RAINER SABIN
The Dallas Morning News
Staff writer
rsabin@dallasnews.com
Published: 24 January 2013 01:19 AM
Jason Garrett had an idea. He had a plan. He even had a process.
All were geared toward making the Cowboys a contender.
“We always start out with what our vision is for our program, what we want the whole thing to look like, what our goals are,” Garrett said in December. “Everyone understands that. We’re abundantly clear with that with our football team from Day One. Where we want to go, where do we want this whole thing to go, that goal, that vision. It needs to be there or you have no direction. You’re rudderless. But having said that, once you establish what that is that’s most important, you have to focus on what you have to do each and every day to get there.”
At the time Garrett made that comment, he finally seemed on the cusp of realizing his goals. The Cowboys had just defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers, improved their record to 8-6 and moved into a position to snatch a post-season berth. For the first time in a while, Garrett was receiving high marks as a head coach. Many applauded his leadership in the aftermath of the tragic car accident that left practice squad linebacker Jerry Brown dead and nose tackle Josh Brent facing an intoxicated manslaughter charge. Others complimented Garrett on the resilience his team had shown after starting the season 3-5. Garrett deflected the praise but hinted that his grand scheme was finally producing results.
“If you grow with the right kind of people, ultimately you’ll come together and hopefully you’ll have the success that you want,” he said.
Two weeks later, the season had ended after a loss to the Washington Redskins in a winner-take-all showdown for the NFC East title. The Cowboys had stumbled down the stretch and finished with an 8-8 record for the second consecutive year.
Team owner Jerry Jones promised that changes were coming but didn’t indicate how extensive they’d be. He didn’t intimate the Cowboys would blow up what Garrett had been building at a painstakingly-slow pace. But that’s essentially what is being done.
As Garrett watches the demolition from a close vantage point, it’s hard to fathom he helped encourage it. This was a coach, after all, who was stubbornly committed to doing things in a way that he thought was right even when the outcome wasn’t favorable.
“You stay the course when things aren't going as well as you want them to go," Garrett said in November.
Deviating from the script wasn’t his M.O., and for that reason all of the moves made in recent weeks don’t reflect the goals of the mission Garrett set out to accomplish or the very principles he stood for as a leader in the organization. In a year that could decide his fate as the Cowboys coach, it seems incredible that Garrett would want to overhaul his coaching staff, switch the team’s defensive philosophy and surrender the play-calling duties that once made him so valued in the first place. By doing so, he is tacitly implying that the vision, the plan and the process he developed for the Cowboys was worthy of being discarded or significantly amended.
In reality, it appears that Jones arrived at that conclusion – not Garrett.
Yet Garrett is the one who must find a way to manage an operation that no longer resembles the one he was busy building. All of a sudden the Cowboys have become not what he envisioned but what he feared: A rudderless outfit with no clear direction under his watch.
The Dallas Morning News
Staff writer
rsabin@dallasnews.com
Published: 24 January 2013 01:19 AM
Jason Garrett had an idea. He had a plan. He even had a process.
All were geared toward making the Cowboys a contender.
“We always start out with what our vision is for our program, what we want the whole thing to look like, what our goals are,” Garrett said in December. “Everyone understands that. We’re abundantly clear with that with our football team from Day One. Where we want to go, where do we want this whole thing to go, that goal, that vision. It needs to be there or you have no direction. You’re rudderless. But having said that, once you establish what that is that’s most important, you have to focus on what you have to do each and every day to get there.”
At the time Garrett made that comment, he finally seemed on the cusp of realizing his goals. The Cowboys had just defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers, improved their record to 8-6 and moved into a position to snatch a post-season berth. For the first time in a while, Garrett was receiving high marks as a head coach. Many applauded his leadership in the aftermath of the tragic car accident that left practice squad linebacker Jerry Brown dead and nose tackle Josh Brent facing an intoxicated manslaughter charge. Others complimented Garrett on the resilience his team had shown after starting the season 3-5. Garrett deflected the praise but hinted that his grand scheme was finally producing results.
“If you grow with the right kind of people, ultimately you’ll come together and hopefully you’ll have the success that you want,” he said.
Two weeks later, the season had ended after a loss to the Washington Redskins in a winner-take-all showdown for the NFC East title. The Cowboys had stumbled down the stretch and finished with an 8-8 record for the second consecutive year.
Team owner Jerry Jones promised that changes were coming but didn’t indicate how extensive they’d be. He didn’t intimate the Cowboys would blow up what Garrett had been building at a painstakingly-slow pace. But that’s essentially what is being done.
As Garrett watches the demolition from a close vantage point, it’s hard to fathom he helped encourage it. This was a coach, after all, who was stubbornly committed to doing things in a way that he thought was right even when the outcome wasn’t favorable.
“You stay the course when things aren't going as well as you want them to go," Garrett said in November.
Deviating from the script wasn’t his M.O., and for that reason all of the moves made in recent weeks don’t reflect the goals of the mission Garrett set out to accomplish or the very principles he stood for as a leader in the organization. In a year that could decide his fate as the Cowboys coach, it seems incredible that Garrett would want to overhaul his coaching staff, switch the team’s defensive philosophy and surrender the play-calling duties that once made him so valued in the first place. By doing so, he is tacitly implying that the vision, the plan and the process he developed for the Cowboys was worthy of being discarded or significantly amended.
In reality, it appears that Jones arrived at that conclusion – not Garrett.
Yet Garrett is the one who must find a way to manage an operation that no longer resembles the one he was busy building. All of a sudden the Cowboys have become not what he envisioned but what he feared: A rudderless outfit with no clear direction under his watch.
