Cool, glad we can talk about this.
Sure thing.
First, let me say something about JG. My criticisms of him aren't "hate" related. So if he was a multi SB winning coach and I was wrong, I'd be thrilled. We are all here to hope the Cowboys win. Making the playoffs and winning a game is nice but we need more than that at this point. After all every coach hired in his time frame with his tenure has either won or played in a SB.
Not every coach. Just saying.
As for being disingenuous, here are my thoughts....
a) Landry was a known commodity. He was an All Pro player. He was known for his mind and being an innovator when he started coaching. While being the D coordinator for the Giants he created the top D for 3-4 years running and basically invented the 4-3. Garrett was a backup QB and was barely a QB coach when Jerry paid him the bank to be an O Coordinator before the HC was even hired. He had no cache.
Garrett was being pursued, too. This idea that Garrett just stumbled into this job doesn't fit reality. Being a great player doesn't make one a great coach. Mike Singletary comes to mind. Many great coaches never played a down of professional football. Being a great coordinator doesn't make someone a great HC, either- Wade Phillips, Dom Capers, etc. Yes, Landry had the time in NY to fall back on, but as I've been told by many, there were several fans who were itching for results and wanting Landry gone before his actual success. Ask Chip Kelly what being an innovator means if your team doesn't win. Which is my point. It's easy to use hindsight and talk about the 20 straight years of winning seasons, but that didn't happen immediately.
b) You keep blowing off the "expansion" thing when it seems foolhearty. Expansion was tough back then....it is now.
That first post you responded to of mine mentioned Tom Coughlin and his success with JAX as an expansion team. You could argue Coughlin was even better than Landry due to such immediate results, if all we're to judge a HC by is W/L.
You had WAY less talent for the talent pool. You had a league merger coming in 1970 and before that it was 14 NFL teams and 10 AFL teams. The AFL had less talent to start and in both leagues you were more likely to bring on guys you could sign and pay vs most talented. So you had the small talent pool now spread over 24 teams.
By the same token, Landry didn't have to worry about balancing contracts for Lilly, Perkins, Hayes, Howley, etc. When you found great talent in those days, you got to keep them. Another point you never addressed in that original post of mine was that Landry had 11 Pro Bowlers in the '60's. By '66 he had a well built team with plenty of talented players. Seven years in the expansion team aspect is no longer valid to me. At the time, it wasn't for many fans either.
Landry got the benefit of the doubt because of his background. He was .500 in Year 6 and 10 wins in 1966, where they played the NFL Championship game...one playoff game. After that it was consistency. He reeled off a record 20 straight winning seasons. Despite the small playoff format which made it tougher to succeed they did break through with 2 wins in year 11 and a SB loss followed by the SB win in 71.
Look at what you're saying here. Landry needed, "the benefit of the doubt," because of the simple point I've been making- he struggled early as a coach.
Garrett took over a team that had tanked but was one year removed from being a top playoff team.
They didn't, "tank." They were getting beat.
He had a cornerstone QB and a cornerstone D player in Ware.
And a porous/aging offensive line. Offensive skill players who never performed as well as they did in DAL after leaving- Miles Austin? Crayton? Felix? A defense that was built with straw and falling apart. One good defender doesn't a defense make.
All the talent back then was still in their prime.
Who? You named 2 guys. There wasn't another guy on the defense worth anything.
In his first 3 seasons he lost on chances to go to the playoffs. Thus people running out his 0-4 in regular season elimination games.
I look at his 8-8 seasons as rebuilding years. The fact they were even playing for the playoffs with that dearth of talent impresses me.
He was even called a coach in training by his owner/GM. Something no one confused Landry of being.
Oh, but he was. Every new HC is a coach in training.
Until Philly laying down to give us a 9-7 season we had never had back to back winning seasons and never have had back to back playoff seasons...which Landry did build. I was in Houston when the Texans came. Even then, with rules set up to speed growth in expansion teams, they were horrible for years while they navigated growing talent. So skipping that era and comparing it on years alone with Garrett is crazy to me
If you were in CAR or JAX when they came, would your view be different? Both those expansion teams appeared to have early success.
c) AC seemed to point out that today's parity makes it harder to win when I see it completely as the opposite. Yes, 4-5 different teams make the playoffs yearly and every year a new team....like Philly...makes a SB run but you also have NE, Pitt, and a host of other teams that have been consistent while others bottom out.
The whole idea of parity is that it creates more competition. We'll just have to disagree about it making things easier.
My issue is we are somewhere in between constantly. In the years since JG joined the staff as a OC until now as a HC, we have never had a run, even with a few great regular season records. Even the Dez catch year was marred by a Lions win that many saw as tainted by refs. If you have a "process" to build a consistent winner, and yet consistency is the one thing you lack when other teams are catching fire, there is an issue to me. I know we lost Zeke last season but last season made me feel even worse because we didn't adjust to anything or change anything up while Philly did. So are we incapable of doing so?
Honestly, the fact they remained competitive after losing their foundational offensive weapon last year is encouraging. I knew once Zeke was out they were going to struggle. I don't know why so many people seemed surprised by it.
Basically I see a world of differences between Landry and Garrett and the eras they took over in. So yes, I find it disingenuous to compare them based on the simple numbers that Landry didn't win until year 7 and then more playoffs in Year 11, when he had already built a consistent winner by year 7 and had a blueprint in place. That is simplifying way too many factors.
He didn't build, "a consistent winner
by year 7." Year seven is when it started.
You see it as disingenuous, I see it as simply pointing out facts. For all the excuses allowed Landry for needing the, "benefit of the doubt," there are excuses for Garrett's early struggles, too. Yeah, he had a franchise QB. Landry had Meredith. Meredith, like Romo, should show you what a good QB without help accomplishes- not much. Landry never had a GM who said they didn't need a good offensive line because the QB was elusive. Think about that for a minute.