No tears over it; that’s for certain. I am still able to be dispassionate about my assessments, which is important, because determinations mired in emotion have a tendency to be very wrong. That said, I have a question for my readership:
When milk spills on a table and then aided by our ever-present gravity creates a rivulet that water-falls to the floor, where do your cleaning efforts begin? On the floor or the mess-inception point?
I’m sure a few (if not all) know where this line of questioning is going, but at the risk of spoiling the surprise, I am not talking about Jerry or Jason. The truth is Jerry isn’t going anywhere and he’s not going to fire himself as GM, and I have little interest in discussing that implausible idea further than what it has already been done over the last quarter-century. Garrett admittedly gives the Cowboys little advantage on gameday both as a tactician and/or game-manager but as far as coaches that are willing to work for Jerry go, he’s probably the best coach Cowboys fan can hope for. I hate to be the bearer of that bad news, but if you can’t accept that, either find a different team to root for or get used to being pissed off…or you could adopt my approach and learn to appreciate football for more than just having a winning record. Whichever you choose, makes no difference to me.
With that disclaimer aside, for me, the source of last nights spilled milk was none other than Scott Linehan.
Oh sure, you could point fingers at the defensive side of the ball, with their inability to get off the field on 3rd down and, of course, allowing those 28 points to happen. To the Titans credit, though, they played a really good game of offensive football last night against a really good defense. Hats off to them and their coordinator; the option Mariota executed on the goalline was picture perfect – well-coached and well-executed. Not a lot of defenses would have stopped that or many of the other creative plays the Titans dialed up.
Connor Williams once again struggled, which is also why I can both acknowledge that Dak played poorly and made some bad decisions whilst also excusing it, considering the fact that Connor was quite simply over-matched at LG….something that has been a reoccurring theme this season, particularly in losses. While I can understand Cowboys nations collective plea for a new QB, I also understand that all but maybe a handful of QB’s currently playing in this league would have done better than Dak did last night. And many of those would have done better simply by knowing not to run a few of the plays Linehan called at the times he called them.
Following each of the losses the Cowboys have had this year, I have wrote something similar to the above. You may have noticed that not once have I actually submitted it to be read. But if I had, you would notice a reoccurring theme in my blame game. Dak Prescott, Connor Williams, and Scott Linehan. But, much like the “spilt milk” analogy above, I’m guessing we wouldn’t feel the need to clean the floor (Dak and Connor) if the milk hadn’t spilled down from the table (Linehan) in the first place….savvy?
For the Dak-tractors, I absolutely can admit you might be right about him….he may not be a franchise QB. But I won’t be certain of that until the Cowboys give him an Offensive Coordinator that knows how to use Dak & company to their strengths.
To be fair to Linehan, we as a fanbase have to keep in mind he was brought in to be Tony Romo’s coordinator, a true pocket-passer…something Dak can do a fair imitation of from time to time, but when asked to do so exclusively tends to fail miserably in his efforts, as we saw last night. But here’s what we didn’t see last night: Not one designed Dak run to take advantage of the Titans keying on Zeke in the second half. Not one. And that’s because Dak needs an offensive coordinator who is comfortable with putting his QB in harm’s way.
Please don’t get me wrong. I’m not necessarily advocating purposefully getting Dak injured. I am merely acknowledging that if you want to win and you want to do so with Dak as your QB, there really is no other way. Dak is not going to beat teams from the pocket. That is not in his QB DNA. And until the Cowboys finds an offensive coordinator that understands this aspect of Daks game, they will continue to see last night’s results.
So, with all of that being determined, I will now shamelessly indulge in sharing with all of you what I’d do to fix the Cowboys:
1. Diplomatically fire Scott Linehan. I’d give him the option to resign with dignity still intact or be fired. There really is no reason to publicly deride him, especially considering all the “public” had to do is watch the games to see why.
2. Hire an offensive coordinator from the Chip Kelly coaching tree, if such a tree exist. And, yes, I am serious when I say that much like Wade Phillips is for defense, I think Kelly would make an awesome offensive coordinator…I’d just never want him to be in control of anything else. And he (or someone with a similar schematic approach) would be an absolutely perfect fit for Dak.
3. Let’s go ahead and make Kris Richard the defacto defensive coordinator and slide Marinelli into an advisory role akin to the role Hudson Houck currently serves in.
4. Let the rest of the year play out, come what may, and evaluate the team like survivor island. Even conceding this season is lost, I want to see the coaches’ coach and the players play for their NFL lives.
Thoughts?
