Now the issue still remains, if Garrett was relegated to a “walk-around” HC, how did he influence the organization to go with Dak. But before going there, this narrative needs to be appreciated:
I never denied that Jerry didn’t love Garrett, as I’ve spoken about multiple times on this forum. Jerry’s ties with the Garrett boys father, who was a right hand man of Jerry, runs deep and every Garrett has been employed one time or another with Jerry, The facf of the matter is, if it was anybody other than Garrett, Jerry would have canned him a long time ago.
Jason was Jerry’s “hand picked” HC, even when he hired Wade. When Wade wanted to groom Stewart at DC, Jerry squashed the idea and made Wade take over calling defensive plays. On the other hand, when it became obviously clear that Garrett needed help with the offense, Wade tried bringing it Reeves to consult and basically teach Garrett how to run the ball, but that was suddenly squashed by Jerry at the last minute. Though the story-line was about punching in a card for time, it’s pretty obvious that Jason didn’t want to relinquish any power. The reality is Jerry’s legacy to Garrett was tied with Jason being some offensive genius.
As Jason showed more and more incompetence, Dallas even started to consider to bring Sparano back to assist. Even the Landry Hat in 2011 on an article about whether Dallas would hire Haley or Sparano back, was dealing with this issue of Garrett not wanting to give up play calling, while there were still media fanboys, like the majority on this forum, still riding his jock:
Todd Toombs: Short answer, no. While that might be considered a wise move by many outside the team, Garrett loves calling the plays and has no intention of letting go of that control. Of course, all bets are off if Jerry Jones decides to hire one of them and make them OC/Assistant Head Coach like he did with Garrett and Wade Phillips. Despite the dreaded “vote of confidence” Garrett received last week from the owner, Jerry is clearly frustrated with this Jekyll and Hyde team’s performance. It’s his team and if he wants to give Garrett help, he will have little choice but to accept it. But, it would be unlikely that anything would change this season and no one considers either Haley or Sparano offensive geniuses that Jones would want to lock up before another team snags them.
When Dallas basically forced Houck into retirement IMO, Dallas was targeting Sparano for OL coach, but the Jets hired him after he was fired from Miami, which put Callahan from the Jets on the market too. So Dallas lucked into Callahan basically. The fact is, contrary to the Garrett jock-sniffers back then, Jones gave Jason an incredible leash with regards to play calling. The actual narrative was that Jason was struggling calling the plays, folks were questioning it, including players within the organization or who had left by then.
It was the season ending loss in 2012 and the new contract of Romo that started the changes. This was when Jerry went ballistic and openly stated in a radio program On KRLD-FM.
"I can tell you change is necessary at 8-8," "Change is in order when you spend the two seasons in a row down to the last two games and lose them, so we're going to have to have changes.
"I can assure our fans this, that it's going to be very uncomfortable from my standpoint, it's going to be very uncomfortable for the next few weeks and months at Valley Ranch."
Skip Pete was fired, Jason was forced to release his brother in a political correct way (Dallas PR dealings with John Garrett shows how they treated other members). The kicker is that Ryan the Dc was fired, but as far this discussion is concerned the kicker is what Jason Garrett said about the firing.
https://www.espn.com/dallas/nfl/sto...n-garrett-says-lack-takeaways-doomed-rob-ryan
We had 16. That's 28 more opportunities with the ball," Garrett told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram at the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala. "Give me some of those 28 opportunities.
"That's something that we really sat back and thought a lot about, had a lot of discussions about -- what's the best way to try to achieve that, and then, 'OK, you want to do that, now who are the guys who can help implement that?'"
The weasel, knowing his position in play calling was in jeopardy, threw Rob Rush under the bus. This was typical Garrett mentality and he knew that the defense was always the go-to excuse to keep the eyes of him.
Of course the issue regarding HIS OFFENSE turning the ball over to put the pressure of Wade’s defense, let alone Rob’s was “missed” by Garrett in this regard, as Ryan was obviously forced to play conservative in many scenarios a Garrett’s offense. But what is clear is Jason himself already knew his role as a play caller was coming to an end.
So we see a background of Jerry in regards to Garrett that doesn’t normally exist for other HCs and their respective owners. It was only after the 2012 scenario, where Jerry basically finally started saying enough is enough regarding you Garrett, calling the plays. The fact that Callahan being here 1 year only and completely revamping the RG and OL blocking schemes, being appointed to call plays instead of Garretf gives us a clue into how much of an impact he made in Jerry’s mind regarding running the ball, something Garrett was consistently bashed for. But this narrative also gives us a look into Garrett interfering with Callahan, when Jerry took away the reigns, but was still able to meddle.
As Jerry said after 2013,
"There's a difference when you're sitting in the room as the head coach and you say, 'Wait a minute, you put some salt and pepper in there,'" Jones said. "Then, after it's already been cooked and you're tasting it outside the room and you say it might need a little salt and pepper. There's a big difference. One you're involved in the cooking, and one you're not. Jason was involved in the cooking last year. That's just a fact, and everybody knows that, really, or should. That won't be the case this year, and the addition of Linehan caused that. So it will be cooked."
Garrett at this point was not completely banished from the offense, as it was his own offense and Callahan was reliant on him. Instead of being in an advisory role, Garrett actually was cooking. But with the addition of Linehan, who knew the offense, Garrett no longer was afforded that opportunity anymore and was made a walk-around HC and Jerry said he would have no input in the offense and would spend more time on the defense.
So when we say Jerry banished Garrett, he meant from offensive play calling, but he still was having him as the HC and as he would later reveal after Garrett won “Coach of the Year”, by basically doing absolutely nothing, as the evolution of the Garrett IN TRAINING project. Jerry wasn’t letting Garrett go or eliminating his influence completely, he was just pushing him somewhere else and he figured he could win with coordinators doing the job, with a HC in place and that HC was basically his adopted son, which sets the stage for Jason being able to play a part in keeping Romo, the guy who took his play calling away, on the bench..
