If Cowboys Think Big, Why Keep Phillips?
1/19/2010 1:00 AM ET
By Jay Mariotti
Jerry Jones built the world's largest domed stadium, one with an exterior made of fritted glass and limestone rock, one that cost $1.3 billion and has a magnificent high-def screen hanging from one 20-yard line to the other, one with 3,000 LCD units and huge partitions that open in both end zones, one that charges $800,000 per year to lease a luxury suite and prices a pizza at $90 and a 12-pack of beer at $66 in those suites, one that has players enter the field through a sports bar with see-through walls and delirious fans, one that even includes a elaborate locker room for -- ta da! -- the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.
"Words just can't explain how grateful we are for it. Each girl has her own locker like the players, with our own individual mirror, plugs and storage," gushes Cassie Trammell, a squad member.
And yet, though he constructs such a colossus and continues to proclaim the Cowboys as America's Team 14 years since their last Super Bowl victory, Jones made a decision Monday that reflects comparatively smallish thinking. The owner/general manager, a dangerous combination in his case, will reportedly bring back Wade Phillips as coach for the 2010 season. This is akin to inventing the world's sleekest automobile, then installing an 8-track tape player. And it confirms what we've known throughout a dry, maddening period in Cowboys history: That Jones would prefer to have an inferior coach whom he can puppeteer, one whose image never will be larger than his, than appoint a marquee name who can win a championship.
Had he gone to Bill Cowher with a promise -- to stay out of the way, promote prize fights and rock concerts at his entertainment complex and spend games eating $90 pizzas instead of wandering down to the sideline -- my guess is that the premier unemployed football coach on the planet would have signed immediately. But Jones' massive ego never could handle relinquishing power, even when it has been established that he closely resembles a buffoon as a lead executive.The problem is that the Cowboys, under an elite coach named Jimmy Johnson, won consecutive Super Bowl titles, then a third under Barry Switzer two years later, not long after Jones purchased the franchise in 1989. Since then, Jones has convinced himself that he is the central reason for that dynasty, conveniently forgetting that his monster has won exactly one playoff game since 1996.
The fact the win came this postseason, in the wild-card round, was enough for Jones to retain Phillips. Never mind that this past Sunday, in the divisional round, the Cowboys were pummeled so convincingly by the Minnesota Vikings -- 34-3 says it all -- that it washed away all momentum gained from the previous few weeks. Never mind that the way Jones has structured the team's coaching infrastructure, with Phillips responsible for the defense and Jason Garrett responsible for the offense, has trivialized the concept of Phillips as the head coach. Never mind that the lack of a leadership totem pole becomes an issue when Garrett needs a kick in the tail for not adjusting to the Vikings' furious pass rush, for giving the ball to a plodding Marion Barber too much in the second quarter when Felix Jones had been so effective earlier, for not developing Tony Romo into a poised, savvy quarterback who can improvise his way out of pressure instead of dancing around haplessly like a drunk on Greenville Avenue.
Seems Jones painted himself into a corner by growing a little too excited the week before. That is when he hastily declared, "Can we all together on three say it? The demons are -- what? -- gone!" Yeah, gone for a week. If the Cowboys had eluded what would have been an NFL-record seventh consecutive postseason loss, they went on to Minnesota and extended a road playoff losing streak that has lasted 17 friggin' years. To me, Jones is a fraud when it comes to the excessive hype of his franchise. He wants us to believe the Cowboys are the New York Yankees of pro football, that they are as popular as any sports team in the world, that he built a stadium worthy of their magnitude. Yet, on the field, he's content simply to win his first playoff game in eons even after being blown out in the next game and failing to reach the NFC championship game. The Yankees don't think this way. Manchester United and Real Madrid don't think this way. They fire coaches and managers who don't reach expectations.
Jerry JonesTherefore, stop thinking of the Cowboys as America's Team. You can't represent an entire country when three U.S. presidents have served five terms since your last league championship. Shoot, you can't represent an entire country when you're barely the best NFL team in Texas, with the Houston Texans finally shedding their post-expansion rut to become very competitive. If Jones is pleased with Phillips -- who now is 1-5 as a playoff coach with three teams, the first two of whom (Buffalo and San Diego) fired him -- then he's running nothing more than Mediocrity's Team.
"You know I'm pleased with the job he's done, and this game doesn't have any bearing on any decision I make," Jones said after the Minnesota mauling. "This doesn't discourage me from the direction we're going. I had hoped we were there, and we weren't, and this game showed that. But we have a ways to go to from here and build on some of the things we did this year. We've got some really good people and good players."
That score, again, was 34-3. At the very least, he should reduce the pizza prices in the suites to $50.
Even Phillips sounded less satisfied than his boss. "Our goal was to win it all, and if not, then that's not a success," he said. "It's like the elevator falling from the top. It's tough when it's over. If you don't win it all, you have not reached your goal." OK, so explain something: If the goal is to win a Super Bowl and your team falls miserably short in the third-to-last step, how committed are you to winning a championship? In truth, Jones hinted too soon that Phillips was coming back, which ended any chance of landing Mike Shanahan, who signed with the arch-rival Washington Commanders, or wooing someone such as Pete Carroll, who fled USC for the Seattle Seahawks. His wishy-washiness makes him his own worst enemy. Before beating Philadelphia in the playoff game, Jones talked openly about his frustrations and even suggested that criticism toward him was valid after the 2008 season, when the Cowboys missed the playoffs after a 44-6 pounding in Philly.
"My confidence was shaken," Jones said. "The criticism that I deal with the most is that I should have a general manager or I should have a football management in between the ownership and the coach. Because of that kind of self-designed structure that we have here, and hearing it for 20 years, then it was pounding in my head pretty good when we left Philadelphia."
Why should it stop now? Jones admits that he has run through too many coaches and quarterbacks since the glory days, a rapid turnover that has much to do with his inability to bring in great ones. He did have a Hall of Fame coach in Bill Parcells, but Tuna never was comfortable working for Jones and decided to become a big boss himself in Miami. Romo has the arm and the skills, but he remains inconsistent and unreliable in big moments. Why? Because Jones is unreasonably high on Garrett, who has been a hit-and-miss coordinator whose stock has fallen among smarter NFL folks. Face it: Jerry Jones may know how to maximize the Cowboys brand, but as a general manager, he's a dope.
"I wouldn't have dreamed that we would have the turnover in the coaches that we've had," Jones said. "I wouldn't have dreamed we would have had some of the challenges that, whether it was self-imposed or not through me, we've had in our quarterbacking. So all of those things as I look back over these years, I couldn't have imagined that."
Don't imagine it. Realize it.
The Cowboys aren't state of the art. They're stale art.
Knowing that Jones reads and watches everything, the players simply follow his lead. "He's our head coach," linebacker Bradie James said. "It wouldn't make any sense to let him go right now."
Face it: Jerry Jones may know how to maximize the Cowboys brand, but as a general manager, he's a dope.
"I think it's always good to continue to have the same system in place with the players," Romo told reporters Monday. "It goes a long way to continue to grow and to continue to improve. The system is a large part of it, the understanding of what it takes to do certain things. Now we know what we've got to do to get to that point, and now we have to do even more to take the next step. His record speaks for itself. He's done a great job, kept the team together through a lot of tough times this year. He's done a fantastic job as coach of the Cowboys."
Fantastic? Sean Payton has done a fantastic job as coach of the long-woebegone New Orleans Saints. Rex Ryan, in short order, has done a fantastic job as coach of the New York Jets. Jim Caldwell, in short order, has done a fantastic job as coach of the Indianapolis Colts. Wade Phillips, Son of a Bum, has bumped along as a glorified defensive coordinator, not good enough to be a championship head coach. He couldn't win in the playoffs with the Bills, who canned him. He couldn't win in the playoffs with the Chargers, who canned him. He goes 1-2 in the playoffs with the Cowboys, so-called America's Team, and they keep him.
"I've said all along, 'If you can get the team to the playoffs, you can win,' " Phillips said. "It's learning how to win."
That would be a self-indictment.
And a commentary on Jerry Jones, America's Loser.
