Could Garrett have been a good coach without Jerry?

[NoLuv4Jerry]

To win like that, you really only need better players.

IF you have them...and the coach cannot HANDLE them...they are run off.....and you wind up in the position we are in now.

 

[Idgit]

IF you have them...and the coach cannot HANDLE them...they are run off.....and you wind up in the position we are in now.

Lol. There's zero issues with the staff in Dallas not being able to handle players. If there were, you'd see the troublemakers going elsewhere and playing well on the basis of their enormous talent.

Instead, you see problem guys like McClain come to Dallas and contribute, after leaving other good organizations where they weren't able to screw their heads on straight.

 

[Sydla]

Garrett is ABSOLUTELY a leader of men. In fact, it's his greatest quality. The players love him, and it's widely known that he can be a real hard *** behind closed doors. Players play for Jason. That's always been the case.

To the point, he'd be a much better coach if not for Jerry. That goes for Campo, Gailey, and Wade, too. Unless you come with an NFL track record like Parcells, you're cooked before you get started here. That's why I want Garrett here, because it would be far more circus-like with anyone else, and Jerry will never hire another name coach.

Ever since that first Super Bowl, Jerry has insisted on being the face of the franchise. That won't change.

Of course the big flaw in this logic is the fact that Campo, Gailey and Wade never amounted to any head coaching success before or after being with the Cowboys.

So this notion that Jerry stifles coaches that would be better without him hasn't materialized in the three you cited, who either sucked as NFL head coaches or never got a shot again because no team thought they were worthy.

The problem isn't that Jerry meddles (but in fairness, he does meddle). The problem is simpler than that. He just hires average to bad head coaches. Garrett being his latest gaffe.

 

[erod]

Of course the big flaw in this logic is the fact that Campo, Gailey and Wade never amounted to any head coaching success before or after being with the Cowboys.

So this notion that Jerry stifles coaches that would be better without him hasn't materialized in the three you cited, who either sucked as NFL head coaches or never got a shot again because no team thought they were worthy.

The problem isn't that Jerry meddles (but in fairness, he does meddle). The problem is simpler than that. He just hires average to bad head coaches. Garrett being his latest gaffe.

Please tell me what a brilliant head coach Kubiak, Rivera, Carroll, or Tomlin is. They're just guys with excellent defenses and good to great QBs.

Having some power helps. Jerry could cut them down from the knees, too.

 

[Sydla]

Garrett's a good coach now. The people who work with him all know it. It's the fans--who don't know most of what goes on anyway--who don't like him because the want a better won-loss record.

There are systemic problems in Dallas that get in the way of the team winning more games against good teams, but by and large, the issue is not the coaching or the staff.

By and large, the issue is with both the owner and the coaching staff.

The blame is spread around multiple areas............ Jones, the scouting staff who has really struggled to hit on later round picks, advisors who provided Jones the info to think guys like Gregory would change his stripes, to the coaching staff that is, at best, mediocre by NFL standards.

Sure it all starts with Jones but this idea that if you removed Jones from the equation, suddenly Garrett would look like a top coach and the scouting department would find guys better than Mayowa is bizarrely funny.

 

[Sydla]

Please tell me what a brilliant head coach Kubiak, Rivera, Carroll, or Tomlin is. They're just guys with excellent defenses and good to great QBs.

Having some power helps. Jerry could cut them down from the knees, too.

Well for one, you underrate those guys. Carroll's resume dwarfs anything Garrett has accomplished. I hope to god you aren't trying to put Garrett in their class. Three of those guys won SBs.

And you didn't refute my point. If Jones is cutting off great coaches at the knees, why didn't Campo, Gailey or Phillips go on and prove that as head coaches elsewhere?

It's strange to me how far some of you will go to defend an average NFL head coach.

 

[erod]

Well for one, you underrate those guys. Carroll's resume dwarfs anything Garrett has accomplished. I hope to god you aren't trying to put Garrett in their class. Three of those guys won SBs.

And you didn't refute my point. If Jones is cutting off great coaches at the knees, why didn't Campo, Gailey or Phillips go on and prove that as head coaches elsewhere?

It's strange to me how far some of you will go to defend an average NFL head coach.

Carroll failed miserably with the Jets. Had to break about 1,000 NCAA rules to win at USC.

Kubiak got run out of Houston on a rail. They hated him there.

Tomlin stepped in with Dick LeBeau already in place and immediately acquired Ben Roethlisberger.

Rivera inherited Cam Newton and a bevy of defensive talent.

They're all good coaches, but no better than a lot of others. Garrett is all we can hope for. He's average and improving.

 

[Sydla]

Carroll failed miserably with the Jets. Had to break about 1,000 NCAA rules to win at USC.

Kubiak got run out of Houston on a rail. They hated him there.

Tomlin stepped in with Dick LeBeau already in place and immediately acquired Ben Roethlisberger.

Rivera inherited Cam Newton and a bevy of defensive talent.

They're all good coaches, but no better than a lot of others. Garrett is all we can hope for. He's average and improving.

Garrett is average. But questionable he's improving.

And again if he's held back by Jerry why haven't other head coaches hired by Jerry seeing success after they leave Dallas?

Because Jones' biggest flaw isn't that he meddles with personnel, etc.

It's that he sucks at hiring coaches. And Garrett is another in a line of questionable coaching decisions.

 

[cml750]

If not for Romo we would have had a cellar dweller team during his tenure instead of a mediocre .500 team. Last year should have erased any doubts of this. Campo would be more highly regarded than Garrett without Romo. I doubt Garrett would be a pro coach if not for nepotism.

 

[Idgit]

By and large, the issue is with both the owner and the coaching staff.

The blame is spread around multiple areas............ Jones, the scouting staff who has really struggled to hit on later round picks, advisors who provided Jones the info to think guys like Gregory would change his stripes, to the coaching staff that is, at best, mediocre by NFL standards.

Sure it all starts with Jones but this idea that if you removed Jones from the equation, suddenly Garrett would look like a top coach and the scouting department would find guys better than Mayowa is bizarrely funny.

It's really not. The issue is with the defensive talent. And with how we've approached acquiring better defensive talent the last couple of seasons here. Some of that goes on Jason, I think, but I struggle to think he's really the one behind the picks like Gregory and Smith. Maybe he is and we just don't know, but it looks a lot like wildcatting to me.

Scouts can always be better. Or coaches can develop better talent, but if they hit on Prescott in the bottom of the 4th on top of the probowlers they've found early and the gems they've found late in CFA under Garrett, you can't fairly complain too much.

Note that I didn't say removing Jones from the equation makes Garrett look like a top coach. Garrett's a good coach already. I said we're not losing games because of coaching.

 

[Idgit]

If not for Romo we would have had a cellar dweller team during his tenure instead of a mediocre .500 team. Last year should have erased any doubts of this. Campo would be more highly regarded than Garrett without Romo. I doubt Garrett would be a pro coach if not for nepotism.

But we did have Romo, so that argument doesn't matter. It also doesn't follow because if we didn't have Romo, we'd have had to have somebody else, or we'd have spent those Romo dollars on other players. You can't just remove the elite players from any coach's roster and suggest the issue is coaching. That doesn't make sense. And last year we didn't just lose Tony Romo. I'm not sure why that's become the narrative because it's pretty patently not true.

Campo never had the coaching reputation Jason Garrett has, from players, coaches, media, or team management.

As for Garrett being a pro coach if not in Dallas, I'm not sure if you're referring to a HC gig or any pro coaching gig. If the latter, he was a pro coach in MIA before he came to Dallas. If the latter, he was offered HC gigs before he took the Cowboys job (and got offers from both BAL and ATL). If you're suggesting he wouldn't get another HC gig if fired here, I guess we'll see. My own guess is that he'd have an OC gig immediately if he wanted it, and would be a HC again within 3 seasons (if not immediately) no matter how things play out. Though I don't think we're going to see that happen anytime soon, because I think he's got a decent team here in Dallas and an organization that's going to back him up.

 

[Nightman]

Garrett is not a good Pro coach.....he is much better suited for a mid major college program where the process could be developed over years......he says and does all the things a coach is supposed to and that is why Jerry loves him......he can bring him to all the meetings and he knows he won't be embarrassed or criticized

 

[haleyrules]

WTH. Garrett is only "coaching" the Cowboys because jerry wants a frontman he can complètely control. Nothing more and nothing less. I mean, co9me on,what GM/Coaching situation would have lasted this long outside of Dallas. Dallas is not a normal situation by a long shot.

 

[Sydla]

It's really not. The issue is with the defensive talent. And with how we've approached acquiring better defensive talent the last couple of seasons here. Some of that goes on Jason, I think, but I struggle to think he's really the one behind the picks like Gregory and Smith. Maybe he is and we just don't know, but it looks a lot like wildcatting to me.

Scouts can always be better. Or coaches can develop better talent, but if they hit on Prescott in the bottom of the 4th on top of the probowlers they've found early and the gems they've found late in CFA under Garrett, you can't fairly complain too much.

Note that I didn't say removing Jones from the equation makes Garrett look like a top coach. Garrett's a good coach already. I said we're not losing games because of coaching.

What's your definition of a "good" coach? Top 10? Top 12? Top 15?

I can name ten off the top of my head that I would trade Garrett for without even blinking. He's likely in the 12-18 range.

 

[Idgit]

What's your definition of a "good" coach? Top 10? Top 12? Top 15?

I can name ten off the top of my head that I would trade Garrett for without even blinking. He's likely in the 12-18 range.

I don't rank coaches or players linearly, since every offense/team/situation in the NFL is different. He's a good enough coach we can win a championship with him with the right roster. That's how I evaluate the position.

And he's a got enough direction I believe we can assemble a championship roster underneath him--some of our issues doing so notwithstanding. I don't doubt you could name 10 coaches you'd rather have. I doubt you could put 10 coaches in place here and have it make a material positive difference with our roster, though.

As far as the roster limitations go, it's taken longer than it should have for a couple of reasons. We started with an aging roster in 2010 to begin with because we weren't able to replenish what Parcels did during the Phillips years. We false started on the DC hire when Garrett's few preferred DCs were not available, one of the false starts getting us to stick with the 3-4 longer than we should have. We got stuck in a bad cap situation that was worse than expected because of both the CBA and the Austin cap penalty. And, finally, we still take too many chances on players like Gregory and Smith and use limited draft resources poorly on players like Elliott. Just having three more high picks coming up to speed for us defensively right now makes the difference between a bad defensive unit and one capable of keeping a very good offense in close games against other good teams. And the stupid thing is, all we needed to do to have it was stay put and draft the good players that were there from our board.

 

[Sydla]

Yeah, there's not a thing he's done as a coach that should lead one to believe he can win a championship. I like a lot of your points, Idgit, but that's some big time Garrett homerism there.

If this season ends up around 8-8, the guy will have coached 6 years and made the playoffs ONCE. If he's a championship, SB caliber coach, he would have done better than that. While he never had a perfect team, he still had teams with talent that failed to do anything.

 

[Idgit]

Yeah, there's not a thing he's done as a coach that should lead one to believe he can win a championship. I like a lot of your points, Idgit, but that's some big time Garrett homerism there.

If this season ends up around 8-8, the guy will have coached 6 years and made the playoffs ONCE. If he's a championship, SB caliber coach, he would have done better than that. While he never had a perfect team, he still had teams with talent that failed to do anything.

We're just never going to agree on the topic. You keep bringing up the number of years he's been here, and I keep asking how many of those rosters were really competitive. They were good enough to compete for the division, but not for the conference. Hence, 8-8.

I do think he's made some mistakes. The personnel stuff happens on his watch, so he gets painted by it, but we all know there's some stealing-from-Jason-to-pay-Jerry going on there. The DC false starts were on him, too. Had we made the right hire (or any number of better hires sooner), who knows, we might have been in position to keep going in 2014 with even a slightly better defense.

I think you're putting too much weight on what you think a coach is supposed to do on game day and not enough weight on what they do the other 98% of the time they're working to improve their teams. I know you don't agree, and that's fine. But I'm not a homer just because I view the responsibility of a HC differently than a lot of fans do. We just disagree on what's important in a coach.

But it explains why the players and the staff and the ownership and the media-in-the-know-smarter-than-Brian-Broaddus all seem to think Garrett's doing a good job when an obvious majority of fans do not. A HC's performance gets evaluated differently based off of who's doing the evaluation and how much they really know. Sadly, most fans aren't in a position to know all that much about what's really going on.

 

[PA Cowboy Fan]

Who knows. All I know is that he's been mediocre in Dallas.

 

[Sydla]

We're just never going to agree on the topic. You keep bringing up the number of years he's been here, and I keep asking how many of those rosters were really competitive. They were good enough to compete for the division, but not for the conference. Hence, 8-8.

I do think he's made some mistakes. The personnel stuff happens on his watch, so he gets painted by it, but we all know there's some stealing-from-Jason-to-pay-Jerry going on there. The DC false starts were on him, too. Had we made the right hire (or any number of better hires sooner), who knows, we might have been in position to keep going in 2014 with even a slightly better defense.

I think you're putting too much weight on what you think a coach is supposed to do on game day and not enough weight on what they do the other 98% of the time they're working to improve their teams. I know you don't agree, and that's fine. But I'm not a homer just because I view the responsibility of a HC differently than a lot of fans do. We just disagree on what's important in a coach.

But it explains why the players and the staff and the ownership and the media-in-the-know-smarter-than-Brian-Broaddus all seem to think Garrett's doing a good job when an obvious majority of fans do not. A HC's performance gets evaluated differently based off of who's doing the evaluation and how much they really know. Sadly, most fans aren't in a position to know all that much about what's really going on.

Good enough to compete for the division, you say.

And yet he has only won the division once in his entire time here. So if he's a championship caliber coach like you said above and then you just said he's had teams good enough to contend for the division, how come his great coaching has only gotten them over the hump once in 5 years in the division?

Also note, that when you defend him you always talk about off the field things.......... how he relates to players well, how the talent seems to be getting better with his help in player acquisitions, etc. And yet you rarely, if ever, talk about his on the field stuff. Like how he had a great plan this week, or that was a really great call in a tough spot that time. You keep saying that's really not the HC's responsibility but it absolutely is. Coaches get fired all the time FOR WHAT HAPPENS ON THE FIELD. How many coaches do you know that have kept their jobs while sucking on the field yet apparently being a big favorite of the players? Not many. Maybe a year or two they hang on but eventually if you keep spitting out non-playoff seasons, you are going to get fired, no matter how popular you are with the players. It's easy to say the fans don't know squat but your logic would indicate that few coaches should get fired just as long as the players like them, the staff likes them and the team acts respectfully on and off the field.

Basically what you describe is a GM. Not a HC. And maybe that's something the Jones' should consider. Finding a real head coach who can X and O and build game plans and build a competent staff to actually win games on the field and let Garrett be the GM/Head of Football Operations and do what he seems to do best........... find players, improve the talent level of the team, etc.

You've built a defense for Garrett that ignores his #1 job function - win games, make the playoffs, win playoff games.

He's done that once in 5 years. So for a big chunk of his job responsibility, he's hitting .200............ that's not good enough no matter how cool his players think he is.

 

[Joe Realist]

Yes - I feel he will eventually be like Terry Francona when he got to the Red Sox.