JJT: Philadelphia's Success Puts Spotlight on Jason Garrett

[Alexander]

Yet you guys keep making excuses for that underperforming unit for some reason. I don't get it.

Lol! Now we're pretending great defenses actually hurt the four teams in last weekend's championship games? How good was the PHI defense again? On a points/defensive series basis, the four teams playing last Sunday ranked 1 (MIN), 2 (JAX), 4 (PHI), and 6 (NE).

I can't believe you don't see it, either. Eureka is right.

For some strange reason, you think you have stumbled upon some deep dark secret that "defense wins championships".

Eventually a good team will win the SB and it comes from being fundamentally sound and especially proficient on one side of the football.

But it is not a tried and true reality that top defenses get you to the final round. It helps, but it is not consistent.

During Garrett's tenure, the final four has been composed of all top ten defenses using your points/defensive series only twice, including this past season.

2017 - Dallas was at 17.
2016 - NE (1), Atlanta (27), Pittsburgh (11), Green Bay (28). - Dallas (13) better than two teams.
2015 - Denver (1), Carolina (2), New England (9), Seattle (4) - Dallas (17)
2014 - New England (8), Seattle (2), Indianapolis (11), Green Bay (17) - Dallas (16) better than one team.
2013 - Seattle (1), Denver (19), San Francisco (3), New England (10) - Dallas (30)
2012 - Baltimore (11), San Francisco (3), New England (12), Atlanta (10) - Dallas (26)
2011 - Giants (24), New England (21), Baltimore (2), San Francisco (1) - Dallas (19)

Using your own criteria, Dallas actually has had a better defense twice. That just so happens that still was not good enough in 2014 and 2016, the two shining moments of the Cowboys franchise for the past twenty plus years.

About the only leg you have to stand on is that Garrett needs an even better defense than he has been getting. That is using your criteria that you chose.

Unlike teams that have made it with average or even poor defenses (again, your points per defensive series rule), he has never advanced beyond the divisional round. And that is part of the problem.

By saying he needs an elite defense, you are only illustrating exactly what the issue is.

He is not good enough.

 

[aria]

No he didn't choose them, but it's he and teams job to coach them up. Chaz Green and Bell aren't the last crappy OT's that will play in this league. It was clear as day to everyone that Green didn't have it that day and he waited until late in the 3rd quarter to replace him. By then it was too late, and it damaged Dak.

He doesn't have to worry about calling plays anymore so what took so long? Why no help for Green? He should have been fired for that alone!

Everyone keeps bringing up Atlanta. Yeah, he screwed up but we would have most likely lost that game. I’m not saying that it’s excusable but find some new material and be sure to never mention how we also lost 2-3 other pro bowlers that game. Personally I don’t think Dak was “damaged” but if you do then perhaps you should be complaining more about Dak and whether he’s cut out to be a QB in the NFL. Damaged, lol.

Coach them up? You mean like coaching the defensive players that were suspended four the first games and couldn’t even attend practice? Coach up a gimpy linebacker? Coach up Brandon Weeden? Coach up an entire secondary in 6 games who were playing in college less than a year before? Please.

 

[nightrain]

I'm amazed no one has really expressed to him how stupid he looks with an earring.

Couldn't find a big cubic zirconia ear ring?

 

[Alexander]

From where I'm sitting, he doesn't need absolution. He needs better defenders. Also pretty simple.

He needs elite defenders. And an elite defensive coordinator.

On some planet, that equals he is really a good head coach, honest.

 

[ShiningStar]

this is a stupid article.

we all know no matter what happens JJ is not admitting to a mistake.

 

[Alexander]

Can't deny the guy's survival instinct. He'd throw his own mother under the bus if it meant keeping his job and the paycheck he's never earned.

He can play the con, no doubt. Has fooled the old man and his son, and continues to fool many fans. But the clock is ticking.

That is why he is playing the same strategy that Marvin Lewis is smart enough to do after a brief moment of thinking otherwise.

I got the ridiculous owner to buy in even with mediocre results. Might as well drive this train some more while I got it.

Put Lewis or Garrett with an owner with somewhat less than the doglike devotion Brown and Jones have, they are fired a while ago.

 

[Aven8]

This is a dumb article because half the posters on CZ have been saying this for years, even back when he was the OC.

Welcome to the party JJT!!

 

[ShortRound]

Garrett is inept but Jerry is the one who hired him. Pressure should be on him.

 

[Aven8]

Everyone keeps bringing up Atlanta. Yeah, he screwed up but we would have most likely lost that game. I’m not saying that it’s excusable but find some new material and be sure to never mention how we also lost 2-3 other pro bowlers that game. Personally I don’t think Dak was “damaged” but if you do then perhaps you should be complaining more about Dak and whether he’s cut out to be a QB in the NFL. Damaged, lol.

Coach them up? You mean like coaching the defensive players that were suspended four the first games and couldn’t even attend practice? Coach up a gimpy linebacker? Coach up Brandon Weeden? Coach up an entire secondary in 6 games who were playing in college less than a year before? Please.

People keep bring up Atlanta because stuff like that doesn't happen in the NFL! It doesn't even happen in Pee Wee for crying out loud! That was the most embarrassing thing I've witnessed as a Cowboys fan and he let it continue. Even if that would been Von Miller out there, get the kid some help!

 

[aria]

I don't buy the injury excuse anymore. Because in reality, the injury excuse will always be there as in today's NFL, it's rare that teams make it through a season without some level of injuries. And certainly, when you see a divisional rival with a back up QB, backup LT, backup MLB, missing their 3rd down back, etc. make the SB largely because their coaching staff was able to scheme around those problems, it's hard to sit there and think Garrett is doing a fine job and just being let down by injuries and other forces. Good to great coaches typically overcome those types of things, average coaches go belly up and fail to reach expectations when things don't go their way.

He absolutely should have been fired this year. Because in the end, we have a 7 year resume on the guy and it's barely adequate. History shows guys like that suddenly don't take off in their 8th year going forward on a job. He's not a terrible coach but he's average and that's just not good enough.

Maybe it would be tough to get an established coach in here. Maybe Jerry poisons the water. But at this point, I'll take a chance on the unknown and maybe even look for some luck here as opposed to just playing out this pathetically average run we currently are on and likely will continue on as long as Garrett is allowed to coach. At some point, enough is enough.

With reference to your first paragraph, again, they have much more competent management. I don’t think it takes near the adjustments or scheme changes to make when you have Foles as your QB instead of Weeden or Cassel. Foles is probably the best back up in the league and possibly as good if not better than Dak (currently). So acting like the Eagles should have had this huge fall off due to injuries but the coaches were better at preparing the back ups an scheming is comparing apples to oranges. I wonder how well Pederson would have been able to scheme with Weeden under center. Hint, they would have been out round 1.

They also go out and get a stud RB for a 2nd round pick, we use a second round pick on a gimpy LB that starts but has “potential”. Jerry and Co let an entire veteran secondary walk with the endorsement of many people here. Now JG is supposed to make a bunch of 2nd and 3rd round draft picks, who were just playing in college, pro ready by day 1. That’s absurb and borderline unrealistic in most cases. Sean Lee is great and makes a huge difference but it wouldn’t be as glaringly obvious if we had depth, same goes for most positions on this team.

 

[Sydla]

People like to lament that the issue here is that Jerry has led 20 years of frustration because he's simply not a player personnel guy and that's the big issue.

I don't think that's the real problem here. Jerry just isn't very good at selecting head coaches. Now people can debate why that is, but in the end, he just doesn't do a very good job at hiring head coaches. Not a one that he has hired since our last SB has gone on to be a good to great head coach somewhere else. Parcells was basically at the end of his reign when we hired him and the rest just fell back into assistant roles around the league. Gailey went onto HC at GTECH and was OK but then sucked in Buffalo.

 

[aria]

People keep bring up Atlanta because stuff like that doesn't happen in the NFL! It doesn't even happen in Pee Wee for crying out loud! That was the most embarrassing thing I've witnessed as a Cowboys fan and he let it continue. Even if that would been Von Miller out there, get the kid some help!

I don’t disagree but you know what else doesn’t happen? A rookie QB and rookie RB going 13-3 their first season. I’m talking about a season in which they lost out in the playoffs to one of the greatest qb’s to ever play the game on a last second amazing pass and a long FG. You bring up one game. Come up with some new material, I know it’s out there but that horse has been beat to death. How about every time you bring up Atlanta I’ll bring up how we held one of the top offenses in the league to 17 points against KC.

 

[Sydla]

With reference to your first paragraph, again, they have much more competent management. I don’t think it takes near the adjustments or scheme changes to make when you have Foles as your QB instead of Weeden or Cassel. Foles is probably the best back up in the league and possibly as good if not better than Dak (currently). So acting like the Eagles should have had this huge fall off due to injuries but the coaches were better at preparing the back ups an scheming is comparing apples to oranges. I wonder how well Pederson would have been able to scheme with Weeden under center. Hint, they would have been out round 1.

They also go out and get a stud RB for a 2nd round pick, we use a second round pick on a gimpy LB that starts but has “potential”. Jerry and Co let an entire veteran secondary walk with the endorsement of many people here. Now JG is supposed to make a bunch of 2nd and 3rd round draft picks, who were just playing in college, pro ready by day 1. That’s absurb and borderline unrealistic in most cases. Sean Lee is great and makes a huge difference but it wouldn’t be as glaringly obvious if we had depth, same goes for most positions on this team.

That's just disrespectful to the job Pederson did. This new notion that what Philly had at back up positions as being so much better than what Dallas had is just excuse making. They just made the SB with a backup QB, backup LT, backup (actually a back up to the back up) at MLB, their most explosive TB to start the year in Sproles, etc. Further, even during the season when they were winning games, they were without key players. Darby was out 6-7 games and he was their best CB. Cox missed a game or two and yet they never skipped a beat. Their coaching staff did a far superior job to ours this season. It's kind of embarrassing to argue otherwise saying they were essentially just lucky they had some of the best backups in football.

What stud RB did they get for a 2nd round pick? Blount was a FA, Clement was a UDFA and Ajayi was a 4th round pick in a trade.

No offense, but you are just doing what I expect from Garrett supporters (for lack of a better term). Basically it's pretty much everyone else's fault but his that he's had a 7 year run of mediocrity.

 

[Sydla]

I don’t disagree but you know what else doesn’t happen? A rookie QB and rookie RB going 13-3 their first season. I’m talking about a season in which they lost out in the playoffs to one of the greatest qb’s to ever play the game on a last second amazing pass and a long FG. You bring up one game. Come up with some new material, I know it’s out there but that horse has been beat to death. How about every time you bring up Atlanta I’ll bring up how we held one of the top offenses in the league to 17 points against KC.

Forget one game.

Let's talk 7 seasons. Again, it would be a historical anomaly if Garrett suddenly morphed into an upper echelon head coach after 7 mediocre years in his current job. There isn't a SB winning coach in history that had as little success as Garrett did in his first 7 years except for Tom Landry............ and in Landry's case, he built a team from scratch.

 

[Mr Cowboy]

He looks in the mirror all of the time. He says it practically every offseason.

Problem is, he does not even understand what he sees.

Jerry has no mirrors at home or in the office...............

 

[Cowboysheelsreds053]

Any coach that wins the toss and elect to receives the ball 99% of the time, that is all I need to know about him. And how many times do we score on the first drive?

 

[Sydla]

Any coach that wins the toss and elect to receives the ball 99% of the time, that is all I need to know about him. And how many times do we score on the first drive?

Brian Kelly does this at ND and it drives me insane. He always takes the ball first.

 

[aria]

People like to lament that the issue here is that Jerry has led 20 years of frustration because he's simply not a player personnel guy and that's the big issue.

I don't think that's the real problem here. Jerry just isn't very good at selecting head coaches. Now people can debate why that is, but in the end, he just doesn't do a very good job at hiring head coaches. Not a one that he has hired since our last SB has gone on to be a good to great head coach somewhere else. Parcells was basically at the end of his reign when we hired him and the rest just fell back into assistant roles around the league. Gailey went onto HC at GTECH and was OK but then sucked in Buffalo.

Couldn’t agree more with the last paragraph but respectfully disagree with the first. Jerry is known and has been known to make ludicrous signings to try and make himself look smarter than everyone else. He would fo out and sign controversial high profile players whereas good, competent GM’s find a lot of quality deep in the draft. Jerry has always been a risk taker and has been known to use the second round as his personal playground. For all those that say McClay is really the one making draft day decisions now that may be partly true but I find it hard to believe that picking Jaylon in the second round was anything but Jerry being Jerry.

Bringing in Hardy was dumb. Even though he structured the contract well it was a stupid move. Again, that was all Jerry trying to stay relevant, keep his name in the headlines and look smarter than everyone else. There’s a reason only one other team was even remotely interested in Hardy. Whether he produced or not it was dumb because his well documented anger and personality issues were a liability and it came to fruition in the locker room and on the sideline.

The list goes on.

 

[Aven8]

I don’t disagree but you know what else doesn’t happen? A rookie QB and rookie RB going 13-3 their first season. I’m talking about a season in which they lost out in the playoffs to one of the greatest qb’s to ever play the game on a last second amazing pass and a long FG. You bring up one game. Come up with some new material, I know it’s out there but that horse has been beat to death. How about every time you bring up Atlanta I’ll bring up how we held one of the top offenses in the league to 17 points against KC.

This team looked like the best team in the league after that KC win. But KC also had just lost like 4-5 in a row as well.

But then like we always do under JG we folded the tent when adversity struck. 1-5 without Lee, 3-3 without Zeke and getting beat by 20 3 straight games. I mean the offense couldn't even function!

13-3 was awesome and unexpected, but again JG wet the bed and the team wasn't prepared to play. By the time we woke up and Dak brought us back it was too late. We should have blown that team out even with Rogers.

I'm sorry Aria, JG sucks!

 

[Sydla]

Couldn’t agree more with the last paragraph but respectfully disagree with the first. Jerry is known and has been known to make ludicrous signings to try and make himself look smarter than everyone else. He would fo out and sign controversial high profile players whereas good, competent GM’s find a lot of quality deep in the draft. Jerry has always been a risk taker and has been known to use the second round as his personal playground. For all those that say McClay is really the one making draft day decisions now that may be partly true but I find it hard to believe that picking Jaylon in the second round was anything but Jerry being Jerry.

Bringing in Hardy was dumb. Even though he structured the contract well it was a stupid move. Again, that was all Jerry trying to stay relevant, keep his name in the headlines and look smarter than everyone else. There’s a reason only one other team was even remotely interested in Hardy. Whether he produced or not it was dumb because his well documented anger and personality issues were a liability and it came to fruition in the locker room and on the sideline.

The list goes on.

The problem here is that even when he's made bad decisions in personnel, he's generally fielded some pretty talented teams over the years that didn't do squat. He had teams that had an elite QB on it in Romo and a stud defender in Ware and still won squat.

Personnel is a secondary issue here. The main issue is Jerry just sucks at hiring coaches. Garrett being the latest in a long line of gaffes.

PS - Hardy wasn't a splash deal to make Jerry relevant. It was a deal made because they knew they had nary a pass rusher on the roster and we willing to take the negative PR over it. I am not sure how one concludes taking on such a PR nightmare that brought nothing but scorn and disgust from everyone outside Dallas can be looked at as Jerry trying to stay relevant.