The Dallas Cowboys travelled up to the East Coast on Sunday to face the World Champion New England Patriots in one of the toughest road environments in the entire NFL. It is not surprising that they lost the game. It was a cold and rainy day. And on that day, they turned the ball over more times than their opponent, had a punt blocked, and were on the wrong side of not one but two egregious “tripping” penalties that wiped out key first downs. None of that matters though. Despite all of that, the Dallas Cowboys had opportunities to win that game but were held back by a familiar foe..Jason Garrett and his coaching staff. Now for the first time since he took over in 2010, truly Jason Garrett is on the hot seat,
Speculation that the Dallas Cowboys could finally move on from Garrett began when Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys did not offer him a contract extension after leading the team to a 3rd division title in 5 years and a playoff victory last season. Jerry Jones clearly wants more. Jones has always been patient with Jason Garrett but has finally reached a point where he will not longer tolerate failure. Following the loss to the Patriots, a frustrated Jerry Jones had a lot to say about how disappointed he was in Jason Garrett and his coaching staff:
Jerry Jones is not wrong. When your opponent is consistently getting better field position than your team on kickoffs because they are simply taking advantage of the weather conditions while you are not, that is inexcusable in today’s NFL. When your team loses 20 yards of field position after consecutive penalties by your punt team because they were confused after seeing an unusual formation, it is evident that there is a lack of discipline. When there are consistent communication issues, such as the apparent miscommunication between the coaches and Tavon Austin when he mistakenly called a fair catch at a crucial moment in the loss to the Vikings, then simply put the coach and his staff deserve the blame.
It is was very surprising to me that the Dallas Cowboys retained special teams coach Kieth O’Quinn this year after the special teams performed so poorly last season. O’Quinn did take over for a legend in Rich Bisaccia so perhaps a drop off might have been expected, but it was such an issue for the team last season, I was sure it would be addressed in the off season. It was not, and now it reflects poorly on the head coach Jason Garrett that special teams play has been worse this season and has contributed to losses in key games.
The poor coaching decisions are not just relegated to special teams however. Jason Garrett continues to make baffling decisions in the final moments of games in terms of kicking field goals instead of attempting to score touchdowns, gooing for it on 4th down at inopportune times, and misusing his timeouts. Then of course he decides to run the ball in situations where the passing game has been more successful such as in Minnesota and he decides to throw it when the running game is effective like Sunday night against the Patriots. I for one, am not going to crucify Garrett for all of those decisions. Sometimes, hind sight is 20/20 and fans often criticize coaches no matter what decision they make based on the result. I will not tread those waters and question his every decision but there is one issue I would like to address and it is inspired by the words of Rob Gronkowski:
Rob Gronkowski makes a lot of sense here. The Patriots practice in all kinds of weather and unsurprisingly, play better than most teams in poor weather conditions. The Dallas Cowboys did not practice outdoors leading up to this game. It took almost an entire half for the team to realize that Dak Prescott needed to wear gloves to get a decent grip on the football. After a costly interception I might add. A similar situation occurred in the playoff loss to the Rams last season. Apparently, the Dallas Cowboys had to change their cleats midway through the game because they could not get a proper grip on the muddy field in Los Angeles. The Cowboys were gashed for 273 rush yards while Zeke was held in check that game. It’s funny that the Rams didn’t seem to have any issues playing on the muddy field. What about analytics? Many coaches around the league are incorporating data analytics into game management and decision making. Apparently, this is not something that Jason Garrett does not incorporate into his decisions:
That is what makes Jason Garrett a failure. It is what limits him to being an average coach instead of a championship winning coach. It’s the Little things like in those previous examples. Paying attention to details, analytics, weather conditions, field conditions, etc. These are things that great coaches like Bill Belichick pay attention to and will use to try to gain an advantage, any advantage. Football is a game of inches and no details are too small or insignificant. Jason Garrett, who is an intelligent man, does not seem to pay attention to those little things and it consistently costs his team victories. Now, in all likelihood, at the conclusion of this season, it will also cost Jason Garrett his job.
*Photo by Kieth Allison https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/legalcode