I think the players probably like him okay because he doesn't mess with them. He's just a nice, well-spoken guy who likes to drop the occasional F-bomb to sound tough, but the players know he isn't. Witten or Murray don't want to come out of games? They don't. Dez doesn't want to be on a pitch count coming off injury? He isn't. I go back to the story I've probably told too many times years ago when Broaddus was asked by Gruden before a Monday night game if anyone really coached Romo hard out there at practice and he said, no, they don't. So it's not like he's some hard-ass butt kicker out there. The Garrett fans tried to paint him as that when he took over because he made them wear pads on Wednesdays, but that's not his personality and he doesn't have that authority anyway. The players aren't dumb, they all know Jerry really runs things. Greg Ellis talked about this a couple of years ago when Garrett had been in place for a couple of years already.
And the whole "culture change" thing is such a joke. If anyone bought that years ago, they can't possibly now unless they're just a blind Garrett fanboy. We've brought in more guys with criminal and character problems under Garrett than we have any coach since probably Switzer, or at least maybe Campo: Randle. McClain. Hardy. Gregory. Keeping Josh Brent around. Even some of the bit players who have effort and discipline issues. The whole thing is a lot of nonsense. Even respected people who follow the team closely like Bob Sturm have to admit -- like he did on the pregame show last week -- that Jason never wanted Hardy and never wanted to draft Gregory, but has to sit there and take it because Jerry wants it. They basically admit he's a puppet but won't trash him like they did Wade or Campo because they spent years pumping him up and can't fully admit they were wrong. But they were.