So now it was a gaffe?
How in the world does Garrett not remember what he said in the morning that generated A TON of media action around his comments about no changes?
Your last paragraph misses the mark as well. I don't buy the idea that the organization didn't know what they were going to do at OC. I think Jerry had a decent idea they needed to make a change. I think they were caught a bit by surprise when Garrett went out there and said he expected no changes to the staff. I think it's quite possible that Jerry was thinking of making a coaching change without talking to Garrett. At some point, Garrett would have been brought into the discussion but he kind of blew up the process with his Jan 14th comments.
In fact, I think it's quite possible if Garrett had said nothing or just stated initially no decisions had been made, Linehan might not have been fired for another week or so, giving the Cowboys more time to figure out what to do at OC.
It was always a gaffe. He said at the time he didn't remember in the afternoon what he'd said just that morning. So what, though? It's not a big deal. He went from 'no changes expected at this time' to 'we haven't decided yet.' In coach-speak, that's an immaterial difference. The very next day you can say 'yeah, we didn't expect to make changes, but after looking at everything and considering a bit more the direction we wanted to go in, we thought that this was what made the most sense for the team.'
You should be paying more attention to what Jones himself was saying. Saying on the 15th that: "This is the time when these things are thought about. This is the time when they are chewed on. This is when you may see an opportunity next week you didn't know existed this week in the area of personnel or in the area of coaching. And I'm not trying to be cute here. I'm just saying that one of the advantages that we have is that we can operate with that kind of flexibility"--basically that's saying 'we're waiting for the Senior Bowl.' And then three days later, they fire Linehan outright, before the Senior Bowl. Something changed. Something Jerry didn't anticipate 3 days before the firing. And, no, it didn't have anything to do with anything Jason Garrett said.
You might even remember that Linehan didn't talk to the press after the Rams game. He knew what the deal was.
It's much easier to believe that everybody knew exactly what was going to happen with this firing and that they just bungled up how it was announced a little bit than it is to believe it wasn't expected, that the decision was made in a vacuum otherwise, and that they didn't bother to tell the head coach and just left him hanging out to look like an idiot in front of the media.