Jason Garrett is in the middle of his 3rd off season as O.C. with the Dallas Cowboys, and while the jury is still out on his coaching abilities this upcoming season is looking very promising for the Princeton Grad.
Garrett’s first year in this position was a smash hit! Everyone wanted a piece of the “Golden Boy”. One miserable year later, many in Cowboy nation have lost faith in him and his abilities. The 2009-10 season is a big season, not only for the Cowboys but for Jason as well.
The offensive struggles last year have been beaten to death. The better question to ask when talking about last years team is “what did not go wrong?” The offense became very one dimensional, slow to develop, and down right disgusting at times! This team appeared to only look for the big play, and disregarded what the defense was giving them. There are many feet that those issues can be placed in front of (Injuries, T.O., Romo) none would be more deserving than Jason Garrett though. What happened to all the pre-snap movement by T.O. ? What happened to Romo just throwing to who was open no matter who it was? What happened to the running the edges and then pounding Barber when the defense was tired? While as much as I could twist all of these answers to be the fault of one Terrell Owens (and be correct) I am not going to do that. Jason Garrett was and is in charge of the offense! It is his decisions that caused these failures.
Jason Garrett grew tired of T.O. and his “Getcha Popcorn Ready” crap! This is not a issue that is up for debate, this is a fact! Garrett however failed this team and his employer by the way he handled the situation. The O.C. threw up his hands and tried to prove a point, not only to T.O. but to everyone else as well! The point was simple! T.O. alone can not bring a championship to Dallas, as a matter of fact he holds no more weight than any of the other 52 players on the roster! I believe that while he was not trying to lose games, he wanted to show us all and mostly T.O. that the game he talked, was not the game he played! Therefore the more he talked the more “just throw it to T.O.” play book was used. No one can make me believe that a guy with the intelligence of Jason Garrett is so unintelligent that he could not see what was going wrong with this unit!
This year thanks to Jerry finally seeing the light on the personalities of some of his players. Jason should be able to run the offense the way he wants to run it, without some blabbering fool screaming on the sidelines, and in ridiculous interviews with Dione Sanders, and Stephen A. Smith! Jason Garrett can and will prove us all wrong this year and return this offense back to prominence! Garrett knows as much as anybody about what it takes to win! While he was not the most gifted QB to ever play in Dallas it is my opinion that he was the smartest! As great as Troy Aikman was he relied heavily on Jason! Jason knows what the reason behind the offensive greatness was of those 90’s teams. It was execution! The playbook Norv used in those years is the same one he uses today, you can watch a chargers game and see the same plays being called that were called in 1993, and they still work! The difference in the teams is not in the abilities of the players, but in the work that the players put in!
So how does all of this have anything to do with Jason Garrett and the way he prepares the team? EVERYTHING! it has everything to do with Jason. He proved to the team and to Jerry that this teams problems have everything to do with everyone working together, and nothing to do with the scheme! Every player on this team now knows and understands this. They all know that the “team” will not put up with dissension! So now that Garrett has every bodies attention we will see the fruits of it. Jason will get Romo back to being Romo, and back to slants,outs,curls with the occasional post route, thrown to who ever is open! Garrett has all the weapons he needs and these are his guys!
While I would love to say this team will be unstoppable this year and will win the Super Bowl, I cannot. What I will say however is that they will be fun to watch!
While I agree that Owens’ complaints made things harder all around … and I believe that Garrett did make some attempt to appease Owens late in the year at least, I find it hard to believe that he would purposely tank the team.
That’s what you’re saying … that he wanted to prove a point even though he knew it was not the way to win.
That’s no better than the temper tantrums that Owens threw on the sidelines, it’s actually worse that Garrett did it.
Did he truly have an option? I believe he was told by more than one person within the organization to “at all costs get T.O. more involved!” now maybe I am being stupid with this, but can someone give me another reasonable excuse?
The great coaches in history would have benched T.O. before giving in. The greatest coaches in history would have left the team before letting a player so childishly control how they do their job.
If Garrett did do what you say, that is a total lack of respect for this team, the players, and for himself. The players won’t forget it, and he’s started a bad habit that he’ll not likely break.
It also doesn’t hold a lot of weight that he screwed up so bad against the Redskins with 8 running plays the first time around, that was before said a word.
I am looking primarily at what happened to this unit from the mid point of the year to the end! Jason Garrett did what any loyal employee would do! He did what the Boss asked of him! If your boss had something he wanted done and you thought it was stupid and would not work, but he insisted on it being done would you quit?
No … I’m too defiant to just quit. Instead I presented my case and stuck by it, and if that task was performed it wasn’t by me. I’ve never lost a job for this either. Tough choices are a tough for a reason, but high character usually wins out.
Like I said, kind of depressing to think that he had anything resembling an “You’ll see” attitude with regard to T.O. I under the drive to be that way, but at the end of the season, who was catching the most heat for the second half slump? Wade caught shit for the Baltimore game, Owens caught shit for the meeting with Garrett, and my guess is that Garrett leaked that to the media. You are correct in that Garrett didn’t want Owens there, and the circus that got under way following the exposure of that meeting has led to Owens being cut.
I like straight forward … I don’t trust a man that sees games and parlor tricks and new ways to shovel the blame as the best way.
Fortunately, without Owens, there isn’t much a reason for Garrett to repeat this crap in 2009, so it may not matter anyway.
We will just have to agree to disagree! Sometimes bosses can be full of themselves( do you remember the same boss saying anybody could coach this team to a super bowl?) and sometimes no matter how well you defend your case, the avenue they decide is the only avenue that will be taken! I said in my article that Garrett did not intentionally lose games or anything like that. What I said was that he was forced to play that hand! and he played it! Somehow that has been changed to me saying that Garrett quit on the team and the players and all that crap! If anything Garrett has brought the players closer to him by letting them see the wrong! I had many coaches growing up that would use this tactic it’s not anything new! Bill Parcells used it all the time!
But you don’t see the betrayal in that? If I was a player on that team, and Garrett had done that, I’d be pissed at him for not standing up and taking care of business. I’d have no respect for him because he allowed me to go out and play that brutal game with passion and yet he wasn’t giving us the best chance to win.
I hate to bring up the puppet thing, but since you did, I’d rather be fired than be Jerry’s puppet.
It’s like this, sometimes my little boy thinks he knows better than his momma and I. Even though we tell him what will happen if he does it, yet he wants to do it anyway! Unless it is going to harm him I often will tell him “Have at it sense you know so much” and he will and what I told him would happen, happens! The thing is he never asks to do that again! and the amount of times he doubts my judgment gets smaller all the time! These are grown men! They now see why he did not want T.O.!
And I’m a firm believer that to teach children anything, when not dangerous to do so, you teach them the self-control to not do the bad thing. You don’t hide the markers because they can’t stop drawing on the walls, you teach them about choice, cause and effect, action and consequence … you show them that the choices they make now, dictate the life they lead later.
So what have we taught Owens? Throw fits, demand the ball more, be all about “me”, and we’ll give you the ball more??????? Doesn’t sound like he was given a chance once an issue came up.
Big surprise that he was cut.
Thank You! You just proved my point about Garrett and the rest of the team! As far as Owens goes you ever heard the term “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks”? Have you forgotten what happened Frisco and Philly with him? T.O. needed someone to prove to him that his way is not always the right way! So Garrett did!
But on the field his way has always seemed to work out well.
My point is that while yes, you are right in your last comment, Garrett lost the respect of his remaining players by playing that game with him. Even you admit that Garrett ran his offense largely around Owens and the problems he caused, that’s not good ….
I totally agree, even though I don’ t think he tried to sink the team, I think he tried to win games and still prove his point, it just didn’t work out that way