About Tom Ciskowski...

[Bach]

A lot has been made that there was a 3 way democracy in the Parcells era of Ireland, Parcells and Jerry of majority rule ... with Jerry ultimately given final say if he felt it was required. Well, two of the three voters are now gone. It's no longer a democracy, it's now a monarchy. Ciskowski might be fully capable as a manager and might have a great eye for detail, but one thing that always impressed me about Ireland when I heard him interviewed is he had command and presence. Does Ciskowski? Will Ciskowski stand up to Jerry if he goes off the deep end? Frankly, I don't care if it's Ciskowski or Bozo the Clown, I just want to make sure that the Oklahoma/Arkansas Good Ole Boy Club is never reunited again. Lacewell and Switzer should be banned for a lifetime from ever entering the Ranch.
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Good post. I totally agree.

 

[Cowboyz88]

A lot has been made that there was a 3 way democracy in the Parcells era of Ireland, Parcells and Jerry of majority rule ... with Jerry ultimately given final say if he felt it was required. Well, two of the three voters are now gone. It's no longer a democracy, it's now a monarchy. Ciskowski might be fully capable as a manager and might have a great eye for detail, but one thing that always impressed me about Ireland when I heard him interviewed is he had command and presence. Does Ciskowski? Will Ciskowski stand up to Jerry if he goes off the deep end? Frankly, I don't care if it's Ciskowski or Bozo the Clown, I just want to make sure that the Oklahoma/Arkansas Good Ole Boy Club is never reunited again. Lacewell and Switzer should be banned for a lifetime from ever entering the Ranch.

FWIW, Ron Wolf was mentioned upthread, he was sitting next to Parcells at the Dolphins game last weekend giving input.

Yessir, Yessir, Yessir.

I absolutely agree with you. My biggest fear is that with a very successful last off-season (Bigg, Garrett, Wade, Folk, Browns trade, etc.) and with Parcells and now Ireland gone, Jerry has returned to the mindset that he KNOWS he's THE football man for the Cowboys, and he's gonna prove it - just like he did when Jimmy left. We all know how that worked out.

Had he hired an equally qualified (vocal?), new guy to replace Ireland, then I might feel better, but the fact that he feels he doesn't "need" to replace Ireland scares me crazy.

I so hope I'm wrong.

 

[Chief]

For what it's worth, here's a shot, circa 1990s, of the Dallas personnel/scouting team and their fearless leader.

Left to right, Jim Garrett, Tom Ciskowski, the Genius, Walter Juliff and Walt Yowarsky.

 

[TVMan]

Left to right, Jim Garrett, Tom Ciskowski, the Genius, Walter Juliff and Walt Yowarsky.

This is why I'm not worried one bit. Jim may be retired, but I can guarantee you he is and will be a sounding board.

Tom has paid his dues.

 

[InmanRoshi]

Let's just hope Jim isn't a sounding board for evaluating quarterbacks.

Awed by his pedigree and potential, scout Jim Garrett told the Cowboys in '01, "Henson is a clone of Troy Aikman...He will take a team to the Super Bowl." In their pursuit of finally finding their next Aikman, the Cowboys wined and dined Henson at Al Biernat's steakhouse and even brought Troy out to Valley Ranch for Drew's private workout.

http://bestof.dallasobserver.com/2005-09-08/news/drew-drive/

Jerry, and even Lacewell, take much of the blame for those horrible 1996-2002 drafts (much of it well deserved), but I think our scouting staff was pretty inept as well. As I've stated elsewhere ... Jerry might have played a hand in the high profile picks like the first rounders and Quincy Carter, but the 2nd Day of the draft and the undrafted free agents are where your road scouts should shine. Jerry wasn't breaking down film of Furman football games and evaluating Luther Broughton. We didn't find any 2nd Day or undrafted free agent contributors in those years. The only guy I can think of is Omar Stoutmire in the 7th round, and he only contributed for other teams.

 

[Chief]

Awed by his pedigree and potential, scout Jim Garrett told the Cowboys in '01, "Henson is a clone of Troy Aikman...He will take a team to the Super Bowl."

 

[TVMan]

Let's just hope Jim isn't a sounding board for evaluating quarterbacks.



http://bestof.dallasobserver.com/2005-09-08/news/drew-drive/

You could make that case for every scout alive. They all make blunders.

If I'm not mistaken, Jim is the one who chirped for Romo. I might be wrong, but I think he was the guy.

 

[superpunk]

When I look at what Jerry did, or more appropriately *didn't* do last offseason, I think I have pretty good reason to believe he's learned quite a bit, and has turned a corner in his GM career.

(a) He didn't hire Norv. He instead opted to go with the best possible option for our team, which I believe was Wade Phillips.

(b) He didn't pull any wacky crap on draft day. He clearly listened to what his decision makers thought with the Spencer pick, and picked up an extra round 1 pick in the process.

I think it's unfair to go crazy about a history of failings when Jerry's recent history (even without Parcells) suggests that he has done a heck of a job as GM for the Cowboys. So why harp on how badly he failed 7 years ago?

 

[InmanRoshi]

When I look at what Jerry did, or more appropriately *didn't* do last offseason, I think I have pretty good reason to believe he's learned quite a bit, and has turned a corner in his GM career.

(a) He didn't hire Norv. He instead opted to go with the best possible option for our team, which I believe was Wade Phillips.

(b) He didn't pull any wacky crap on draft day. He clearly listened to what his decision makers thought with the Spencer pick, and picked up an extra round 1 pick in the process.

I think it's unfair to go crazy about a history of failings when Jerry's recent history (even without Parcells) suggests that he has done a heck of a job as GM for the Cowboys. So why harp on how badly he failed 7 years ago?

I agree. Those two reasons you listed above have me feeling a little more settled about it. When Jerry didn't hire Norv, it was a huge sigh of relief from me. Not just because Norv is terrible as a HC, but that Jerry wasn't going to fall back to his "inner circle of suck".

But, I also think back to the article posted a few months ago where Jerry all but promised Antonio Bryant a roster spot if he could get his drug suspension problems worked out or how Lacewell has an office at the Ranch again, and I go back to worrying again.

 

[AtlCB]

Just like Pete Carroll, Butch is great in college when he can just recruit the top 25-30 kids in the country, keep the ones that pan out and run off the ones that don't, and then bring in 25-30 more kids the following year. In the Pros, when you only get to bring in maybe 6-10 new guys every year and need a little better percentage rate, he's also just like Pete Carroll ... horrible. Butch recruited a young man I'm familiar with from a small town I have family in. The kid was a track star, probably ran in the high 4.3's, but was raw and really wasn't much of a football player. Butch gave him a scholarship, but he didn't do much, and after a year Butch told him he'd be better off going elsewhere to play college. You can do that in college, you just give the scholarship to some other kid next year, but when you take a big chance in the NFL first round and it doesn't pan out you'll never have that draft pick back. There was an ongoing joke that Butch Davis never met a troubled player he didn't think he could turn around. See William Green. You know who was primarily responsible for drafting Shante Carver? Good ole' Butch, who fell in love with Shante after working with him at the Senior Bowl practices.

A lot has been made that there was a 3 way democracy in the Parcells era of Ireland, Parcells and Jerry of majority rule ... with Jerry ultimately given final say if he felt it was required. Well, two of the three voters are now gone. It's no longer a democracy, it's now a monarchy. Ciskowski might be fully capable as a manager and might have a great eye for detail, but one thing that always impressed me about Ireland when I heard him interviewed is he had command and presence. Does Ciskowski? Will Ciskowski stand up to Jerry if he goes off the deep end? Frankly, I don't care if it's Ciskowski or Bozo the Clown, I just want to make sure that the Oklahoma/Arkansas Good Ole Boy Club is never reunited again. Lacewell and Switzer should be banned for a lifetime from ever entering the Ranch.

FWIW, Ron Wolf was mentioned upthread, he was sitting next to Parcells at the Dolphins game last weekend giving input.

Don't you mean a dictatorship? I don't recall Jerry ever proclaiming that he was directed by God to run the Dallas Cowboys.

 

[Chocolate Lab]

I think it's unfair to go crazy about a history of failings when Jerry's recent history (even without Parcells) suggests that he has done a heck of a job as GM for the Cowboys. So why harp on how badly he failed 7 years ago?

Exactly. There's no argument that Jerry was pretty awful after Jimmy left. But who's to say that he hasn't learned to do better in the last five or six years? Like you said, just avoiding Norv was a great sign that's he's grown a little bit.

 

[burmafrd]

I have to think that the scouts were a lot to blame for those drafts of 96-01 (2002 was decent) since a lot of the defects of those we picked were pretty obvious.

 

[Chief]

You could make that case for every scout alive. They all make blunders.

If I'm not mistaken, Jim is the one who chirped for Romo. I might be wrong, but I think he was the guy.

They had a scout named Jim Hess who is retired now and Hess spent a lot of time with Romo during the scouting process. I think Hess and Sean Payton should probably get the most credit for getting Romo to Dallas.

 

[Big Dakota]

Tom Ciskowski snippets.

Dallas Assistant Director of College Scouting Tom Ciskowski worked with the defensive line as a graduate assistant at Arizona State University during the 1980-81 seasons.



Keeping up with Jones
Cowboys owner was a surprisingly strong draft presence
Posted: Friday April 26, 2002 1:49 PM
Updated: Friday April 26, 2002 8:02 PM

http://images.si.com/inside_game/peter_king/news/2002/04/26/king_insider/


Jones ran the meetings, and the draft, as if he were some combination of shrink and traffic cop. He sucked in all the information, looked at the alternatives and made decisions. He has quality scouts. I still think he needs that Ron Wolf-type guy, the ultimate confidant he doesn't seem to have in the room right now. Maybe it'll turn out to be assistant director of college scouting Tom Ciskowski, a worker bee Jones rightfully likes. But if he can't find it on staff, he should find it elsewhere.


June 24, 2006
The Sports Xchange

--Cowboys chief college scout Tom Ciskowski interviewed for the vice president of player personnel position with Rams but did not get the job. The Rams chose Tony Softli for the position.


Updated: July 10, 2006

Whispers from around the NFL

Pro Football Weekly

Though he was beaten out for the Rams' VP of player personnel job by Tony Softli, Cowboys chief college scout Tom Ciskowski is considered a rising star and legitimate GM candidate in the near future.


End of the line: Cowboys release Allen

01:37 AM CST on Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Back in 1994, assistant director of college scouting Tom Ciskowski made a hard sell for the Cowboys to draft Mr. Allen after his dominating performance at the East-West Shrine Game. On draft day, trainer Jim Maurer told Mr. Jones and coach Barry Switzer to ignore rumors that Mr. Allen had a serious shoulder injury.

"When he started falling down the board – we had him ranked high – I remember Tom and [offensive line coach] Hudson Houck ran into the office next door," Mr. Lacewell said, "and looked at the film one more time to make sure we saw what we saw."

http://www.***BANNED-URL***/sharedcontent/dws/news/dmn/stories/032206dnspocowallen.4a6f0425.html


Flexibility gives Cowboys 'best' option

Thanks to solid core, team can draft top players available

10:42 PM CDT on Thursday, April 26, 2007

On Monday, Jones went through the team's evaluation process, starting with the reports of the area scouts to the cross-checking done by national scout Mike Murphy, assistant director of college scouting Tom Ciskowski and vice president of college and pro scouting Jeff Ireland, to the opinions of the coaches.

http://www.***BANNED-URL***/sharedcontent/dws/spt/stories/042707dnspocowlede.10c160d5.html

Great job on the post and thanks for the info!!!

 

[Randy White]

His drafts ruined the Browns until they just started recovering.

William Green and Gerard Warren were two of the biggest draft busts in recent years.

Got it.

I was thinking from the college stand point because he is a very good recruiter, but you're right, in the pros he was terrible. Besides being a quiter, of course.

 

[TVMan]

They had a scout named Jim Hess who is retired now and Hess spent a lot of time with Romo during the scouting process. I think Hess and Sean Payton should probably get the most credit for getting Romo to Dallas.

I knew it was a Jim. Just had the wrong one.

 

[Bob Sacamano]

You know what it is for me? I just know that change is inevitable once we are successful. Over the years of watching guys get hired away from Dallas to other organizations I've just become immune to it. In many ways I am very proud of it. I think it shows the franchise in a very positive light. I consider that a great thing.

Years ago I used to love to play ping pong and I was pretty decent at it. At a student union building there was a guy no one liked to play because he was so good. So I started playing him. At first he would play me left handed and still give me a run for my money. Then as it started getting tilted heavily to my favor he switched to his right hand and for a while he slaughtered me. Now, I'm not going to sit here and tell you I ever beat the guy because I never did. Not right handed anyway. But just playing him I got better and better.

If Ireland is as good as people say then he is bound to have left footprints of how to get it done and people pick up on those footprints and start tracking the same game. There's not a doubt in my mind that Tom Landry and Vince Lombardi learned from Jim Lee Howell. Dan Reeves, Mike Ditka, & Dick Nolan learned from Landry. Walsh's disciples learned from him. And so on.

I think we're fine because no one man holds everything together no matter how good he is. It's a team effort and the pieces of the team across the board were valuable and contributed. So, I'm happy for Ireland and think he deserves it. Besides, it was inevitable.

I'd rather be successful and lose people, than keep everyone and never have seasons like this.

as Bill Parcells and Bill Belichick learned from George Young

great post, I think Parcells' has left his blue-print on player personnel that Jerry respects and will continue to follow, which is good character players and producers from big, successful college programs, unless the smaller school guys are something special

again, great post

 

[Bob Sacamano]

I agree.

I remember reading that Jimmy Johnson had to take into account his coach's evaluation style when listening to their opinions. He said Butch thought every player was great and Tony Wise thought every player sucked.

I've met Butch and like him a lot, but his track record at Cleveland was pretty bad. And those were his picks, by the way.

Anyway, a friend of mine called yesterday and said it was the worst day in Cowboys' history since Dave Campo was hired in 2000. He's convinced that Ireland was a huge loss.

I guess we'll all see.

Butch really was an idiot, he's the guy who payed Daylon McCutceon big money because he liked him alot, and it caused them to lose Anthony Henry because Henry felt slighted