Hypnotoad;2726924 said:
“I just couldn’t sign something that would mean I’d be working day-to-day.
Sounds like all he wanted was to get paid with little to no work. Nothing disrespectful about knowing how much actual work he put into the job.
LOL. You are misinterpreting the language in there.
He meant 'day to day' as in one day he wasn't there 8 hours Jerry could void the contract.
No that he didn't want to be there everyday.
Read the entire article, not the blurb from PFT...
Prospect of long hours a deal-breaker for Dan Reeves and Dallas Cowboys
By RAY BUCK
rbuck@star-telegram.com
No one was more shocked than Dan Reeves when things didn’t work out with the Dallas Cowboys two months ago.
Reeves, formerly an NFL head coach with the Denver Broncos, New York Giants and Atlanta Falcons, was hoping to return to a place where he had known success both as a player and an assistant coach, a place where he had spent 16 years of his life.
He was involved in all five Tom Landry Super Bowls.
But, unfortunately, things didn’t work out for Reeves because of a contractual technicality, which blew up a multiyear deal that appeared to be in place for the 65-year-old former Cowboys running back/assistant coach to become a consultant for his old team.
The deal-breaker, for Reeves, was a piece of "hours spent working" language that owner Jerry Jones wanted to have in the contract.
"Although I respected Jerry’s decision, I didn’t understand it, and it wasn’t something that was even negotiable," Reeves recalled from his home in Atlanta.
"I just couldn’t sign something that, in my opinion, would mean I’d be working day-to-day."
Worse yet, Reeves, who still has the itch to get back into the game, waved off a similar job (offensive coordinator) with the San Francisco 49ers.
Head coach Mike Singletary needed an answer, one way or the other, just a few days earlier.
Jones, meanwhile, wanted to wait until after Super Bowl XLIII in Tampa Bay to make a Valley Ranch announcement, according to Reeves, who never saw the deal being dashed over something so completely foreign to him.
"Coaches," Reeves said, "never punch a clock."
'Wade worked longer’
In 38 NFL seasons with four organizations (Cowboys, Broncos, Giants and Falcons), Reeves can never remember being questioned about his work ethic ... or asked to explain his hours.
"But for some reason, Jerry felt like he had to [have in writing] that I work as many, or more, hours as the head coach [Wade Phillips] and offensive coordinator [Jason Garrett]," Reeves explained.
"That meant, at any time, [Jones] could say, 'You didn’t work as many hours as Wade did yesterday, therefore, you’ve voided your contract.’ "
According to Reeves, it was Jones who suggested: "If I feel it’s important and you feel it’s something you can’t live with, why don’t we just part ways?"
That left Reeves to wonder: "Maybe it was a case of Jerry changing his mind [about me], and this was the way to get out of it. I don’t know."
Certainly, Jones has valued Reeves’ opinions in the past. For example, in January 2007, Jones was getting ready to hire Phillips when he phoned Reeves, who had been Wade’s boss in Denver and Atlanta.
"I told Jerry he was hiring a good man," Reeves recalled. "My relationship with Wade is one of the things I regret most that this [consultant’s job] didn’t work out."
What is a consultant?
Reeves was to lend his expertise in the passing game, help with the move to the new Arlington stadium, maybe even win back a few old Cowboys fans who lost interest after Landry was fired in 1989.
But Reeves saw it as "a great deal for me to be able to come back to where I started my career, to help a friend like Wade, and to be part of an organization that I think is very close [to returning to a Super Bowl], and has a chance to be one of those teams every year. Not all 32 teams can say that."
No regrets
Reeves showed up at Valley Ranch and worked for 2 1/2 days. He arrived Monday, Feb. 2 — a day after Pittsburgh beat Arizona 27-23 in SB XLIII.
Reeves sat in on several meetings with Garrett and the offensive coaches. Their main agenda: the running game. Reeves was eager to get started on the passing game.
"But I have to say, I was more excited showing up there Wednesday morning than I had been on Monday when I first got there," Reeves said. "Everything up to that point, I thought had gone very well."
The future of Terrell Owens was bandied around, but Reeves said he never had an inkling that T.O. was about to be released.
"It never came up — 'let’s make a decision on T.O.’ — while I was there," Reeves said. "I became aware there were mixed feelings on T.O., and that it was a big decision that had to be made, but that was about it."
He never met Tony Romo during those 2 1/2 days, yet Reeves sees the passing game as strong even without Owens (who was released March 4).
Reeves remembers Roy Williams as a senior at Texas in 2003.
"Roy Williams was one of the most talented receivers coming out of college that I had ever seen," said Reeves, whose last season as an NFL head coach (Atlanta) was that same year.
Garrett as an offensive coordinator?
"Jason is well-organized. He knows what he’s doing," Reeves said. "And there wasn’t a single coach in that [offensive meeting] room that wasn’t impressive to me."
Reeves felt comfortable, felt good, felt he was gaining a working knowledge of his next football team.
But he was wrong.
Asked if, in hindsight, he wished he had never bothered coming in, Reeves replied, "No ... I wish it had worked out."
Nine Super Bowls
Reeves’ NFL career spanned 38 seasons. He was involved in nine Super Bowls: five with the Cowboys, three with the Broncos, one with the Falcons.
He quickly did the math.
"There aren’t many people who can look back on their career and say they were in a Super Bowl almost one out of every four years," he said.
Reeves wasn’t bragging, rather, just showing his competitive side.
"Dan Reeves and Mike Ditka were as competitive as anybody on the team," said longtime Cowboys personnel man Gil Brandt, noting that both these
Landry favorites went on to have successful coaching careers of their own.
"Dan and Mike would do anything to compete, it didn’t matter what it was," Brandt recalled. "Checkers. Gin rummy. Golf. Darts. Basketball. And I’d say Dan would win about 95 percent of the time."
Reeves’ winning percentage in Super Bowls was a bit less than that. His only two rings came as a player/coach with the ’71 Cowboys and fulltime assistant with the ’77 Cowboys.
He was a former South Carolina quarterback who signed with the Cowboys as an undrafted free agent in 1965. In ’66, he led the team in rushing (757 yards) and was second in receiving (41 catches for 557 yards) only to Bob Hayes.
"Danny," as they called him then, scored a total of 16 touchdowns that year — eight rushing and eight receiving.
Two seasons later — Oct. 6, 1968, at St. Louis — Reeves "tore up" his left knee. It ended his season, and got him started on his second career.
Player-coach at 26
The Cowboys took running backs with their first-round picks in ’69 (Calvin Hill) and ’70 (Duane Thomas). Landry asked Reeves if he was interested in being a player-coach.
"I knew my [playing] career was coming to an end," said Reeves. "And I ended up learning so much from Coach Landry."
While Landry ranks third among all-time NFL coaches with 270 career wins, including the playoffs, Reeves is seventh on that same list with 201 victories.
Reeves has a 190-165-2 (.535) regular-season record, plus 11-9 in the postseason.
Reeves looks around the league at younger men doing his old job just fine, and has all but abandoned the dream of ever becoming an NFL head coach again.
"That’s probably wishful thinking," he said. "But anything’s possible."
Returning to the Cowboys as a consultant would have satisfied his itch and completed the career circle.
Reeves, most recently, has been a consultant to Georgia State, which will begin its football program in 2010. He hired longtime friend and fellow NFLer Bill Curry as head coach.
Reeves, a 7-handicap golfer who plays a couple of times a week (if he’s not punching a clock), also has been doing NFL games on radio for the Westwood One Network.
He and his wife, Pam, are celebrating their 45th year of marriage.
Life is good.
But it could’ve been even better.
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Player coach at 26 years old, but he's the type of guy who wants to skirt responsibility and earn a free ride?
Shocked some are even writing that trash in here.
