Simply put, the performance changed, but the utilization didn’t. Faced with a team that could no longer do what was so successful two years ago, Linehan did pretty much exactly what he did back then. He kept going back to the same things, calling plays inside a comfort zone that no longer really existed. Despite growing evidence that this approach was just not working, he fought change. Toward the end of last season, there were reports that Jason Garrett, Moore, Doug Nussmeier, and
Prescott were all getting more involved in the game plan, which seemed to show some positive effects. But, for whatever reason, Linehan kept the play-calling duties, and once the team got beyond the “scripted” portion of the first half, he kept reverting to things that just weren’t working.