Great blog by Bob Sturm IMO, I only posted the part where he talks about Garrett.
On my way to camp in 2013, I was pretty sure that head coach Jason Garrett was under extreme pressure to produce a winning season of great substance or face the gallows. His life cycle had been nearing the point where either you show us that you are the next great architect of the Cowboys or you are replaced. He then oversaw a season that finished with the exact frustrating conclusion (lose 3 of 4 in December with a disappointing final death blow at the hands of a division rival) as 2011 and 2012 featured. Not only did this not result in his dismissal, but it almost seemed to fortify his position here. I was amazed.
There is no question that a reasonable search of this blog's archives would reveal that I have been a Jason Garrett supporter for much of his tenure. I think he is a very smart man who has plenty of ability and is certainly hamstrung with limitations his organization provides that are not his fault, nor does he have the ability to repair. And yet, a student of the NFL knows that the margins in this league are non-existent and to consider a 2013 season where games that were lost that simply should not have been lost again cost this team its prize seems to be a very problematic issue.
Over the last few weeks, I have reviewed 2013 and come to terms with the details and results. However, there are 2 games in that schedule that remain games that were "fireable offenses" as it pertains to a coach in his 4th season without a playoff berth. They were, at Detroit and home to Green Bay. I plan on reviewing the 2013 season in great detail as July and August carry on, but in short, the Detroit and Green Bay games are both won if the Head Coach simply plays the percentages and conventional thinking.
Taking a knee on 3rd Down in Detroit takes the clock to almost nothing. Instead, the Cowboys ran the ball, took a penalty, and stopped the clock - allowing for the Lions to have another chance against the horrendous secondary that the Cowboys had on the field that day against Calvin Johnson.
Meanwhile, the ability to lose a game in which you were ahead 26-3 at home against a Green Bay team that had seemed to quit and did not have Aaron Rodgers on the field would have been the end of many coaches with the dreaded phone call from the owner the next morning.
Win either of those games and your season changes. Win them both and the Philadelphia game would not have mattered as they would not have been able to catch Dallas. Instead, they lost them both and in my estimation, despite logical shared blame, the decisions made by the head coach too closely resembled the decisions that cost this team valuable games in 2011 and 2012. In short, it seemed that the Cowboys had a rookie coach making rookie coaching mistakes. The experience at the helm was not showing in the team's results.
And if he cannot be fired after that season, I honestly wonder how hot the temperature on his seat might be in 2014. Maybe not hot at all. Perhaps, he is simply blessed by having an owner that is determined for this relationship to work and will not alter his path at this stage of the game. I would have fired Garrett after the Washington loss in 2012, but perhaps Jerry will not fire Garrett even after a 2014 that disappoints. It seems to be my mistake to misread the urgency of the owner as badly as I clearly did.
Garrett is the 10th longest tenured coach in the NFL now, and nobody else in the Top 15 in coaching tenure lacks playoff wins or at least a division title. Garrett doesn't even have a playoff berth, let alone a win or a divisional title.
Is Garrett the man for this job or are the Cowboys spinning their wheels for another season of similar results? Are the issues deeper and not fixable by a coach, or are those deeper issues the reason that you must have a coach who is part of the solution and not part of the problem?
If this was my team, I would likely be introducing Mike Zimmer or someone else as my new head coach in 2014. But, I am clearly not in that position of authority.
Garrett is still the coach here, and he sits to the right of Jerry Jones as they meet the media on the tennis court in Oxnard.
We are back and so is he. For his sake and the sake of all Cowboys' fans, let's hope that experience will start to pay off.
