DMN: Is Jason Garrett still learning on the job?

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Is Jason Garrett still learning on the job? Jerry Jones: ‘We shouldn’t be learning on our dime’
By Jon Machota / Special Contributor
12:36 pm on October 16, 2012

In May, Jerry Jones said Jason Garrett didn’t have the same luxury as others who landed their first head coaching job at the small college level.

Garrett’s first head coaching job is the one he currently holds, guiding arguably the most popular football team in the world.

With that in mind, during that organized team activity practice about four months ago at Cowboys Stadium, Jones said Garrett had “the right stuff to effectively learn as he goes and at the same time, coach at a level that can get us where we want to go next year.”

Many would suggest that learning on the job for Garrett has included some poor clock management, something that was showcased in losses to the Cardinals and Giants last season and again Sunday in Baltimore.

With that 31-29 loss to the Ravens freshly in Jones’ mind, his view of learning on the job has seemingly changed.

“We shouldn’t be learning on our dime. We should have it down, frankly,” Jones said Tuesday on 105.3 The Fan [KRLD-FM]. “We’ve got too much at stake to be having any teaching sessions.

“And that’s not the way Jason looks at it. That’s not the way I look at it. Relatively speaking, Jason is very thought-out and has well-rehearsed when he’s on that sideline. I can assure you of that. We just have had some things that in hindsight, because we didn’t make it, we could have done differently.

“But I will say this, if I’ve ever seen anyone that has the ability to make adjustments, I know there’s occasions you look back at the Arizona game last year, you say, ‘Well, we should’ve learned from that and not had this happen, again.’ I feel good that we got in place a head coach, a coaching staff, that can do the kinds of things we need to do here.”

Jones was then asked if he thought Garrett was still learning on the job?

“I didn’t say that in any way other than we don’t have that luxury,” Jones responded. “In other words, when you sit here and ask me, is Jason learning, I’m saying Jason doesn’t look at it that way. I don’t look at it that way. I think he’s very qualified to make the kinds of decisions to win ballgames. And we don’t have the luxury to create several years here of a learning curve.

“The facts are though that you do have a learning curve. The facts are that even on a learning curve, we can all look back at some of the greatest coaches there’s ever been and they’ve had things that they should’ve learned two years earlier that they make a bad judgment on. That happens. That’s part of this deal.”
 

Hoofbite

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The answer is no.

If he were learning, he wouldn't have repeated the same dumb assed mistake he did in Arizona.

He's actually failing to learn on the job.
 
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There is no learning curve for Jason Garrett
October, 17, 2012
By Calvin Watkins | ESPNDallas.com

On Tuesday morning, ESPNDallas columnist Jean-Jacques Taylor wrote Cowboys owner Jerry Jones should give a contract extension to coach Jason Garrett.

Really, he said that.

Taylor noted this in his column:
Understand this: The day Jerry hired Garrett he knew there would be tough times and Garrett would need a learning curve. Don't forget, Garrett had never ever been a head coach at any level.

Well, Jones was asked about a learning curve regarding his head coach on his twice-weekly radio show on Tuesday morning.

"We shouldn’t be learning on our dime," Jones said on KRLD-FM. "We should have it down, frankly. We've got too much at stake to be having any teaching sessions here, and that’s not the way Jason looks at it and that’s not the way I look at it."

Jones is right.

When he hired Garrett away from the Miami Dolphins in 2007, it was to call plays and eventually become the head coach -- despite the fact former coach Tony Sparano was also on the staff and there was no head coach in place.

Once Jones hired Wade Phillips, both Sparano and Garrett called the plays. Sparano left in 2008 to become the head coach of the Miami Dolphins. From that time on, it's been Garrett's show.

The Cowboys have had success with Garrett as the coordinator, though fans believe he didn't run the ball enough in his early days as a coordinator (remember the carry-less game for Felix Jones a few years back?). But as a head coach, Garrett has endured two game mismanagement issues and hasn't reach the postseason.

His team continues to make boneheaded mistakes. The Cowboys made mistakes under Bill Parcells and Phillips, too, yet quarterback Tony Romo developed into a top player at his position.

But the business of the NFL is about wins and losses, and it's fair to say that when Garrett signed his contract to become the full-time head coach that he understood expectations would be high.

"I think he's very qualified to make the kinds of decisions to win ballgames," Jones said on KRLD-FM, "and we don't have a luxury here to create a learning curve."

If that's the case, and we believe it is, if Garrett fails to get his team into the postseason, then 2013 will be a hot-seat season for Garrett, learning curve or not.
 
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Jason Garrett will continue to call plays
October, 17, 2012
By Todd Archer | ESPNDallas.com

IRVING, Texas – As some clamor for Jason Garrett to give up the play-calling duties, the Cowboys head coach is not going to make a change.

“We’ve discussed it in the past, that’s always something, how you handle the mechanics of who calls the plays and how we handle different situations,” Garrett said. “We feel like this is the best way to do it right now.”

When the Cowboys introduced Bill Callahan as offensive coordinator in the offseason, Garrett said he could see a day where he no longer calls the plays. Five games into the season and coming off the best offensive showing of the season, the status quo will remain.
 
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Breaking Down the ‘Boys: Is Jason Garrett inhibiting the Cowboys’ success?
By Jonathan Bales
9:14 am on October 17, 2012

Prior to his disastrous end-game clock management in Week 6 against the Ravens, I noticed that Jason Garrett was heaping a lot of praise from Cowboys fans (on Twitter, where else?) for his play-calling. Dallas was able to rack up 227 yards on the ground, primarily because Garrett stuck with the run. Through the game’s first three quarters, Garrett called 33 runs and only 19 passes.

The problem with rushing the football so often is that, even if you do it extremely well, it’s difficult to acquire a big lead. Rushing the ball drains the clock and shortens games, necessarily keeping the score closer than what the on-field play might dictate. That’s a major reason why poor teams tend to run the football so often—it shortens the game and allows them to “stay in it.”

Well, coaching in the NFL shouldn’t be about “staying in” games; it should be about winning them. On Sunday, I thought Garrett was more concerned about making a statement—that his offense could run and that he would stick with it—than coaching to win the game.

Any NFL coach will tell you that the best time to pass the ball is when the defense anticipates a run, and vice versa. That’s why 2nd and 1 passes and runs on 3rd and medium have historically been more successful than their respective counterpart.

There were plenty of opportunities for the Cowboys to air it out on Sunday without abandoning the running game. After all, if Garrett was so confident in the Cowboys’ ability to blow Baltimore off of the ball, wouldn’t he think they could still obtain a first down on the ground following an incomplete pass on 1st and 10?

Now, I’m not saying Garrett should have reversed the run-pass ratio by any means; after we saw how dominant the Cowboys’ offensive line looked early in the game, I thought attacking Baltimore on the ground was the way to go. But why not pass the ball, say, three more times—and why not make those throws deep playaction looks? The Cowboys’ offense has struggled because Garrett places them in a position in which they need to be precise over and over again; due to a lack of creativity and a low-risk mentality, there’s relatively little opportunity for the offense to acquire big plays down the field.

Sunday was the perfect chance to finally leverage an efficient running game into big plays via the passing game, but Garrett bypassed that opportunity. Tony Romo attempted just a single pass that traveled at least 20 yards in the air—2.8 percent of his passes on the day. On the season, I’ve counted 19 of Romo’s passes as traveling that far—10.2 percent of all throws.

And what about playaction? If there was ever a game that the Cowboys could use the run to draw defenders toward the line and get them out of position to defend the pass, it was this one. But Garrett called only three playaction passes on the entire day, and none after the early second quarter. Keep in mind that I’ve tracked Romo as completing 13 of his 16 playaction passes for 212 yards and a touchdown this season—good for a passer rating of 139.6.

We hear a lot about how predictable Garrett is as a play-caller, and that’s true; through personnel and formations, he often lets the defense know whether a run or pass is on the way, daring them to stop it. This isn’t the 1993 Cowboys, though; Dallas isn’t going to win without plays that maximize their chances of success.

At this moment, however, the ‘Boys are competing against a stacked deck. Until there’s more innovation in the play-calling, the percentages won’t be in their favor.
 

ThoughtExperiment

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Totally agree with him on the playaction. When you finally get a running game going and those safeties have to creep up, that's the time to take a shot downfield. Don't know why we don't do that.
 

Theebs

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Totally agree with him on the playaction. When you finally get a running game going and those safeties have to creep up, that's the time to take a shot downfield. Don't know why we don't do that.

we have been though, basically most of our big passing plays this season have come off of play action.

i think if we ran it better we would see it constantly.
 

Mr.Po

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Jason Garrett trending the wrong way


Coach likes to talk process, but fact of the matter is there hasn't been progress

Updated: October 18, 2012, 11:42 AM ETBy Tim MacMahon | ESPNDallas.com

IRVING, Texas -- Gotta give credit to Jason Garrett: He's gotten pretty dang good at those day-after-a-clock-management-crisis news conferences.

Some Jason Garrett apologists say Garrett is learning on the job. Ben and Skin discuss Garrett's status as coach of the Cowboys, and Skin sounds off on what he thinks of the Cowboys' current situation.

Heck, he's had a lot of practice.

Garrett aced it on Monday, explaining in detail exactly what happened during the Dallas Cowboys' mental breakdown down the stretch in Baltimore. The players didn't get a pass, but Garrett put the biggest piece of blame pie on his plate.

"It starts with me," Garrett said over and over again.

Man, he's come miles since early last December when he just kept on rationalizing his ridiculous decision-making the day after a similar debacle in the desert. Hey, if you're going to keep making messes, better become efficient with the clean-up process.

Can you think of any other evidence of Garrett's progress as a head coach?

Hear those crickets chirping?

Almost two years into the Garrett era, we've got a whole lot of process and precious little progress. That's a problem. It's time for Garrett to start proving he's the genius coach Jerry Jones thought he promoted after the expiration date on Wade Phillips passed.

Jason Garrett's offense is averaging 18.8 points this season after averaging 24.6 in 2010 and 23.1 last season.
"This is a bottom-line business," Garrett said, "and we need to win ballgames."

The Cowboys went 5-3 during Garrett's tenure as an interim coach. They went 8-8 last season. They're 2-3 now. It doesn't take an Ivy League degree to figure out that's trending in the wrong direction.

Garrett's offense averaged 24.6 points in 2010, 23.1 last season and 18.8 so far this year. Gee whiz, what a coincidence.

Without progress, why be patient?

That's a question more for the fans than Jerry, who isn't going to give up so soon on a head coach he handpicked and helped groom. It'd take a total disaster -- like finishing below the Campo Line (5-11) -- to even fathom the owner/GM seriously considering canning Garrett after this season.

Jerry actually agreed with Garrett's clutch decision-making Sunday afternoon. It's apparently easier to pretend a problem doesn't exist than to admit Garrett has had three such gaffes in the past 10 games, a stretch that includes only three Cowboys wins.

Jerry just doesn't want to hear about his head coach's inexperience or the learning curve of a guy who grew up in a football family and has spent the past two decades standing on NFL sidelines.

Never mind the signs of decline. Jerry's dreaming of a Super Bowl title this season.

"We shouldn't be learning on our dime," Jones said this week on KRLD-FM. "We should have it down, frankly. We've got too much at stake to be having any teaching sessions here, and that's not the way Jason looks at it and that's not the way I look at it."

Jerry, a marketing genius who dabbles in football for fun, sees it through the eyes of a salesman. This is a man who was selling the Super Bowl dream when Dave Campo was coaching and Quincy Carter was quarterbacking. Of course he's going to try to keep it going with Garrett and Tony Romo in those roles.

That doesn't make it too much closer to reality. The question isn't whether Garrett is capable of being a championship coach this season. It's will he ever be?

The Garrett apologists, a group that includes one of my esteemed ESPNDallas.com colleagues, point out that the former Cowboys clipboard-holder has won a heck of a lot more games than Tom Landry and Jimmy Johnson at this point of their America's Team tenures.

To present their records without context is pure poppycock.

Landry took over an exhibition team that started an itty-bitty quarterback Washington didn't want. Johnson inherited a team that had the worst record in the NFL and started a rookie under center. Garrett got a team that won a playoff game the previous season and had a franchise quarterback in his prime.

Plus, we're talking progress here.

Landry's Cowboys went winless in his first season and followed that up with a four-win campaign. Granted, it took him six years to get the Cowboys into the playoffs, but those were different days, with him coaching a team that consisted of NFL leftovers and draft picks.

Johnson's Cowboys went from 1-15 to 7-9. The foundation for the Team of the '90s was set in that time, with the Cowboys winning 36 regular-season games and two Super Bowls in the three seasons that followed before the Jerry-Jimmy divorce.

There's been a bunch of talk from Garrett and the Cowboys about being able to build off the good things they did in Baltimore, such as gaining 481 total yards and fighting back to almost become the first road team to beat the Ravens in nearly a year.

That's swell and all, but the Cowboys certainly didn't build off their season-opening upset of the defending Super Bowl champion New York Giants. You believe that a moral victory will be the moment of truth?

As much as Garrett sounds like a good head coach, it's about time for that talk to show in his team's actions.

Garrett constantly preaches about stacking good days together. The Cowboys haven't won consecutive games since November.

Garrett hammers home the importance of winning the turnover battle. The Cowboys have committed the second-most turnovers and forced the fewest in the NFC.

Garrett stresses being a smart, disciplined team. The Cowboys average the most penalties per game in the NFL and can't tell time with the game on the line.

There really is a lot to like about Garrett. Unless that's reflected in his record, it's all irrelevant.
 

Jon88

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Some of the things he doesn't understand is Football 101. That's not a good sign.
 
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I think the overall situation is pretty interesting.

Almost everyone agrees that Jerry Jones has taken too much on himself (Owner, GM, micromanager).

Many agree that the Cowboys ask Romo to do too much.

And the franchise requires the inexperienced Garrett to simultaneously be Head Coach and Offensive Coordinator.

The franchise's governing philosophy is that you win with an independent wildcatter who has a hot hand.

The franchise doesn't comprehend the value, power of stable, cohesive teamwork.
 
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Wish we weren't wasting the prime of Romo, Witten and Ware with a coach who's got a learning curve.
 
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