success doing it. There should be a natural progression of coaching experience that shows a track record of proven success as a means of substantiating why that coach is a candidate for the job. The GM should be hiring a coach that he feels will make the team a winner within the talents of the roster. Of course though, the GM must be able to help the HC accomplish the overall goals by giving him what he needs to make his offensive/defensive schemes successful. I believe this is the most single important relationship within the front office structure that determines the success of the ball club. Plenty of us have seen how these relationships can crumble and then lead to a "house cleaning" within the organization.

OC/DC

These positions should be filled with the recommendation of the HC, because ultimately it is the HC that wants these guys to run his schemes on both sides of the ball. Just like the HC position, these guys should have a natural coaching progression and success doing it.

Owner

This is probably the hardest position to write about because so little is known about it. The owner is the one guy that everyone within the front office answers to, because he signs the checks. The GM can't sign a highly, prized FA without getting approval from the owner because of the type of money that is involved with that kind of transaction. And there in lies the biggest conflict within the front office structure, how does a GM build a team with the owner's money if the owner is the guy that approves/disapproves the transaction?
Look at the marquee franchises and you'll see that the owners have an important relationship with their GMs and they give them as much leeway as they financially can to make their team a winner without putting themselves at the forefront. There is a special relationship there, and it has to be so that a GM can be successful. Handcuff the GM at every turn, and that trickles down all the way to the type of players that will be on the roster.


So why did I write this all out? Well, a few reasons:

1. I used to support JG when he first took the reins and up until last year. I thought we were headed in the right direction. Despite the evidence to the contrary, I believed he could do it. But after seeing him lose to every NFC East opponent 3 years straight, and still making game management blunders there isn't good reasons for me to rationalize his tenure here. I strongly said, give him 3 years and that time has come and gone and now we have a team that is heavily, scaled towards the offense with nothing on defense.

2. Despite what may be perceived on the recent drafting of this team, I've come to conclusion that this team still doesn't recognize how to build a team from the draft. Sure we have Tyron Smith and Dez Bryant but who else is there? We trade away valuable picks to get one player when we should be staying put or trading down for value. You can argue that we built a *projected top 5 OL but at what expense? We now have a franchise QB with back injury concerns because we tried to go cheap on the OL the first time around and had him running around for his life. And don't even bring up Claiborne who has proved nothing for what we spent on him in that 2012 draft. Murray is another good argument, but with this OL just about any running back should be able to get 1000+ yds and double digit TDs. Which brings me to my final point about the defense. Where have we invested in the defense? Yea we had some probowl players in Ware, Spencer, Hatcher, and Ratliff but it's obvious that the front office didn't have any sort of plan if those guys got injured/cut/not-resigned. Good GMs build their rosters with that kind of thinking in mind, and Dallas kept think that these players would still produce at high levels or shake the injuries as they kept getting older. Why not a second rounder on DL instead of Gavin Escobar? Or stay put in 2012 and get Brockers and Wagner?

3. This Owner/GM relationship here in Dallas is the worst kind. They are the same guy and he's a lunatic at that. However, there were 2 coaches that were able to keep Jerry from being Jerry. Jason, despite the arguments that he can, has not been able to keep the owner from saying those detrimental things. Jason has been called a trainee multiple times, has had to deal with Jerry's antics on the sideline, and also the War Room incompetence. The other aspect is that JG never had success in his offense outside of 2007 when he had help with it. There wasn't a natural progression with his coaching that warranted his promotion because his offense was just as bad as the defense in 2010 when Wade got fired. You can see that JG is working within the confines of his GM, but because of our unique situation in Dallas with the owner/GM we have to have a HC that doesn't put up with Jerry's nonsense.

4. A lot of people see hope in Stephen Jones, but he's still just as bad as Jerry. Some people will credit Stephen with his contracts but the reality is that he is as bad they come. The constant restructures are what have put this team in cap salary hell, despite what Stephen publicly says, they haven't been able to "do whatever they want" in FA. They bargain bin shopped for OL, the last few years and they kept adding more dead money to future years with restructures because they had to get under the cap. Folks this is the equivalent of paying your debt with a credit card and shuffling it around until you finally have to pay that original amount. These poor financial decisions are not any sort of resume that says Stephen is better than his daddy. The Bengals just handed Andy Dalton a new $96M contract with only $17M guaranteed. That means if they decided to cut him after this year, he would only count $9.6M against them in dead money next year. In that amount keeps going down $2.4M every year after that. That is a damn good contract that puts the onus on the player to keep producing. Yep, the Bengals are better contract negotiators than Dallas is.



Took a long, hard look at how Dallas is organized, or rightly so unorganized. There is a Owner, a GM, a HC, and OC/DCs but none of them have any type of hierarchy that follows each other. There is no offensive/defensive identity whatsoever and the GM, whoever that is - Jerry, Tom Ciscowski, or McClay - are not the most experienced personnel evaluators within the organization.

That's why one coach only had success in Jerry's tenure and another completely changed the landscape of a team in a mudslide.

I saw that familiar look in Jason's face in the preseason game in SD. It's the same one he had when the GB game got away from him, and the same one that Mike Smith had looking at his defense last night in preseason too.

It's the look of man that "hopes" things will turn out well, but they rarely do.

We'll see how this turns out but the defense can certainly get worse, and there are a lot of us that certainly believe that it will. The SD game didn't put those thoughts/confirmations to rest and quite frankly it shouldn't. The depth is lousy, and the scheme looks unorganized at best. I understand that 2 out of the four DL were not playing and Crawford was playing out of position, but in the limited action he was in...he did meh. The rest were over matched and got manhandled at the POA.

Again you have guys like Nick Hayden on this team because the front office can't afford a FA or draft a replacement because of the reasons I posted above.

This franchise will continue to wallow in mediocrity until we have head coach that can have Jerry "walking on eggshells" and keep him out of the personnel evaluation process.

Who will be the next Johnson or Parcells?
 

Moderately_Askew

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Chocolate Lab

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This franchise will continue to wallow in mediocrity until we have head coach that can have Jerry "walking on eggshells" and keep him out of the personnel evaluation process.
Good post, however I will disagree with this one point. A lot of other people have said the same thing, but I don't think we necessarily have to have a mega-alpha-male type who will box Jerry completely out like Parcells did. I think the right kind of personality can manage to allow Jerry to do his crazy sideshow act while still coaching the team the way he wants it coached. Look at Gruden's success under Al Davis... Al wasn't walking on eggshells, but Gruden had the smarts and charisma and personal skills to manage both his owner and his team.

A coach with a ton of skins on the wall but not quite the abrasive personality of Parcells could work, too, especially if he already has a relationship with Jerry. I wish old Jerry friend Holmgren were younger, because he'd be perfect here.

Of it could be the right old Jerry associate. I know a lot of people don't like him, but I still would have liked to have seen Zimmer here. Zimmer is an old Jerry employee like Garrett, but Zimmer has a completely different personality. People claimed Garrett was a hard-a when he took over, but Zimmer really is one. He's a complete no-BS guy who doesn't care if he's blunt and unpolished, and we've seen in the past that he doesn't mind standing up to Jerry when necessary.

I guess my bottom line is that I'm not convinced we can never be successful under Jerry. It just takes the right head coach. Granted, that's a difficult hire but I think it's at least possible that it could be done.
 

PA Cowboy Fan

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I actually think Jerry's gotten worse since Garrett's taken over. And that's hard to do. I don't know if we can win with Jerry. I do think we need a coach with skins on the wall. Unfortunately he'll have to win fast because Jerry won't keep quiet for very long. You would think that just winning SB's would be enough for any owner.
 

Bluestang

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Good post, however I will disagree with this one point. A lot of other people have said the same thing, but I don't think we necessarily have to have a mega-alpha-male type who will box Jerry completely out like Parcells did. I think the right kind of personality can manage to allow Jerry to do his crazy sideshow act while still coaching the team the way he wants it coached. Look at Gruden's success under Al Davis... Al wasn't walking on eggshells, but Gruden had the smarts and charisma and personal skills to manage both his owner and his team.

A coach with a ton of skins on the wall but not quite the abrasive personality of Parcells could work, too, especially if he already has a relationship with Jerry. I wish old Jerry friend Holmgren were younger, because he'd be perfect here.

Of it could be the right old Jerry associate. I know a lot of people don't like him, but I still would have liked to have seen Zimmer here. Zimmer is an old Jerry employee like Garrett, but Zimmer has a completely different personality. People claimed Garrett was a hard-a when he took over, but Zimmer really is one. He's a complete no-BS guy who doesn't care if he's blunt and unpolished, and we've seen in the past that he doesn't mind standing up to Jerry when necessary.

I guess my bottom line is that I'm not convinced we can never be successful under Jerry. It just takes the right head coach. Granted, that's a difficult hire but I think it's at least possible that it could be done.

I can agree with this.

You bring up Zimmer, and I watched the Vikes play last night and I couldn't help but think if Zimmer was here right now. I enjoyed watching Zim on Hard Knocks back when he was the Bengals and he's the one guy that deserved a HC job after years of being good at as a DC.
 

cowboyblue22

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coach jones will never hire a coach that will get credit for winning a champion ship again his ego wont allow it so if he fires garret it will be another coach that he can make do what he wants and get the credit if he wins any thing his last two hires have been garret and wade Phillips that should tell every one something the 07 team with parcells had the players to win big
 

Silver N Blue

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GM

As much as it pains me to admit it I couldn't agree more with you. I felt the same way about the current regime but these past two years have just been extremely hard to watch with any sort of enthusiasm. I hope we're both wrong but I saw the deer in the headlight look as well. All we can do is cheer them on.
 

ghst187

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I actually think Jerry's gotten worse since Garrett's taken over. And that's hard to do. I don't know if we can win with Jerry. I do think we need a coach with skins on the wall. Unfortunately he'll have to win fast because Jerry won't keep quiet for very long. You would think that just winning SB's would be enough for any owner.

I wanted Jeff Fisher when he was available recently. I've read (no pun) that he and Jerry were good buds too so I was hoping that would happen….
One thing was for certain, Fisher wouldn't mismanage a game the way JG has repeatedly. If we miss the playoffs this year (which I think is pretty likely given our brutal schedule and horrid defense) and we lose a game or two because JG botches them…it'll be time to move on.
 

PA Cowboy Fan

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I wanted Jeff Fisher when he was available recently. I've read (no pun) that he and Jerry were good buds too so I was hoping that would happen….
One thing was for certain, Fisher wouldn't mismanage a game the way JG has repeatedly. If we miss the playoffs this year (which I think is pretty likely given our brutal schedule and horrid defense) and we lose a game or two because JG botches them…it'll be time to move on.

I wanted Fisher too. But I guess that ship has sailed. I expect the Rams to be a lot better this year. They are putting together a good defense.
 

Idgit

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I like your setup, Bluestang. Can't say I agree with many of your conclusions.

Our issue is still more our talent on defense than it is some squishy organizational dysfunction. Though Jerry Jones' personality does pose a real challenge for Dallas in that regard.

I can't put too much credit in the look you think you saw in the HC's face during the first preseason game. Game management might still be *projected* to be a weakness. We'll see soon enough. But there's a lot, lot more to coaching than that.

We need to keep systematically improving the roster, youth, and cap position. We're not going to beat good teams with this defense, no matter how good our use of time outs is or how well our HC and Owner get along.
 

Idgit

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I wanted Fisher too. But I guess that ship has sailed. I expect the Rams to be a lot better this year. They are putting together a good defense.

I liked Fisher, too. But let's be clear about the Rams: they haven't won anything, and their roster looks good because of the combination of their draft position and their fleecing of WAS. Our roster would look similar if we'd had similar resources. (Cue the chorus that it wouldn't. But it would).
 

visionary

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You are on a roll buddy
I hope we get back to championships in my lifetime
 

Chocolate Lab

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I actually think Jerry's gotten worse since Garrett's taken over.
I'm convinced that when Garrett first took over, Jerry did let him do basically what he wanted. I think he really meant it when he said at that first PC that there wouldn't be a coach or player on the team that Garrett didn't want. I think that after the disappointment of the last couple of years, Jerry has become more active for one reason: He wanted to make changes but couldn't bring himself to fire his Jason. So he made a sort of compromise.

And Jason knows he can't complain too much, because he's lucky just to still have a job.
 

cowboyblue22

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I think garret is not the problem for me the constant last almost 20 years is jones and his son I think that's where lots of the trouble is jones has made so many trade and draft blunders that's all hard for a team to over come
 

Nav22

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coach jones will never hire a coach that will get credit for winning a champion ship again his ego wont allow it so if he fires garret it will be another coach that he can make do what he wants and get the credit if he wins any thing his last two hires have been garret and wade Phillips that should tell every one something the 07 team with parcells had the players to win big

Cool sentence, bro.
 

Nav22

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I liked Fisher, too. But let's be clear about the Rams: they haven't won anything, and their roster looks good because of the combination of their draft position and their fleecing of WAS. Our roster would look similar if we'd had similar resources. (Cue the chorus that it wouldn't. But it would).

Let's also be clear that if Jeff Fisher was the Cowboys coach all these years and had the same resume of accomplishments (including his Super Bowl loss 14+ years ago) he would be labeled as a failure by most of this fanbase.

But the grass is always greener...
 

windward

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Let's also be clear that if Jeff Fisher was the Cowboys coach all these years and had the same resume of accomplishments (including his Super Bowl loss 14+ years ago) he would be labeled as a failure by most of this fanbase.

But the grass is always greener...
The first four years of Fisher's HC career
7-9, 8-8, 8-8, 8-8.

I think Fisher is a good coach for the record, btw.
 

85Cowboy85

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2. Despite what may be perceived on the recent drafting of this team, I've come to conclusion that this team still doesn't recognize how to build a team from the draft. Sure we have Tyron Smith and Dez Bryant but who else is there? We trade away valuable picks to get one player when we should be staying put or trading down for value. You can argue that we built a *projected top 5 OL but at what expense? We now have a franchise QB with back injury concerns because we tried to go cheap on the OL the first time around and had him running around for his life. And don't even bring up Claiborne who has proved nothing for what we spent on him in that 2012 draft. Murray is another good argument, but with this OL just about any running back should be able to get 1000+ yds and double digit TDs. Which brings me to my final point about the defense. Where have we invested in the defense? Yea we had some probowl players in Ware, Spencer, Hatcher, and Ratliff but it's obvious that the front office didn't have any sort of plan if those guys got injured/cut/not-resigned. Good GMs build their rosters with that kind of thinking in mind, and Dallas kept think that these players would still produce at high levels or shake the injuries as they kept getting older. Why not a second rounder on DL instead of Gavin Escobar? Or stay put in 2012 and get Brockers and Wagner?

Tony has back injury concerns because we went cheap on the OL? There is no evidence of this. He hurt his back last year on a play where a guy fell on his foot.

Claiborne has been a guy that has been a disappointment. But draft picks are not sure things. You would take Brockers and Wagner now but based on most draft value charts the Claiborne deal was a decent value. Overall most objective studies that have been done say the Cowboys are actually one of the better drafting teams in the league.

Which DL are you taking instead of Escobar? I made a thread on this pick right after that draft:

http://cowboyszone.com/threads/the-escobar-pick-revisting-the-cowboys-draft-board.263659/

Hunt was the highest DE on the board he had a total of 3 tackles and 0.5 sacks last year

Bennie Logan was the highest rated DT but he was graded more then a round below Escobar.

3. This Owner/GM relationship here in Dallas is the worst kind. They are the same guy and he's a lunatic at that. However, there were 2 coaches that were able to keep Jerry from being Jerry. Jason, despite the arguments that he can, has not been able to keep the owner from saying those detrimental things. Jason has been called a trainee multiple times, has had to deal with Jerry's antics on the sideline, and also the War Room incompetence. The other aspect is that JG never had success in his offense outside of 2007 when he had help with it. There wasn't a natural progression with his coaching that warranted his promotion because his offense was just as bad as the defense in 2010 when Wade got fired. You can see that JG is working within the confines of his GM, but because of our unique situation in Dallas with the owner/GM we have to have a HC that doesn't put up with Jerry's nonsense.

Never had success since 2007? We have been one of the most prolific offenses in the league throughout Jason's tenure.

How was the offense was just as bad as the defense in 2010? Romo has a passer rating of 94.9 that year and would have finished seventh in the league.

Not only that but Kitna had basically the best year of his career under Garrett's system filling in.

4. A lot of people see hope in Stephen Jones, but he's still just as bad as Jerry. Some people will credit Stephen with his contracts but the reality is that he is as bad they come. The constant restructures are what have put this team in cap salary hell, despite what Stephen publicly says, they haven't been able to "do whatever they want" in FA. They bargain bin shopped for OL, the last few years and they kept adding more dead money to future years with restructures because they had to get under the cap. Folks this is the equivalent of paying your debt with a credit card and shuffling it around until you finally have to pay that original amount. These poor financial decisions are not any sort of resume that says Stephen is better than his daddy. The Bengals just handed Andy Dalton a new $96M contract with only $17M guaranteed. That means if they decided to cut him after this year, he would only count $9.6M against them in dead money next year. In that amount keeps going down $2.4M every year after that. That is a damn good contract that puts the onus on the player to keep producing. Yep, the Bengals are better contract negotiators than Dallas is.

Every team in the league restructures contracts and it is advantageous to do so. It is nothing like paying your debt with a credit card as has been explained numerous times. For one thing the credit card accrues interest while pushing money into later years does not. It is actually more efficient to pay later because the salary cap goes up and therefore each 2013 cap dollar is actually worth more then each 2016 cap dollar.

The Bengals paid less guaranteed for an inferior player. Which is what you would expect. But for the QB position the year to year salary is probably more important then the cap hit should they be cut.

If a team has to cut it's QB it's problem is not the cap hit but the fact that they no longer have a QB. By the time they find another one odds are that dead money is already off the books. Same goes for the Cowboys and Romo.

All teams have to do bargain shopping. That's not because Dallas does anything unique but because there is not enough salary cap to buy a pro bowler at every position. I would argue guys like Kosier and Berny were actually very efficient uses of salary cap given how many games they ended up playing. Seattle found a number of "bargain" guys who turned into very productive players.

If they managed the cap exactly like you wanted that would not prevent them from having to go "bargain" shopping. The Cowboys just need to start doing a better job of it particularly on defense.
 
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