Informal Poll Is Garrett a better Head Coach than Wade?

[khiladi]

Houck was his guy? How do you know this?

There was an article posted in ESPN in 2008 written by Matt Mosley, which is no longer accesible on the ESPN site, but can be found on the Atlanta Falcons board.

http://boards.atlantafalcons.com/topic/3148787-wade-phillips-wants-emmitt-thomas/

Cowboys have some hires to make

January 23, 2008 10:57 AM


As we expected, new Dolphins coach Tony Sparano hired three Cowboys defensive coaches Tuesday. Todd Bowles will serve as the Cowfins' assistant head coach-secondary, Paul Pasqualoni takes over as defensive coordinator and Kacy Rodgers will coach the defensive line.

"Tony and I have worked together for five years," said Rodgers, "and it was hard for me to tell him no. I loved working for Wade Phillips, but Bill [Parcells] brought me into this league, and I'm excited about working with him again."

I'm told that Cowboys coach Wade Phillips wants to hire Emmitt Thomas as his secondary coach. Thomas, the former Chiefs great, has coached the defensive backs in Atlanta for six consecutive seasons and was named interim head coach when Bobby Petrino fled to Arkansas. Thomas has served as a defensive coordinator in Philadelphia, Green Bay and Minnesota. He and Phillips worked together in Atlanta.

Chargers outside linebackers coach John Pagano is a leading candidate to replace Pasqualoni. He's been with San Diego since 2002 and he's also worked under Phillips.

One other nugget that will interest Cowboys fans: I've been told by two different sources that Phillips wanted to hire former Chiefs offensive coordinator Mike Solari to coach the offensive line, but was trumped by owner Jerry Jones, who opted for Hudson Houck

So here we have Wade wanting Emmitt Thomas, but gets ham-strung with Dave Campo. And also wants Solari and gets hamstrung with Houck. Where do you think Houck was coaching prior to this stint? Yep, Miam Dolphins... Like I said, the defense of Jason Garrett on this board is just so comical it's amusing. Pretend everything is the fault of Wade, of which Jason Garrett had no part.... If anybody was hamstrung, it surely wasn't Garrett. That description belongs to Wade Phillips.

 

[khiladi]

Yes. And your right, Romo was the reason for all the yards and JG took advantage of that as best he could. Jones chose not to put emphasis on the OL for the past few years.

Really? Did you see the draft picks on OL when Jason Garrett was OC here? What happened this year when the genius Jason Garrett wanted to go 3-4 NT and Jerry over-ruled him with Frederik, probably the best center in the draft... If JG thought it was all about OL, why was he going that route and that too, a guy who didn't even fit a 4-3 scheme, but 3-4? And a guy that never generated pressure on a QB, when all of JGs defendors are saying the reason why they don't perform is because of defensive takeaways? So you go NT that isn't even known for pressuring the QB?

What process is JG even talking about?

 

[Rockport]

Really? Did you see the draft picks on OL when Jason Garrett was OC here? What happened this year when the genius Jason Garrett wanted to go 3-4 NT and Jerry over-ruled him with Frederik, probably the best center in the draft... If JG thought it was all about OL, why was he going that route and that too, a guy who didn't even fit a 4-3 scheme, but 3-4? And a guy that never generated pressure on a QB, when all of JGs defendors are saying the reason why they don't perform is because of defensive takeaways? So you go NT that isn't even known for pressuring the QB?

What process is JG even talking about?

Jones is the GM and responsible for all player acquisitions. Jones brought Bernadeau and Livings in. We have, and still do have, one of the worst OL's in the NFL. Frederich is a rookie who will, at least initially, struggle as all rookies do. Romo will again be running for his life. No one is to blame other than Jones.

 

[khiladi]

Think about it... Jerry Jones gave away 3 draft picks in 2009, the worst draft that Jason Garrett supporters evidences Wade's lack of understanding personnel, for Roy Williams to help the stagnating offense of Jason Garrett, the offense that was consistently putting up 3 and outs. It wasn't the defense that Roy Williams was suppose to help. Ironically, Wade never liked to squander 1st round picks on WRs.

That was such a flop that Dallas had to go 1st round pick for another WR in 2010, which happened to be Dez Bryant. The 2008 draft, Dallas went Felix Jones, when Wade preferred Chris Johnson, and who even knows if he would have picked him 1st rounder. I hardly doubt that... Splendid pick that Felix Jones was...

 

[khiladi]

Jones is the GM and responsible for all player acquisitions. Jones brought Bernadeau and Livings in. We have, and still do have, one of the worst OL's in the NFL. Frederich is a rookie who will, at least initially, struggle as all rookies do. Romo will again be running for his life. No one is to blame other than Jones.

But I thought Jason Garrett is the reason we are bringing in the RKGs? So it's JJs fault when it comes to JG, but it's Wade's fault when it comes to Wade... I get you...

I guess Floyd as a 3-4 NT can protect Romo better than Frederik...

 

[khiladi]

Jerry Jones, since 2008, was surrounding Jason Garrett with coaches he was familiar with and worked with. Even when Wade was still the HC and coming off a season in which they won the division and were 13-3. That is what you call being hamstrung.

 

[Zordon]

khiladi bodied this thread. i hope jason succeeds, but i agree with you, it's despicable what many on this forum have done to wade and now more recently rob ryan in order to protect the chosen one. jason has to prove it this year or he's gone.

 

[TheSport78]

But I thought Jason Garrett is the reason we are bringing in the RKGs? So it's JJs fault when it comes to JG, but it's Wade's fault when it comes to Wade... I get you...

I guess Floyd as a 3-4 NT can protect Romo better than Frederik...

Who said Garrett was the reason we were bringing in talent? I'm sure he has a voice, but Jerry has the ultimate say and he deserves the criticism. The problem is that Jerry will never feel pressured because he does such a great job with promoting the Cowboys and keeping the team relevant from a marketing standpoint.

Floyd VS Frederick and protecting Romo isn't a fair comparison at all. Most fans are upset because we passed on a player who had a top 5 grade on Dallas' board in Floyd, for a lineman who had a 2nd round grade by the Cowboys.

Heck, even some teams had a SIXTH round grade on Frederick. Not good IMO.

 

[khiladi]

Jason Garrett supporters are always talking about JG talking about changing the culture of cupcake Wade Phillips and about him bringing it RKGs, like Sean Lee... Funny thing is, they don't realize these RKGs like Sean Lee, the captain of the defense was drafted by Wade Phillips. There other argument is how JG gives PCs and doesn't reveal much as a leader, yet when Wade Phillips wasn't saying anything, Wade was getting bashed as a chubby idiot that couldn't speak.

Now, when JG isn't performing, they say he was hamstrung by JJ. Yet, Wade is the biggest example of a coach that was hamstrung by incompetent coaches like Dave Campo and JG, and yet, it's all Wade's fault...

Things went south the moment JJ started putting coaches around JG that he was familiar with, even when Wade was HC.

 

[khiladi]

khiladi bodied this thread. i hope jason succeeds, but i agree with you, it's despicable what many on this forum have done to wade and now more recently rob ryan in order to protect the chosen one. jason has to prove it this year or he's gone.

 

[Eskimo]

You act like Noll didn't develop that talent.

And we have had a suspect pass defense primarily caused by the fact that we have had a mediocre safety tandem since 2003. And I don't think it's a problem with finding safety talent, it's a problem with not being aggressive in looking for quality safeties in the draft or FA.

YR

I don't understand what you're saying here.

A GM's job is to fill the roster full of players so the HC can have the set of players he needs to put together a contender.

Now how can we not have a problem finding Safety talent? We haven't found any by and large. You say we haven't been aggressive enough in the FA and draft - well that's a GM's job not a HC's job.

So has the HC been provided adequate talent at Safety? No. Is it affecting the play on the field? Yes. Has the HC been provided good talent for the Safety job that he failed to develop and then went on to be successful elsewhere? No. Whose job is it to fix that then? The GM.

IMO, Dallas has done as good a job of player development than any team starting with the 2010 draft. If you go back to then and look at all the players we have developed it is a pretty long list of good and ascending players. I agree that we didn't do a good job starting in 2006 and extending through to and including 2009 which spans the end of BP to the end of Wade. Why BP fell off after 2005 I'm not sure but I suspect his heart just wasn't in it anymore.

Now since the 2010 offseason the following quality starters have been developed:

Dez Bryant
Sean Lee
Barry Church (based on 3 games but I know what I saw - he was good)
Phil Costa (some may dispute the quality part but I think he was about to breakthrough last year in his second year as a starter)
Tyron Smith
Bruce Carter
Demarco Murray
Dwayne Harris (#3 WR is kind of a starting position)
Mo Claiborne
Josh Brent (was playing well at NT before the accident - he was still developed from a 7th round supplemental pick into a decent NT)

The following players may emerge as quality starters this year:

Travis Frederick
Ronald Leary
Jermey Parnell
Tyrone Crawford
Matt Johnson
James Hanna
Gavin Escobar
Terrance Williams (at #3 WR)


So I think the whole organization has been doing a really good job of getting young players onto the field in a position to succeed. There is a fairly deep group of current young starters who are still ascending in their level of play and there is a group behind about to emerge as starters in the next year or two.

I think that all of this speaks to an organization that is doing a very good job at spotting young players with talent and then developing them into quality NFL players.

Some may argue we should judge Garrett going back to 2006 for all the offensive players but we don't know how much influence he had in the draft room and we don't know how many players failed to develop here because there wasn't the proper organizational structure, leadership, teaching and culture. A coordinator only has so much influence over these things and the clear change in practice habits, draft habits, extensive player background checks and record of player development speaks to the new approach. Even young underperforming vets managed to really improve their play that was a pretty clear blip on their developmental paths.

 

[Idgit]

khiladi bodied this thread. i hope jason succeeds, but i agree with you, it's despicable what many on this forum have done to wade and now more recently rob ryan in order to protect the chosen one. jason has to prove it this year or he's gone.

Please. I remember a time not too long ago when I was one of a handful saying the demonizing of Wade Phillips was out of hand. The posters who don't like Garrett are either the same posters who hated Wade or they are of the same ilk. You have a handful of other posters who believe JG compares favorably to WP after Wade clearly lost the team at the end of his tenure here. That's hardly 'despicable' behavior.

Rob Ryan is another matter entirely. They guy is a career journeyman whose teams love him but play sloppy football. You don't get extra credit for bombast in the NFL. And the people who were carrying his chair and doing backflips when he came in are not the people dumping on him now that he's finally gone. They guy talked the talk and could not walk the walk. Injuries or no, that usually gets you unemployed as a coordinator in the NFL.

I'm *thrilled* that slob is gone from Dallas. He's a career loser who'd make a worse head coach than his fat, emotionally unbalanced father did. Good riddance.

 

[Picksix]

Think about it... Jerry Jones gave away 3 draft picks in 2009, the worst draft that Jason Garrett supporters evidences Wade's lack of understanding personnel, for Roy Williams to help the stagnating offense of Jason Garrett, the offense that was consistently putting up 3 and outs. It wasn't the defense that Roy Williams was suppose to help. Ironically, Wade never liked to squander 1st round picks on WRs.

You've made some good points about staff hirings being more geard toward what Garrett wanted versus want Wade wanted (allegedly). Of course, they should have been, since Garrett was coaching the offense.

But on this point, now you're just making stuff up. This is the offensive stats from the first 6 weeks of the 2008 season - before we traded for RW, and more importantly, before Romo got hurt.

Team Points (offense) First Downs 3rd Down Conv Punts TOP
CLE 28 30 72% 2 37:29
PHI 34 20 60% 3 30:32
GB 27 22 50% 3 32:12
WAS 24 21 50% 6 21:51
CIN 31 18 60% 3 31:45
ARI 24 14 41% 5 27:45

So we scored at least 24 points on offense in each game, led in TOP in 4 of them, and converted at least 50% of 3rd downs in all but one of them. If you want to point to the WAS and ARI games as a "stagnating" offense, fine, but we're talking about two whole games, and against ARI, we weren't blocking anybody. And their 3rd down coversion % was still above league average in that game.

No, this move had everything to do with Romo getting hurt, JJ panicking, and the fact that JJ had long coveted RW, and now had a chance to get him.

 

[xwalker]

Heck, even some teams had a SIXTH round grade on Frederick. Not good IMO.

Which teams? Did other teams have "leaked" draft boards?

 

[ShiningStar]

Please. I remember a time not too long ago when I was one of a handful saying the demonizing of Wade Phillips was out of hand. The posters who don't like Garrett are either the same posters who hated Wade or they are of the same ilk. You have a handful of other posters who believe JG compares favorably to WP after Wade clearly lost the team at the end of his tenure here. That's hardly 'despicable' behavior.

Rob Ryan is another matter entirely. They guy is a career journeyman whose teams love him but play sloppy football. You don't get extra credit for bombast in the NFL. And the people who were carrying his chair and doing backflips when he came in are not the people dumping on him now that he's finally gone. They guy talked the talk and could not walk the walk. Injuries or no, that usually gets you unemployed as a coordinator in the NFL.

I'm *thrilled* that slob is gone from Dallas. He's a career loser who'd make a worse head coach than his fat, emotionally unbalanced father did. Good riddance.

okay,, see now i saw Rob another way, but that aside, do you think Monte will do better here in Dallas, do you think we will see the results this season, and do you think Monte can, along with Callahan, keep Garrett here in Dallas?

 

[Idgit]

okay,, see now i saw Rob another way, but that aside, do you think Monte will do better here in Dallas, do you think we will see the results this season, and do you think Monte can, along with Callahan, keep Garrett here in Dallas?

Wasn't a fan of the Monte hire either, frankly. I do love that they are apparently modeling things off of the SEA and CHI defenses. We don't have Seattle's S's though, so it'll be interesting to see how it works. At the time, I was bewildered by the hire. After digesting it, I see what the team was thinking, but I'm going to wait to see how it looks in preseason. I worry about S play and our ability to stop the run, in particular.

That said, I do like all the young guys we have at the S position. I won't be shocked to see two of them turn out. And I like the Marinelli hire, a lot.

Either way, I don't think Jason Garrett's really on all that thin ice in Dallas this season. I think the organization is really high on him, and I don't think he's likely to get fired unless he loses the team at some point. I don't even think the playoffs or a playoff win are necessities, though they'd obviously help.

 

[ShiningStar]

Wasn't a fan of the Monte hire either, frankly. I do love that they are apparently modeling things off of the SEA and CHI defenses. We don't have Seattle's S's though, so it'll be interesting to see how it works. At the time, I was bewildered by the hire. After digesting it, I see what the team was thinking, but I'm going to wait to see how it looks in preseason. I worry about S play and our ability to stop the run, in particular.

That said, I do like all the young guys we have at the S position. I won't be shocked to see two of them turn out. And I like the Marinelli hire, a lot.

Either way, I don't think Jason Garrett's really on all that thin ice in Dallas this season. I think the organization is really high on him, and I don't think he's likely to get fired unless he loses the team at some point. I don't even think the playoffs or a playoff win are necessities, though they'd obviously help.

thank you for the insight, sometimes anothers opinion help.

i agree with most of what you wrote, and i can see the side of it. I for one am happy to go back to the 4-3, even tho i think the defenses will just be blending soon. But i guess if we had to go back, Monte is a good hire. wasnt my first choice, but okay, i understand it.

Do you think the Marinelli hire will help?

I think everyone is still high on Garrett, and i think a few wins here or there will remind everyone why he got the job.

 

[Idgit]

thank you for the insight, sometimes anothers opinion help.

i agree with most of what you wrote, and i can see the side of it. I for one am happy to go back to the 4-3, even tho i think the defenses will just be blending soon. But i guess if we had to go back, Monte is a good hire. wasnt my first choice, but okay, i understand it.

Do you think the Marinelli hire will help?

I think everyone is still high on Garrett, and i think a few wins here or there will remind everyone why he got the job.

I should be clear, just because I'm a Dallas Cowboys football purist, I really do like going back to the 4-3, too. My issues with Kiffin are just that his impact on the league had already happened, and then he was out of professional football for a while, which poses a big question mark for me.

That's what I like about the Marinelli pick, though. He hasn't been out of football, and he's perfectly capable of running the defense on his own, if he had to. So it closes that time-away question and basically gives us built in DC redundancy.

I love the way CHI plays defense. Some of that's personnel, but a lot of it's scheme. I think we've got the ILBs to do it. I'm not sure we've got anyone in the secondary of Tillman's caliber, but I do like the guys we've got back there and think we've got some talent. And people underrate how good our DEs are going to be because they're older than they were and they've had their impact on the defense for years now and we've not been good enough, but Ware and Spencer are a very, very good pair of 4-3 DEs.

On paper, I think it all looks good. There's just a bunch of things that have to go right in order for the move to pay off. When there are so many question marks, it's pretty rare that all the answers come up positive. I think there are going to be issues someplace, but I just don't know where the problems are going to be.

On offense, though, there are fewer questions, and I'm a lot less concerned about the interior OL than most are, so I think we'll have some margin for error to work with, overall.

 

[ShiningStar]

I should be clear, just because I'm a Dallas Cowboys football purist, I really do like going back to the 4-3, too. My issues with Kiffin are just that his impact on the league had already happened, and then he was out of professional football for a while, which poses a big question mark for me.

That's what I like about the Marinelli pick, though. He hasn't been out of football, and he's perfectly capable of running the defense on his own, if he had to. So it closes that time-away question and basically gives us built in DC redundancy.

I love the way CHI plays defense. Some of that's personnel, but a lot of it's scheme. I think we've got the ILBs to do it. I'm not sure we've got anyone in the secondary of Tillman's caliber, but I do like the guys we've got back there and think we've got some talent. And people underrate how good our DEs are going to be because they're older than they were and they've had their impact on the defense for years now and we've not been good enough, but Ware and Spencer are a very, very good pair of 4-3 DEs.

On paper, I think it all looks good. There's just a bunch of things that have to go right in order for the move to pay off. When there are so many question marks, it's pretty rare that all the answers come up positive. I think there are going to be issues someplace, but I just don't know where the problems are going to be.

On offense, though, there are fewer questions, and I'm a lot less concerned about the interior OL than most are, so I think we'll have some margin for error to work with, overall.

my problem right now is safety and I was liking Church before he went down. For a while thats been a staple of a problem for Dallas.

I agree on the rest, but I think as problems crop up this year, they should be addressed and than addressed for long term solutions. I am tired of the same problems year in and year out.

Most are gone, and i like the coaching shift we have done. But a few problems now have to be solved once and for all.

 

[Idgit]

my problem right now is safety and I was liking Church before he went down. For a while thats been a staple of a problem for Dallas.

I agree on the rest, but I think as problems crop up this year, they should be addressed and than addressed for long term solutions. I am tired of the same problems year in and year out.

Most are gone, and i like the coaching shift we have done. But a few problems now have to be solved once and for all.

Yep. One thing I do like about Garrett is that he's bringing in multiple high-potential players and letting them fight it out.

We're reportedly fairly interested in adding Sedrick Ellis to the DL. I think he and Hargrove would give us some veteran options there where we could use some competition.

We've added some depth at CB, WR, TE, and, as we've said, S, too.

I did think we needed to add a second quality player to the OL. Frederick made sense. I thought Brandon Moore and Clabo both made sense, as well, but apparently the team didn't agree.

But, overall, yeah, we're playing young players, drafting well, and creating competition and depth where we didn't have much before. I think things are actually pretty positive for Dallas, other than the fact that our underrated franchise QB is getting up there.