Fire Jason Garrett? Then You Would Have Fired Tom Landry

[Sydla]

In the defense somewhat of the original post, I don't see that he compared Garrett to Landry, exactly, though it could be interpreted as such. He was asking why you wouldn't have fired Landry after a 1-2 post-season record, in a 7 year stretch.

But that still doesn't alter my argument that Landry had far more success in that 7 years than Garrett has had in HIS 7 years, my point being that getting to the NFL championship game against a powerhouse Packers team that had won the championship the year before in 1966 and again getting to the Ice Bowl shows PROMISE, whereas Garrett's losing at home to a Giants wildcard team, a Packers team with a gimpy Rodgers and a Packers team that they were unprepared to play doesn't give one much confidence that he can get "over the hump"...

It's largely semantics. In arguing that people would have wanted Landry fired he's basically equating Garrett and Landry through their body of work to date. So he can try to argue he's only talking about firing both of them, but at it's core, he's comparing their coaching resumes and ergo, the two as coaches.

Deep down, what he's arguing is that "it's a good thing we didn't fire Landry because he turned out to be a Hall of Famer, so we shouldn't fire Garrett because he might grow into another Landry..........."

Anyone who believes that is being obtuse.

 

[Aven8]

People are desperate to try to justify why Garrett is still employed. With each passing season, it gets harder and harder to defend him as the evidence mounts that he's not the guy.

And when you get near the end, the defenses for him will tend to get more and more ridiculous. Such as, the Landry comparison.

But but Belicheck never won anything in Cleveland and was fired........

 

[LACowboysFan1]

t's largely semantics. In arguing that people would have wanted Landry fired he's basically equating Garrett and Landry through their body of work to date. So he can try to argue he's only talking about firing both of them, but at it's core, he's comparing their coaching resumes and ergo, the two as coaches.

That's how I would interpret it, too, but I suppose he could just have worded his comment poorly and really didn't intend it to be taken that way, but once it was, he was "honor bound" to defend it....

 

[LACowboysFan1]

No doubt teams do stupid things, in major league baseball Sparky Anderson won the World Series twice in a row, then finished second in his division the next two years, after which he was promptly fired.

Then he went to Detroit, started off with a 35-5 record and won the World Series there a few years later.

So you never know....

 

[ABQCOWBOY]

People are desperate to try to justify why Garrett is still employed. With each passing season, it gets harder and harder to defend him as the evidence mounts that he's not the guy.

And when you get near the end, the defenses for him will tend to get more and more ridiculous. Such as, the Landry comparison.

Honestly, I think it's OK to look at the early years of Landry and kinda compare what Garrett has done but I think you gotta be honest in the comparison. You can't ignore certain things to justify, as you say above. You gotta keep it honest in the comparison.

JMO

 

[Idgit]

In the defense somewhat of the original post, I don't see that he compared Garrett to Landry, exactly, though it could be interpreted as such. He was asking why you wouldn't have fired Landry after a 1-2 post-season record, in a 7 year stretch.

But that still doesn't alter my argument that Landry had far more success in that 7 years than Garrett has had in HIS 7 years, my point being that getting to the NFL championship game against a powerhouse Packers team that had won the championship the year before in 1966 and again getting to the Ice Bowl shows PROMISE, whereas Garrett's losing at home to a Giants wildcard team, a Packers team with a gimpy Rodgers and a Packers team that they were unprepared to play doesn't give one much confidence that he can get "over the hump"...

I got no issue believing a huge percentage of fans wanted Landry fired at this point in his tenure, or that if the internet were around that the volume of *****ing about the HC would be about as high as it is now. Fans judge HCs solely on success, and they measure success by playoff wins. It took Landry more time than most coaches get to find success measured by that standard.

Is it possible Garrett finds similar success after such a long lead time? Sure it is. It's also possible that a bad bounce or three cut off the kind of success his team might have had otherwise that's got him in this position in the first place. That doesn't mean starting slow is a good indicator of a guy about to go on a record win streak. I like Garrett and want him to be the HC of the team, but I wouldn't make the case that he's laid the groundwork and it's obvious things are about to take off. I argue instead that he's got a really tough job and has done a lot right, made some mistakes, and that the lack of success has more to do with factors outside of a HC's control than it does with anything he's done wrong. Hardly a comparison to Landry. But then, the NFL today is nothing like the NFL in Landry's day, so comparisons aren't all that meaningful in the first place.

 

[Sydla]

Honestly, I think it's OK to look at the early years of Landry and kinda compare what Garrett has done but I think you gotta be honest in the comparison. You can't ignore certain things to justify, as you say above. You gotta keep it honest in the comparison.

JMO

But even in the early years, Landry was operating with essentially a shell of a team built from scratch. Garrett took over a team that had a franchise QB and an elite defensive player in Ware. Most coaches looking for a new job would kill to have a core like that to start with instead of some of the slop you see around the NFL that coaches are taking over.............

 

[Sydla]

I got no issue believing a huge percentage of fans wanted Landry fired at this point in his tenure, or that if the internet were around that the volume of *****ing about the HC would be about as high as it is now. Fans judge HCs solely on success, and they measure success by playoff wins. It took Landry more time than most coaches get to find success measured by that standard.

Is it possible Garrett finds similar success after such a long lead time? Sure it is. It's also possible that a bad bounce or three cut off the kind of success his team might have had otherwise that's got him in this position in the first place. That doesn't mean starting slow is a good indicator of a guy about to go on a record win streak. I like Garrett and want him to be the HC of the team, but I wouldn't make the case that he's laid the groundwork and it's obvious things are about to take off. I argue instead that he's got a really tough job and has done a lot right, made some mistakes, and that the lack of success has more to do with factors outside of a HC's control than it does with anything he's done wrong. Hardly a comparison to Landry. But then, the NFL today is nothing like the NFL in Landry's day, so comparisons aren't all that meaningful in the first place.

Anything is possible.

But you have to also state that while possible, it's pretty improbable that Garrett will find similar success at this point.

 

[LACowboysFan1]

You can't ignore certain things to justify, as you say above. You gotta keep it honest in the comparison.

Yes, the fact that Landry was 7 years into a brand new expansion team vs. Garrett being 7 years into a team that was 11-5 and had won a playoff game the year before he took over has to be factored in.

The original post took the similar 1-2 playoff records and compared them to each other with no reference points, that kind of reasoning in a college class paper would get you a D at best...

 

[Idgit]

People are desperate to try to justify why Garrett is still employed. With each passing season, it gets harder and harder to defend him as the evidence mounts that he's not the guy.

And when you get near the end, the defenses for him will tend to get more and more ridiculous. Such as, the Landry comparison.

It's actually not hard to defend Garrett and the staff at all. It's just an unpopular opinion.

We've had threads like this one during his entire HC tenure. I don't agree with the sentiment, and don't think it's all that relevant to the question of who should be the HC of the Cowboys today, but it's not new.

 

[Idgit]

Anything is possible.

But you have to also state that while possible, it's pretty improbable that Garrett will find similar success at this point.

It's very, very unlikely that Jason Garrett's going to reel off a string of playoff and Superbowl appearances to rival Tom Landry's. We're just talking about winning more than one playoff game in a row at this point, I agree.

 

[Whyjerry]

Despite their success, the Patriots are still 3 years away from matching Landry's record of 20 straight winning seasons. Even if they match it in 3 more years, for it to take 36 years for another team to match the record again shows Landry's greatness...

Yes and the guy in NE is approaching undisputed greatest of all time status. Landry could have won a couple more SBs but they lost close games to a legendary Pittsburgh team. Plus the NFC East was such a monster back then. His consistency is hard to top.

 

[ABQCOWBOY]

No doubt teams do stupid things, in major league baseball Sparky Anderson won the World Series twice in a row, then finished second in his division the next two years, after which he was promptly fired.

Then he went to Detroit, started off with a 35-5 record and won the World Series there a few years later.

So you never know....

Sparky was great! That Big Red Machine was arguably the best team of all time. Certainly in that discussion.

 

[LACowboysFan1]

Yes and the guy in NE is approaching undisputed greatest of all time status. Landry could have won a couple more SBs but they lost close games to a legendary Pittsburgh team. Plus the NFC East was such a monster back then. His consistency is hard to top.

Much of the Patriots' success imho is due to the handling of the salary cap, in the time period that Belichick has been to his 7 SBs there have been the very good Steelers teams, the Rodgers-led Packers, etc., but they have had more up and down seasons than the Patriots, which could easily be the lesser salary cap handling issue...

 

[CPanther95]

This reminds me of the 80's and early 90's when Steelers' fans tried to urge patience with every crappy QB having the same slow start Bradshaw had because we may miss out on another 4 Super Bowls if we don't give Bubby Brister, etc. time to develop. There's zero correlation between Landry and Garrett, no matter how similar their starts. Associating the two even makes a Steelers fan vomit in his mouth a bit. Looking beyond the similar outcomes early, there are huge differences between how the two ran a team and the potential that was evident between the two.

You wouldn't keep Garrett because he's on track to be the next Landry any more than you'd fire Doug Pederson because he's on track to become the next Barry Switzer.

 

[LACowboysFan1]

es and the guy in NE is approaching undisputed greatest of all time status.

Approaching, yes, but he'll never get there, for several reasons:

1. He's no innovator, has he developed a defense like Landry did with the 4-3 and Flex? No.
2. He's squeaked out SB wins by last second field goals too often, as a matter of fact all 5 of his SB wins are by a total of 19 pts. Landry won his two by no less than 17 pts.
3. He's been found guilty of cheating.
4. He won one SB because the Seahawks made an absolutely stupid play call, Beast mode in the backfield and Carroll throws into the middle of a defense that only had to defend about 10 yards of field (the end zone). In another one it took a one-in-a-million bounce of a deflected pass off a receiver's foot to allow them to get in position for a winning field goal. Pats should have lost both of those games, they didn't win them as much as the other team lost them.

I have no problem saying Belichick is one of the best coaches ever, but it takes more than SB wins to be the "greatest of all time"...

 

[LACowboysFan1]

"We're just talking about winning more than one playoff game in a row at this point, I agree."

Not for me, sorry, I've seen two different winning SB teams, spoiled? Yup, but nothing but another SB win (at the least) will satisfy me...

 

[Zekeats]

Typeless

 

[the_h0wey]

If you include Jason Garrett's term as interum Head Coach then he has eight seasons under his belt.

Garrett's playoff record is 1-2. Both losses came in the final minute against Green Bay.

Let's take a look at Tom Landry's first eight seasons....

Landry's playoff record was 1-2. Both losses came in the final minute against Green Bay.

If you believe that Jason Garrett should be fired then it would be hypocritical to insist you would have not felt the same about Tom Landry after his first eight seasons.

Tom Landry took the Cowboys to their first Super Bowl in his tenth season as their Head Coach. Over the next ten seasons they went to 4 more Super Bowls and 7 conference championships.

This current team is built. They will see vast improvement in the secondary, they have their pass rushers. They will get a full season from Elliott, Prescott can forget his sophomore season, the offensive line remains elite.

If you remain committed to the firing of Garrett, prepare to accept the consequences of your opinion.

The Cowboys will go the Super Bowl next season and it will become a habit.

To compare Tom Landry to the bumbling idiot that is Jason Garrett might be the dumbest thing I have ever read. Congratulations on this achievement.

 

[Sydla]

Approaching, yes, but he'll never get there, for several reasons:

1. He's no innovator, has he developed a defense like Landry did with the 4-3 and Flex? No.
2. He's squeaked out SB wins by last second field goals too often, as a matter of fact all 5 of his SB wins are by a total of 19 pts. Landry won his two by no less than 17 pts.
3. He's been found guilty of cheating.
4. He won one SB because the Seahawks made an absolutely stupid play call, Beast mode in the backfield and Carroll throws into the middle of a defense that only had to defend about 10 yards of field (the end zone). In another one it took a one-in-a-million bounce of a deflected pass off a receiver's foot to allow them to get in position for a winning field goal. Pats should have lost both of those games, they didn't win them as much as the other team lost them.

I have no problem saying Belichick is one of the best coaches ever, but it takes more than SB wins to be the "greatest of all time"...

You aren't saying Landry is the greatest of all time are you? If innovation is part of it, then Bill Walsh is the greatest of all time, I would guess. 3 time SB winner, fantastic offensive mind.