Gosselin: Injuries are no excuse for another mediocre Dallas Cowboys season

[Miller]

Why wouldn't Garrett try to make it work and win on the big stage in Dallas? Why are you wasting a second of your energy on him for the sins of the owner? He's not Parcells or some other big name established head coach who could have wrestled some authority out of Jerry before he signed his contract.

Honestly, I think you're merely pointing your anger at someone who can actually be replaced.

AGAIN, as I stated the previous page, why is it misplaced anger when the man people want gone is in control of the team on gameday and is making game decisions that have lot games consistently? He hasn't improved. I get it, Jerry is horrible and created the mess. But that doesn't mean I should accept a coach who can't do his job just because an owner let's his ego get in the way of success. They are all bad options but I shouldn't cheer for the incompetent Prince just because the King is worse.

 

[SilverStarCowboy]

Funny how Gosselin is considered an idiot by fans until his idiocy supports the agenda.

Jerry has been the ongoing joke of the NFL across the Nation for 20 years ...though the ones who still support his idiocy get a chuckle now and again.

 

[Risen Star]

No, i was simply responding to something that i've seen you mention a couple of different times, which is that Garrett is absolved of any criticism and that it is lazy and stupid to think otherwise.

I wasn't even bothering to discuss his on the field, .. difficulties, which are obvious enough, but wanted to point out that his relationship with Jones also warrants criticism.

I'm generally in agreement with a lot of your takes but take affront that those of us who have plenty of ammunition to critique our head coach, should be labelled 'lazy and stupid'.

That is the essence of it.

I said lazy and wrong. You added stupid.

I understand your point about his on field issues. I'd argue back that those things are magnified by the position he's put in. A team that is weak in the trenches since he's been here, lacks any depth and is coached in an environment where there's an open door policy to the owner. Every week is a dog fight to eek out a win with a team with major issues from top to bottom.

You may be 100% correct on Garrett. I just can't know that while he's here. I never judged Wade Phillips here. I judged him for the other opportunities he had that he squandered. Garrett's never had those opportunities. He's only head coached for Jerry Jones and I am not of the mindset that if you can't win with Jerry you simply can't coach in this league. It's the opposite, in fact.

 

[Miller]

One more time...just when did we have a game management issue against Detroit? We didn't run the ball too little. We did not pass late and stop the clock. Oh yeah Garrett ordered Smith to get the holding penalty, that must be it,

Your name says it all. The fact that you can't see the myriad of other options we had vs what we did just means you're no different than Jerry...plugging your ears and yelling "can't hear you."

 

[Deep_South]

The grand flaw in this article is Gosselin talks a lot about the number of injuries, but only those to starters in general. He fails to address the obvious problem the Cowboys had this year, which was a concentration of injuries to the DL, both starters and backups, which was exacerbated by the diminished effectiveness of DeMarcus Ware (at least partially due to injuries), the Josh Brent tragedy, and whatever you want to call the situation with Jay Ratliff. All of that added up to the worst defense in Cowboys' history, and I don't think anyone would say that would have been the case if we had no injuries and all of the players under contract were all healthy and played the entire season.

I find the "no excuses" mantra tiresome, regardless of from which walk of life it emanates. That is especially true when it is supported by a single statistic. I would love to see Gosselin look Monte Kiffin in the eye and tell him he should have had a top 10 defense even with what he had to work with.

 

[blindzebra]

Your name says it all. The fact that you can't see the myriad of other options we had vs what we did just means you're no different than Jerry...plugging your ears and yelling "can't hear you."

Yawn.

You can't answer the question so you avoid it. Par for the course.

 

[Mr Cowboy]

Injuries to the defense should not be used as an excuse for being average. The defensive injuries started and continued early in the season. If Garrett was as smart as he and many on here thinks he is he should have changed his strategy and changed his offense to a high power, out score your opponent offense. Instead he went conservative, A"take what they give us," instead of attacking. He played to keep it close and win it in the end, but his problem was that his defense was decimated, and too often he counted on the defense to make a stop he knew they couldn't make. He played not to lose instead of playing to win.

Garrett is very much like Jerry, in the sense that he is very arrogant, and truly believes he is smarter than everyone in the room. Instead of changing an adapting his offense according to situations, he sticks to what he he wants, not what is working. When Murray started rolling, inexplicably he would go away from the run; when Dez was easily removed from the game, instead of moving him around and having run crossing patterns, he continued to ignore Dez, or force throws to him outside the numbers. He would rather ignore his biggest weapon, than find ways to get him open. Defensive coordinators have him figured out, they know that if they fool him early, he will not adjust.

Blame injuries to the defense all you want, but the offense was pretty much injury free and finally had a cohesive OL, yet Garret did nothing with it, choosing to blame defensive injuries.

 

[pugilist]

i don't care if they somehow discovered some earth shattering breakthrough in modern medicine and reanimated Vince Lombardi's corpse to become head coach of the cowboys, he would not succeed with the current structure of this organization. replacing Garrett accomplishes nothing

 

[Miller]

Yawn.

You can't answer the question so you avoid it. Par for the course.

What question? You are par for the course. People who are competent and keep an open mind question the status quo with facts. You don't like it and throw out things like "Yawn" "If you don't think like me, you don't know football" etc. It's your MO. Most people have run through the Detroit options and most make sense compared to what we did. You also never answer why similar failure happened in another Detroit game, a GB game, a Arizona game. I have numbers on my side that have consistently happened. You have smart alec comebacks.

 

[dreghorn2]

I said lazy and wrong. You added stupid.

I understand your point about his on field issues. I'd argue back that those things are magnified by the position he's put in. A team that is weak in the trenches since he's been here, lacks any depth and is coached in an environment where there's an open door policy to the owner. Every week is a dog fight to eek out a win with a team with major issues from top to bottom.

You may be 100% correct on Garrett. I just can't know that while he's here. I never judged Wade Phillips here. I judged him for the other opportunities he had that he squandered. Garrett's never had those opportunities. He's only head coached for Jerry Jones and I am not of the mindset that if you can't win with Jerry you simply can't coach in this league. It's the opposite, in fact.

You are correct it was wrong not stupid, my mistake.

I believe that when you allow yourself to accept the circumstances of Jerrys' management scheme combined with poor on field coaching decisions and strategies, (personnel aside, i believe the two can be separated) then you have someone who is just .. bad.

It's not lazy it's just our opinions, but there is no question your second paragraph above is correct, it just doesn't cover all the bases when it comes to Garrett, in my opinion.

To end, i'll once again quote Risen Star.. 'Go Cowboys!'

 

[tecolote]

Seems to me he's trying to make it work with the parameters put in place by the lunatic owner. He was a Cowboy. His dad was a Cowboy. He wants to be the head coach of the Cowboys. It's why he turned down a couple of other chances to wait his turn here.

Why it falls on Garrett for the act of Jerry Jones is beyond me. It's frustrated fan talk. Garrett's the current villain. The next coach will also fill that role just like every other before him.

Every other coach before him except Campo made the playoffs and won with Jerry as GM. I do agree with you about changing the culture but Garrett is just bad.

 

[blindzebra]

What question? You are par for the course. People who are competent and keep an open mind question the status quo with facts. You don't like it and throw out things like "Yawn" "If you don't think like me, you don't know football" etc. It's your MO. Most people have run through the Detroit options and most make sense compared to what we did. You also never answer why similar failure happened in another Detroit game, a GB game, a Arizona game. I have numbers on my side that have consistently happened. You have smart alec comebacks.

You have opinions and nothing more.

If you think the answers I got in the DET game were legit you don't know football.

 

[Coy]

Yawn.

You can't answer the question so you avoid it. Par for the course.

I´ll answer it for HF, Garrett is the HC, he is in charge of all football activity on the field and particularly on offense, “the play” he gave his third string RB who had just 7 attempts for 4 yards in the team´s previous 7 games the ball on a 3rd and 14 from the Lions 35 yard line with 1:15 or so left on the clock and Detroit with no TO. The third string RB decides to take it to the outside where it´s more common to hold, a hold in that situation would be worst case scenario (outside of a turnover, and that risk was also taken by the way), we hold and give the ball back to Detroit with 1:02 remaining and everybody knows what happened next. Even though that play should have never been called, the least he should have done is tell his third string RB not to take it to the outside, just pound it for a yard or even for a loss and keep the clock running but no, he did well by trusting his third string RB.

Now, if he had thought a little outside the box, he takes a knee (no risk at all), let´s 40 seconds run off the clock, punts and leaves Detroit somewhere inside their 20 (could´ve been the 20 or the 1 yrd line) with around 20 seconds on the clock with no TO left and losing by 3, that my friend would have been a W for the Cowboys.

 

[blindzebra]

I´ll answer it for HF, Garrett is the HC, he is in charge of all football activity on the field and particularly on offense, “the play” he gave his third string RB who had just 7 attempts for 4 yards in the team´s previous 7 games the ball on a 3rd and 14 from the Lions 35 yard line with 1:15 or so left on the clock. The third string RB decides to take it to the outside where it´s more common to hold, a hold in that situation would be worst case scenario (outside of a turnover, and that risk was also taken by the way), we hold and give the ball back to Detroit and everybody knows what happened next. Even though that play should have never been called, the least he should have done is tell his third string RB not to take it to the outside, just pound it for a yard or even for a loss and keep the clock running but no, he did well by trusting his third string RB.

Now, if he had thought a little outside the box, he takes a knee (no risk at all), let´s 40 seconds run off the clock, punts and leaves Detroit somewhere inside their 20 (could´ve been the 20 or the 1 yrd line) with around 20 seconds on the clock with no TO left and losing by 3, that my friend would have been a W for the Cowboys.

We were playing to make them score 6 which was 100% the correct strategy. What happened next was a RB bouncing a play that was inside to the outside and a hold on a pro bowl level player. That falls under execution not coaching.

 

[tecolote]

We were playing to make them score 6 which was 100% the correct strategy. What happened next was a RB bouncing a play that was inside to the outside and a hold on a pro bowl level player. That falls under execution not coaching.

A kneeldown wins that game. That's coaching. Telling your RB not to bounce it outside is also coaching.

 

[Coy]

We were playing to make them score 6 which was 100% the correct strategy. What happened next was a RB bouncing a play that was inside to the outside and a hold on a pro bowl level player. That falls under execution not coaching.

Well that backfired didn´t it, and by the way by no means was it the right strategy, clock was more important than points and not to tell your RB NOT to take it outside, that´s coaching.

 

[Alexander]

You have opinions and nothing more.

If you think the answers I got in the DET game were legit you don't know football.

Whoa.

The you don't know football card. Game set match.

 

[blindzebra]

LOL...whatever.

A kneeldown wins that game. That's coaching. Telling your RB not to bounce it outside is also coaching.

Blocked punt...return to mid field...hail mary for FG...lots of reasons why that is not right.

Nobody including Billick and Stockton thought that they were getting a TD either, but they sure as hell got 80 of their 623 didn't they?

 

[Miller]

We were playing to make them score 6 which was 100% the correct strategy. What happened next was a RB bouncing a play that was inside to the outside and a hold on a pro bowl level player. That falls under execution not coaching.

This is where you just don't get it!!They lost so it wasn't the correct strategy. You aren't playing to make them score 6. You are playing to run clock and win whether its by 1 or 50. You take the best means to get there. How do you stop a team from beating themselves...take it out of their hands...kneel and punt. Heck, even a kneel and your theory of 6 is better with more time gone. You can avoid a blocked punt by telling the punter to sit on it if there is trouble. Either way, many mistakes were made. And by the way, execution is taught by coaches. You drill discipline and repetition into their heads. The coach is ultimately responsible for all of the above. Your go to excuse is the hold..something brought on by the play call. Wake up.When you see the other Detroit game, the Arizona game, the GB game and you wad it all up with this game the pattern is much more clear then your excuses theories.

 

[Ultra Warrior]

Injuries aren't an excuse but they are a reason. Anyone who thinks it shouldn't be taken into account for a season going poorly, is a straight up Idiot.