How bad will Garrett be this year?

[ajk23az]

This is a "special" thread, made by a "special" person, and only agreed to by "special" individuals.

 

[CowboyMcCoy]

The civility tone you set has, worst case, been matched in this thread. If you think folks haven't been civil, perhaps your opening volley could have been a bit more reflective instead of laced with hyperbole.

I've posted with you since before this board began. I've known you since before I became acquainted with anyone on CZ or "mazevo" as we called it.... You really think I worry what you think is hyperbole? I'm not attacking you, as I recall many intelligent inputs, discussions, points and arguments over the years. But I don't think about it like that. I say things that seem abrasive. Sometimes I use rhetoric to "strengthen" an argument. But I rarely exaggerate my views.

Some fans will take my views as being exaggerated. But you, of all people, should know I don't use hyperbole as a means to make a point.

 

[CoCo]

Yes they do, because I'm honest enough to go on what my eyes see, not on what the crowd says I'm supposed to see. Sorry if I'm not too happy about our coach making game-losing mistakes learning on the job while players like Romo are in their primes.

You said there shouldn't be a groundswell of anti-Garrett feeling. Well, you got your wish, because there's anything but. In fact, there's just the opposite -- you can't even question him without being called a troll.

Again I ask, why does he deserve this benefit of the doubt that other guys haven't gotten? Again, it usually comes down to utterly insignificant items like Ivy League degrees, toastmaster-approved PCs, and carrying Troy's clipboard.

You can't even question him? Is that what "worst coaching job in the last 10 years" is doing? Just questioning him - or is it over the top slamming?

I haven't seen anywhere in this thread where anyone has mentioned Ivy League, great press conferences or the like as defenses of Garrett. I have seen posts talking about job duties that go beyond cherry-picking certain in-game decisions.

The martyr syndrome around "can't even question him" & "Ivy League" nonsense doesn't play very effectively in this particular thread CL.

You're not just going by your eyes, your looking for things that sometimes aren't even there.

 

[Disturbed]

Garrett has made some bad decisions in games, no one is perfect. Lady Luck will not always smile on you. I think he has done a good job in player evaluations and removing "character issue guys" from the roster. The young and hungry team should play much better later in the season.

My biggest concern with the current team is the offensive line. Vegas has issued the initial odds for the Cowboy games this season (on covers). If you look at these it looks like Vegas has the Cowboys at 7-9 or 8-8 this year.

If they can stay healthy, they should be better than this projection...

 

[CowboyMcCoy]

This is a "special" thread, made by a "special" person, and only agreed to by "special" individuals.

What is your argument?










(Ask for Blue Boy; I'll be holding my breath for your actual argument.)

 

[zrinkill]

I think they need this more.

 

[CowboyMcCoy]

I think they need this more.

I think that's for you after Garrett arched you over his knee and you come crawling back for more without even thinking twice about it.

:crawl:

 

[CoCo]

I've posted with you since before this board began. I've known you since before I became acquainted with anyone on CZ or "mazevo" as we called it.... You really think I worry what you think is hyperbole? I'm not attacking you, as I recall many intelligent inputs, discussions, points and arguments over the years. But I don't think about it like that. I say think that seem abrasive. Sometimes I use rhetoric to "strengthen" an argument. But I rarely exaggerate my views.

Some fans will take my views as being exaggerated. But you, of all people, should know I don't use hyperbole as a means to make a point.

Ben,

You may not see it as exaggeration. But do you really think that kind of tone sets the standard for diplomatic talks? And if you've got no problem with folks responding in kind, then don't complain about folks who respond strongly in the opposite fashion.

But back to the matter at hand - I simply disagree with your assessment, strongly for reasons myself and others have stated in this thread.

Peace.

 

[Chocolate Lab]

You can't even question him? Is that what "worst coaching job in the last 10 years" is doing? Just questioning him - or is it over the top slamming?

I haven't seen anywhere in this thread where anyone has mentioned Ivy League, great press conferences or the like as defenses of Garrett. I have seen posts talking about job duties that go beyond cherry-picking certain in-game decisions.

The martyr syndrome around "can't even question him" & "Ivy League" nonsense doesn't play very effectively in this particular thread CL.

You're not just going by your eyes, your looking for things that sometimes aren't even there.

Okay, call his post a slam, then. Why can't he be slammed? Did you defend all our other coaches the same way? Because they got slammed, too.

And I've never said Garrett was some horrible coach. Ever. All I've ever said is that I don't see these genius/special qualities that so many claim to see. What I see is an extremely green coach who isn't above reproach. And that those other peripherals mean nothing to me, because they don't make you a good coach.

And I'm pretty sure my eyes really saw this last season and didn't dream it up.

http://i15.***BLOCKED***/albums/a361/ChocolateLab/12_11_2011_22_57_17.jpg

 

[Yakuza Rich]

You've obviously never watched Pasqualoni coach at Syracuse.

In all seriousness, I thought Garrett did a better job for the first 3/4 of the season than people think. I remember him taking a ton of flak after the Patriots loss. But, when your QB bungles the Jets game and just comes off a giant come from behind loss to the Lions, the absolute last thing the team could afford was another loss by the hands of Romo at that point. I think Romo's confidence (and ribs) were broken at that point as well. I really think Garrett was in an unenviable position in that game and most people neglect that.

There were some things that bothered me, like how long it takes the players to learn the offense. He also got a bit too pass happy and really too shotgun happy, even though the shotgun on 1st and 2nd down was not working well for us for most of the year. We also only beat 1 team with a winning record (Niners).

The 1st Commanders game, even though we won, was embarrassing to watch players who had no clue as to what they were doing on offense. Other than that, we had issues on defense which was usually due to awful play from the secondary outside of Jenkins and Sensy. Not sure how much blame can be attributed solely to Garrett.

I've seen worse coaching jobs. Some things give me hope about Garrett, other things don't.









YR

 

[ajk23az]

What is your argument?

Jason Garrett, first 1.5 years --- 13-11 ..... .542%

Sean Payton, first 3 years --- 25-23 ...... .520% .........awesome after 3 years

Mike McCarthy, first 3 years --- 27-21 ...... .562% ........awesome after 3 years

My point being, coaches need time to place their mark on teams. Your expecting Garrett to do it in half the time as other great coaches have done. Go cry somewhere else.

 

[CowboyMcCoy]

Ben,

You may not see it as exaggeration. But do you really think that kind of tone sets the standard for diplomatic talks? And if you've got no problem with folks responding in kind, then don't complain about folks who respond strongly in the opposite fashion.

But back to the matter at hand - I simply disagree with your assessment, strongly for reasons myself and others have stated in this thread.

Peace.

So he's done a good job by your standards, eh?

I'm sorry if my standards for a coach are a bit different. CL asked a legitimate question, you want to make a revelation and then go hide under a rock and keep poking in and out of the conversation when it suits you or your ego (like someone else I know), go ahead. Evade the conversation now because my diction offended you. That's also your Modus Operandi.

In any case, maybe I should start a new thread and compare him to Landry as if I'm in some fantasy land from the past where Jason Garrett is actually Tom Landry.

What are we, ten years old?

You'd think that were actually the case the case by the way fans speak of Garrett. And we just blew the biggest potential season we've had in a while....

Crickets.

We've become too passive in our old age.

 

[Nation]

Jason Garrett, first 1.5 years --- 13-11 ..... .542%

Sean Payton, first 3 years --- 25-23 ...... .520% .........awesome after 3 years

Mike McCarthy, first 3 years --- 27-21 ...... .562% ........awesome after 3 years

My point being, coaches need time to place their mark on teams. Your expecting Garrett to do it in half the time as other great coaches have done. Go cry somewhere else.

Bill Belichick Coaching Record first 24 Games: 10-14
Bill Belichick Coaching Record first 24 Games with New England: 9-15

It's a process...

 

[Chocolate Lab]

In all seriousness, I thought Garrett did a better job for the first 3/4 of the season than people think. I remember him taking a ton of flak after the Patriots loss. But, when your QB bungles the Jets game and just comes off a giant come from behind loss to the Lions, the absolute last thing the team could afford was another loss by the hands of Romo at that point.

But see, why do you put the Lions loss on Romo? That was at least as much on the coach. There is no reason to be throwing the ball like that with a 24 point lead. Twenty-four points! A decent high school coach could come out of the stands and not lose a 24 point fourth quarter lead.

The only way I'd put that mostly on Romo is if he absolutely disobeyed orders from the sideline, but we never heard any hint of that.

See, this is what I don't like about Garrett. Some people (not you) blame everything and everyone *but* him. Why?

 

[CowboyMcCoy]

You've obviously never watched Pasqualoni coach at Syracuse.

In all seriousness, I thought Garrett did a better job for the first 3/4 of the season than people think. I remember him taking a ton of flak after the Patriots loss. But, when your QB bungles the Jets game and just comes off a giant come from behind loss to the Lions, the absolute last thing the team could afford was another loss by the hands of Romo at that point. I think Romo's confidence (and ribs) were broken at that point as well. I really think Garrett was in an unenviable position in that game and most people neglect that.

There were some things that bothered me, like how long it takes the players to learn the offense. He also got a bit too pass happy and really too shotgun happy, even though the shotgun on 1st and 2nd down was not working well for us for most of the year. We also only beat 1 team with a winning record (Niners).

The 1st Commanders game, even though we won, was embarrassing to watch players who had no clue as to what they were doing on offense. Other than that, we had issues on defense which was usually due to awful play from the secondary outside of Jenkins and Sensy. Not sure how much blame can be attributed solely to Garrett.

I've seen worse coaching jobs. Some things give me hope about Garrett, other things don't.









YR

My problem with him is he is just what you don't want in a quarterback... or at least one that would start for you. Garrett doesn't have the instincts he thinks he has. I'm not one to judge people by the way they look. But Garrett's red hair isn't doing him any favors.

I'm not saying red hair equates to bad coaching.

But it does equate to people being able to notice when you get rattled or, heaven forbid, embarrassed.

I pick up on details.

I think players are smart enough to see the same things I see.

And I see Garrett getting red in the face at times.

I know this will offend some. And some will take me as being jocular. If you ask CoCo, I'm probably using hyperbole and being too hard on old Red Balls.

But seriously, he acts like a dork.

It doesn't surprise me. He is a dork. He came from an ivy league school and was a career back up--

He does know Xs and Os, which is why he belongs as a coordinator. But you want a tough guy as your head coach. He can be nice or mean... it doesn't matter.

When was the last time you saw a nerd win the Super Bowl?

That's only a small portion of why I don't like Garrett as a head coach. To steal a word from Bill Parcells, I think he lacks the moxie it takes to be a good head coach.

I do hope I'm wrong though.

I'll remain hopeful and fearful at the same time.

 

[CoCo]

Okay, call his post a slam, then. Why can't he be slammed? Did you defend all our other coaches the same way? Because they got slammed, too.

And I've never said Garrett was some horrible coach. Ever. All I've ever said is that I don't see these genius/special qualities that so many claim to see. What I see is an extremely green coach who isn't above reproach. And that those other peripherals mean nothing to me, because they don't make you a good coach.

And I'm pretty sure my eyes really saw this last season and didn't dream it up.

http://i15.***BLOCKED***/albums/a361/ChocolateLab/12_11_2011_22_57_17.jpg

And I've never said you think Garrett is horrible. Ever.

But to suggest your disdain for Garrett is simply refuting some of his fans hyperbole, well, it doesn't appear that way to me.

You're right about this, Garrett should not be above reproach, and he does show instances of being green in some areas. I've no problem with that. I also have no problem saying that he should keep or lose his job based upon his accomplishments as HC.

But that isn't what this thread is about. It's about cherry-picking the Detroit, NE, & Cardinals losses and claiming those are the true reflection of his work which by the way I don't see nearly as damning as his detractors claim them to be.

I'm also not too moved by the graphic you attached. Did that Detroit loss suck? You bet. Did the Giants loss hurt even more? Probably so. Garrett was HC so he'll bear the shame. I'm not moved to call it the worst coaching job in a decade.

BTW - are you putting the blown lead versus the Giants on Garrett as well? Just curious.

 

[kmd24]

24 point fourth quarter lead.

FWIW, the 4th quarter lead was 13.

 

[ThreeandOut]

UT and Texas Tech. I went to UT, but I also like Tech's football program.

So both of your teams finished in the bottom half of the conference and you're upset with Garrett? You should be more upset with Mack Brown. He can get any recruit that he wants; he should never be in the bottom half of the conference.

 

[CowboyMcCoy]

You've obviously never watched Pasqualoni coach at Syracuse.

In all seriousness, I thought Garrett did a better job for the first 3/4 of the season than people think. I remember him taking a ton of flak after the Patriots loss. But, when your QB bungles the Jets game and just comes off a giant come from behind loss to the Lions, the absolute last thing the team could afford was another loss by the hands of Romo at that point. I think Romo's confidence (and ribs) were broken at that point as well. I really think Garrett was in an unenviable position in that game and most people neglect that.

There were some things that bothered me, like how long it takes the players to learn the offense. He also got a bit too pass happy and really too shotgun happy, even though the shotgun on 1st and 2nd down was not working well for us for most of the year. We also only beat 1 team with a winning record (Niners).

The 1st Commanders game, even though we won, was embarrassing to watch players who had no clue as to what they were doing on offense. Other than that, we had issues on defense which was usually due to awful play from the secondary outside of Jenkins and Sensy. Not sure how much blame can be attributed solely to Garrett.

I've seen worse coaching jobs. Some things give me hope about Garrett, other things don't.









YR

Also, Thank You for adding to our discussion. At least CL and a few others were pitching in legitimate commentary too.

The hardest thing for me is how much talent was on this team this year and how close we really were.

When I think about those two things I look to point the blame on higher powers. When I see good enough reason, I lay the blame on them....

If you can't trust your own instincts, whose instincts can you trust?

Edit: That's not to say I hope he can't improve.

 

[physeter]

1. Romo wasn't taking pain meds but he was taking a nerve block in the ribs prior to the games. Romo was playing well and making enough good decisions to put us in the lead that day. Carpenter made a good play on an ill-advised throw and we probably didn't need to be running that deep in our own end with a 3 TD lead so I'll concede the point to some degree. However, at that time in the year we could not run the ball consistently and our defense is not good enough to defend against a powerhouse offense with a whole run of 3 and outs from the offense. We probably needed to keep throwing but Romo needed to make better decisions in that game understanding the circumstances.

2. Now at the end of the NE game Garrett appropriately ran the first 2 times but lost 3 yards and got a penalty making it 3rd and 18 if I remember correctly. It is very hard to convert a 3rd and 12+ yards - moreso if you are on the road, have a QB with bad ribs and your top 2 WRs are dinged up and you just lost your #1 RB. You have an injured QB playing behind a young and inexperienced OL against a team that won 14 games the year before and was on their way to another SB appearance. You also have your star QB coming off a game where he was crucified by the media for 3 INTs in the second half.

I really think Garrett had no choice but to run a low-risk play on 3rd down there. I don't really disagree with running it on first and second down to take a bit of time off the clock but ideally you would be in 3rd and 5 and not 3rd and 15.

At that time in Garrett's and Romo's career I really can't fault the playcalling but it was a matter of poor blocking from the OL.

The defense could have still held them and had a whole field to defend which they couldn't do.

3. In the Cardinals game he should have tried to get more yards there but got too conservative given the amount of time left in the game. 5-10 more yards makes for an easier FG for Bailey. I think the decision was wrong.

In the end, I think Garrett's biggest problem all season was a very inconsistent OL that gave up a lot of sacks, hits and pressures. Our whole gameplan seemed to be set around getting the ball out of Romo's hands before something bad happened and these tendencies actually allowed defenses to get very aggressive against us knowing this.

You have to remember we had a spurt where we played well with Murray running the ball behind Fiammetta. In that stretch we saw what the offense could do with blocking - Murray was averaging 6 ypc and Romo was tearing defenses apart now that he could pass against defenses afraid of the run. This is the way our offense is supposed to run and can't operate properly with an OL that isn't opening up holes consistently and can't pass block for 3 seconds consistently.

Now you can blame Garrett for not doing a better job patching the OL but you have to also remember we had a bunch of declining overpaid vets who weren't playing much better in 2010. We also had very little cap space because of all those overpaid vets and we had to carry money over into this season to deal with all the dead cap money that cutting said vets was going to impose on the 2012 salary cap. I think we ended up with about 23M dead cap and carried forward around 16M of unused space to have a net loss of 7M for the year plus the 5M league penalty which made us play this year at 12M down. If Garrett didn't play shorthanded last year we would have had a cap deficit of 28M this year. So Garrett took most of the hit in the rebuilding year so he could play with a better cap situation in the year when we had a better chance of winning which speaks to good discipline and long-term planning.

When I look at this team I think it is our most complete roster top to bottom since 1995. We are super-weak at any position outside of Center. We have good prospects almost everywhere now for the future except QB and TE where we happen to have Pro Bowlers and an excellent backup QB. All the malcontents have now been eliminated from the roster and there is no sign of cancer recurrence at this stage after another offseason. Jerry managed to control his wallet and the investments we made were fairly sound and despite the calls from the media and fans he didn't over-react to the weak interior OL as he always would have done in the past. He kept his focus on the overall team and most good teams cannot spend a fortune at interior OL without then losing players elsewhere. Garrett convinced Jones to invest in underrated interior OL who Callahan can patch together into a functional unit without breaking the bank and without putting in progress stoppers in front of some promising kids we brought in last year.

So overall I like what we had done pesonnel-wise.

In terms of coaching, he brought in an OC, thankfully. He really needed one last year and was spreading himself too thin leading to bad decisions like in the Cards game you alluded to. He got rid of our worst asst. coach Campo and brought in a very good DB coach who will try to fix the weakest unit on the team. This guy did a great job in Cleveland and is familiar with Ryan so I am expecting good things. He brought in Callahan to be OL coach and he is known for doing an excellent job on the OL and at OC but he is just a bad head coach. I think Callahan will do a great job for us, too.

In terms of team governance, I think he has put together a good group of guys. I think he has brought in some kids who will be good leaders for the future like Sean Lee and Dan Connor. All the troublemakers are gone so I expect a strong lockerroom this year.

I am very hopeful about this team. I do agree there were some questionable moments from last year, especially the Cards game. However, I also saw a lot of good decisions in the background that have put is in a good position to succeed this year. I also see evidence of a coach who looks at his flaws and then tries to correct them instead of denying them. I think this approach won him some converts in the lockerroom and this is firmly his team now whereas I thought he was having some trouble getting buy in from the defense early last year.

I look forward to a good year. I think we can contend for a playoff spot with this roster but the Eagles and Giants will both be very strong and the schedule is difficult. I think the offense will be a juggernaut and the defense can be a top 5-10 unit. I am hoping for 10-11 wins.

So to answer the question, yes I think Garrett will be better this year. No I don't think he put up the worst coaching job in history last year. I would say it was a mediocre year and grade him a B- overall.