Excuses are for the pretenders

[Rockport]

No, that's not accountability. Reaping what you sow would be called karma, or some other similar term.

Accountability is more along the lines of accepting the consequences for your actions. Being responsible.

No, you and Sydia and some others made your hate bed. You should expect the "reap what you sow" feedback. I'm holding you accountable for your actions. It's just that simple.

 

[Sydla]

No, you and Sydia and some others made your hate bed. You should expect the "reap what you sow" feedback. I'm holding you accountable for your actions. It's just that simple.

So to you, holding someone accountable in your view is simply complaining about them complaining?

Hahahahahahahahahaha.

 

[Roadtrip635]

This thread has become weirdly entertaining, but for the wrong reasons.

 

[Whyjerry]

Several years ago, Jimmy Johnson was pressed on a given Sunday to explain why the Cowboys always seem to underachieve despite having some talent. His answer as I recall was something to the effect that the players did not fear the coaches or any repercussions for failure. He also (as I remember) said the environment was “too country club”. May not be exact, but I think that was generally what he said.

IMO, the biggest culture cancer of the last 22 years of failure boils down to this: Our leaders accept excuses. When the people who lead your organization not only have zero consequences for their own failure, and they also make “sugar daddy” excuses for their players and coaches for any year that has ended without much being accomplished, your organization is infected.

Tony Romo famously once stated that the NFL is a “meritocracy”- your value, playing time and accolades depend on your bottom line performance. Well that “meritocracy” may apply to the rest of the NFL, but it doesn’t apparently apply much in Dallas if you are in the FO or coaching staff.

Pick a year. Any year in the last 22. You can easily find Jerry making local or sports headlines by laying out a beautiful soft bed of excuses as to why his team either did not make the playoffs or exited early in the playoffs. For the sake of brevity, I can’t or won’t list all of the excuses laid out by Jerry to soft pedal his team’s failure, but here’s some of the excuse “greatest hits”- in no particular order:

1. If Zeke hadn’t been suspended those 6 games, 2017 would have been different.
2. If Aaron Rodgers doesn’t make that 3rd and 30 completion we would have won that 2016 playoff game.
3. If Tyron Smith hadn’t been hurt most of 2017, we would have won that Atlanta game.
4. Our defense was great until Sean Lee got hurt. If we have him all season...
5. If Greg Hardy had stayed focused and played like he did in his first game against NE, we would have...
6. If Tony Romo doesn’t hurt his back, break his collarbone, need surgery......etc.
7. It takes a while for a rookie head coach to develop. (Implying it was ok to throw seasons away in the “learning process”)
8. Wade Phillips after the disastrous 2007 loss in first round to giants: “We still had a great season”. (If I was GM, that might have been a firing offense, but this org loves excuses)
9. Jerry- “Zeke’s been through a lot lately”. (Jerry telling coaches they shouldn’t discipline him after he quit on a play in Denver after an interception)
10. Jerry- “I don’t want to give up on the development of Jason Garrett too soon and let another team benefit from it”. (After 3 straight non-winning, non-playoff seasons)

The excuse list of the last two decades could fill a 500 page book. Excuse making is the opposite of accountability. Good leaders own their mistakes and impose consequences for failure, regardless of what coulda, woulda, shoulda been. What makes this team’s culture so problematic is that as long as Jerry and the top brass keep making and accepting excuses, it will continue to dog this team.

I’m sick of the excuses. As fans we should stop repeating some of Jerry’s excuses on these boards. If this team again fails to make the playoffs, or loses early in the playoffs, there should be ZERO excuses. This team has enough talent to make some noise this year.

Injuries happen- every year. Bad calls, and bad luck happen every year. The true contenders always find a way to win anyway and the pretenders always find a good set of excuses.

Probably the post of the week. The excuse mill runs 24/7 in Big D unfortunately. I feel like this years excuse is going to be "...we just need to have Kris Richard in place longer to really fix the D..." or "It is going to take time to work in the Dak Friendly offense everyone is excited about..." or "The receiving corp is young, we just need more time..." or "...if only David Irving wasn't suspended..." or "Jason Garrett is working through his process."

All these excuses are garbage. Garrett has been here 8 plus years. Better than average shot of being Pro Bowlers - Lee, Smith, Martin, Beard, Collins, Zeke, DLaw, Bailey, and Dak. Young secondary is loaded with talent. LVE and Jaylon Smith are potential maulers. This team has a ton of talent of both sides of the ball. They need to win. Period.

 

[gjkoeppen]

Several years ago, Jimmy Johnson was pressed on a given Sunday to explain why the Cowboys always seem to underachieve despite having some talent. His answer as I recall was something to the effect that the players did not fear the coaches or any repercussions for failure. He also (as I remember) said the environment was “too country club”. May not be exact, but I think that was generally what he said.

IMO, the biggest culture cancer of the last 22 years of failure boils down to this: Our leaders accept excuses. When the people who lead your organization not only have zero consequences for their own failure, and they also make “sugar daddy” excuses for their players and coaches for any year that has ended without much being accomplished, your organization is infected.

Tony Romo famously once stated that the NFL is a “meritocracy”- your value, playing time and accolades depend on your bottom line performance. Well that “meritocracy” may apply to the rest of the NFL, but it doesn’t apparently apply much in Dallas if you are in the FO or coaching staff.

Pick a year. Any year in the last 22. You can easily find Jerry making local or sports headlines by laying out a beautiful soft bed of excuses as to why his team either did not make the playoffs or exited early in the playoffs. For the sake of brevity, I can’t or won’t list all of the excuses laid out by Jerry to soft pedal his team’s failure, but here’s some of the excuse “greatest hits”- in no particular order:

1. If Zeke hadn’t been suspended those 6 games, 2017 would have been different.
2. If Aaron Rodgers doesn’t make that 3rd and 30 completion we would have won that 2016 playoff game.
3. If Tyron Smith hadn’t been hurt most of 2017, we would have won that Atlanta game.
4. Our defense was great until Sean Lee got hurt. If we have him all season...
5. If Greg Hardy had stayed focused and played like he did in his first game against NE, we would have...
6. If Tony Romo doesn’t hurt his back, break his collarbone, need surgery......etc.
7. It takes a while for a rookie head coach to develop. (Implying it was ok to throw seasons away in the “learning process”)
8. Wade Phillips after the disastrous 2007 loss in first round to giants: “We still had a great season”. (If I was GM, that might have been a firing offense, but this org loves excuses)
9. Jerry- “Zeke’s been through a lot lately”. (Jerry telling coaches they shouldn’t discipline him after he quit on a play in Denver after an interception)
10. Jerry- “I don’t want to give up on the development of Jason Garrett too soon and let another team benefit from it”. (After 3 straight non-winning, non-playoff seasons)


I don't agree with a lot of this. Jones after Johnson went through several coaches and didn't give them a lot of time and when they didn't produce got rid of them. Chan Gailey - 2 years, Dave Campo - 2 years, Bill Parcells - 4 years, Wade Phillips - 3 1/3 years and he got that long because of his defense and when that wasn't working he was fired. Then Garrett who was a 1st time head coach who generally do get more leeway by most teams. Jones also has like the way Garrett has changed the culture in the locker room. Your assertion that injuries that the head coach has no control over can't be a legit excuse is BS at best. Example, what happened to the peckers last season when Rodgers went down. As for your "list", Lee was the Cowboys QB of the defense and to lose him was a huge blow. Romo getting injured is an absolute huge and legit excuse, a run first offense that loses the league leading rusher the season before for 6 games is legit, Now nobody knows for sure what the outcome would have been with a healthy Smith for the Atlanta game but we all know the chances would have been a lot higher for the Cowboys. So a play that was luckier than heck works for the peckers and they end up winning is somehow not the truth?

You strike me as someone that if the Cowboys went undefeated for 5 straight seasons and won 5 straight SB's you would still find something to whine about as not acceptable or a legit reason for anything. You just don't get it that there are reasons for things and just because they outcome isn't what you want does not make them not legit reasons
.
The excuse list of the last two decades could fill a 500 page book. Excuse making is the opposite of accountability. Good leaders own their mistakes and impose consequences for failure, regardless of what coulda, woulda, shoulda been. What makes this team’s culture so problematic is that as long as Jerry and the top brass keep making and accepting excuses, it will continue to dog this team.

I’m sick of the excuses. As fans we should stop repeating some of Jerry’s excuses on these boards. If this team again fails to make the playoffs, or loses early in the playoffs, there should be ZERO excuses. This team has enough talent to make some noise this year.

Injuries happen- every year. Bad calls, and bad luck happen every year. The true contenders always find a way to win anyway and the pretenders always find a good set of excuses.

 

[Blackspider214]

The main culprit of all this was Tony Romo. The guy who threw a pick at the end of the 1st half of the Ravens game in 2008 and said it was just as good as a punt. Except no one punts on 1st and 2nd down. The guy who said if that was the worst thing to happen in life, then he'll be ok. Which is true but to come out on record the second the game ends and say that, shows what he is about. Witten being a great teammate and leader was a facade as well. He was as bad as Dez but of course the cameras won't show him (and we all know why). Dez was terrible, too. Hopefully gutting the team of those 3 will change the culture. Garrett is the final piece that needs to go, too.

 

[Bobhaze]

I don’t understand why expecting your favorite team to stop making excuses and win NOW is “hate”. The talent is there. HC and his “process” has been here 7+ seasons. He’s bought all the groceries. Time to cook! That’s “hate”?

 

[visionary]

Several years ago, Jimmy Johnson was pressed on a given Sunday to explain why the Cowboys always seem to underachieve despite having some talent. His answer as I recall was something to the effect that the players did not fear the coaches or any repercussions for failure. He also (as I remember) said the environment was “too country club”. May not be exact, but I think that was generally what he said.

IMO, the biggest culture cancer of the last 22 years of failure boils down to this: Our leaders accept excuses. When the people who lead your organization not only have zero consequences for their own failure, and they also make “sugar daddy” excuses for their players and coaches for any year that has ended without much being accomplished, your organization is infected.

Tony Romo famously once stated that the NFL is a “meritocracy”- your value, playing time and accolades depend on your bottom line performance. Well that “meritocracy” may apply to the rest of the NFL, but it doesn’t apparently apply much in Dallas if you are in the FO or coaching staff.

Pick a year. Any year in the last 22. You can easily find Jerry making local or sports headlines by laying out a beautiful soft bed of excuses as to why his team either did not make the playoffs or exited early in the playoffs. For the sake of brevity, I can’t or won’t list all of the excuses laid out by Jerry to soft pedal his team’s failure, but here’s some of the excuse “greatest hits”- in no particular order:

1. If Zeke hadn’t been suspended those 6 games, 2017 would have been different.
2. If Aaron Rodgers doesn’t make that 3rd and 30 completion we would have won that 2016 playoff game.
3. If Tyron Smith hadn’t been hurt most of 2017, we would have won that Atlanta game.
4. Our defense was great until Sean Lee got hurt. If we have him all season...
5. If Greg Hardy had stayed focused and played like he did in his first game against NE, we would have...
6. If Tony Romo doesn’t hurt his back, break his collarbone, need surgery......etc.
7. It takes a while for a rookie head coach to develop. (Implying it was ok to throw seasons away in the “learning process”)
8. Wade Phillips after the disastrous 2007 loss in first round to giants: “We still had a great season”. (If I was GM, that might have been a firing offense, but this org loves excuses)
9. Jerry- “Zeke’s been through a lot lately”. (Jerry telling coaches they shouldn’t discipline him after he quit on a play in Denver after an interception)
10. Jerry- “I don’t want to give up on the development of Jason Garrett too soon and let another team benefit from it”. (After 3 straight non-winning, non-playoff seasons)

The excuse list of the last two decades could fill a 500 page book. Excuse making is the opposite of accountability. Good leaders own their mistakes and impose consequences for failure, regardless of what coulda, woulda, shoulda been. What makes this team’s culture so problematic is that as long as Jerry and the top brass keep making and accepting excuses, it will continue to dog this team.

I’m sick of the excuses. As fans we should stop repeating some of Jerry’s excuses on these boards. If this team again fails to make the playoffs, or loses early in the playoffs, there should be ZERO excuses. This team has enough talent to make some noise this year.

Injuries happen- every year. Bad calls, and bad luck happen every year. The true contenders always find a way to win anyway and the pretenders always find a good set of excuses.

As long as Jerry is the GM and Garrett is the HC, mediocrity and excuse-making will be the name of the game

 

[visionary]

I don’t understand why expecting your favorite team to stop making excuses and win NOW is “hate”. The talent is there. HC and his “process” has been here 7+ seasons. He’s bought all the groceries. Time to cook! That’s “hate”?

It's the truth but CZ homers will label you a hater or troll

 

[Big_D]

I don’t understand why expecting your favorite team to stop making excuses and win NOW is “hate”. The talent is there. HC and his “process” has been here 7+ seasons. He’s bought all the groceries. Time to cook! That’s “hate”?

Plus he's heading into year 12. Funny how the first 4 mean nothing. Or it was all Wades fault. Jerry's boy wonder had plenty of input back then also.

 

[cern]

No, it's really not. The strangest part is that you're completely unaware of it.

he is aware. but he's lonely and desperately seeking drama. Eleanor rigby comes to mind.

 

[McKDaddy]

I absolutely agree with you.

Having said that, everything is relative. In short, yes a team should be able to overcome some adversity and our team has failed to do that many times when it was well within reason to expect it. However, everything has its limits.

Competing for the Championship comes down to a handful of teams that from a "starting" talent standpoint are basically equals. Everything from there gets decided by depth, health, coaching, execution & some luck. Expecting a team to overcome the injuries the Eagles (hurts to say that) had last year on a regular basis is not really reasonable. It happens from time to time but there is a reason why it has been said for years "the healthiest teams generally win in the playoffs".

 

[Diehardblues]

I don’t understand why expecting your favorite team to stop making excuses and win NOW is “hate”. The talent is there. HC and his “process” has been here 7+ seasons. He’s bought all the groceries. Time to cook! That’s “hate”?

I believe we were ready in 2014 to make a run for several years but not this team. Not yet.

Not until I see we have a QB at least as talented and effective as Romo and or a top defense.

Elite talent on OL and RB without the QB and defense aren’t making many deep runs in NFL I’m aware of.

 

[kento40]

A lot of fans, well at least the ones that frequent this site, have accepted how mediocre this team has become and are ok with the one year on, one year off, baby steps routine that we go through time and time again.

How is it that teams like the Packers, Falcons, Steelers, Pats, Seahawks, Chiefs and Broncos can be perennial contenders without all stars at every position or being perfectly healthy every year, but we have to always take one step forward and two steps back? It's the coaching and Garrett is the only constant outside of Jerry in this whole debacle. Can't fire the owner, so guess who needs to go?

 

[Diehardblues]

Plus he's heading into year 12. Funny how the first 4 mean nothing. Or it was all Wades fault. Jerry's boy wonder had plenty of input back then also.

How many HC are responsible for the teams results while as an OC? Lol

But if you want to count them that’s another division title , playoff win and 2 playoff appearances.

 

[PA Cowboy Fan]

It's the truth but CZ homers will label you a hater or troll

They want us to sit here and enjoy the losing like they do. Can't change it. Might as well enjoy it. Not going to happen with me. Every year I get older and the Cowboys stay the same.

 

[PA Cowboy Fan]

A lot of fans, well at least the ones that frequent this site, have accepted how mediocre this team has become and are ok with the one year on, one year off, baby steps routine that we go through time and time again.

How is it that teams like the Packers, Falcons, Steelers, Pats, Seahawks, Chiefs and Broncos can be perennial contenders without all stars at every position or being perfectly healthy every year, but we have to always take one step forward and two steps back? It's the coaching and Garrett is the only constant outside of Jerry in this whole debacle. Can't fire the owner, so guess who needs to go?

Exactly. I don't expect to win the SB every year but some teams compete every year for a playoff spot. We have 2 playoff wins since 1996 and that's disgusting. Can't even get to an NFC Championship game.

 

[Big_D]

How many HC are responsible for the teams results while as an OC? Lol

But if you want to count them that’s another division title , playoff win and 2 playoff appearances.

Ones who are hired before the HC, named the assistant HC and labeled the future. It was no secret who carried more weight. Big difference from an ordinary OC. I’m sure that RW trade was all Wade and Jerry while the offensive genius had no say. lol the whole situation was a ridiculous mess and he was just as much a part of it.

 

[Diehardblues]

Ones who are hired before the HC, named the assistant HC and labeled the future. It was no secret who carried more weight. Big difference from an ordinary OC. I’m sure that RW trade was all Wade and Jerry while the offensive genius had no say. lol the whole situation was a ridiculous mess and he was just as much a part of it.

I agree the situation was a mess but so is placing any responsibility on Garrett until he took over as HC. If that’s the case why aren’t we blaming Linehan now? Can’t have it both ways. That’s like blaming Garrett for the bad but no credit for the good . You can but is completely discounts your perspective.

 

[ConstantReboot]

Chaz was rated as a 6-7th rounder/UFA type. It was a horrible reach to take him.

"Reach" for a RB in the 15 draft? David Johnson in the 2nd wouldn't have been a reach.

I swear, some people just do a poor job of analyzing.

That draft was full a good runningbacks. Some are still productive till this day. I guess the front office wanted to prove to everyone "that anyone can run behind this oline."

They were willing to go with Randle to begin the season. As we all know how that turned out to be.

Randy Gregory and Chaz Green were terrible choices. I especially didn't like Chaz Green pick while there were still good running backs available.