Messages
5,432
Reaction score
0
Cowboys camp won't be cupcake for Garrett
Dallas coach built to handle post-lockout havoc, observers say.
By Tom Orsborn
torsborn@express-news.net


DALLAS — Jay Novacek sent Jason Garrett a text message last week.

There was no immediate reply.

“Shows what he thinks of me,” joked Novacek, the former Dallas Cowboys Pro Bowl tight end. “But I know he's a little busy.”

Busy? Try swamped.

And it's only going to get worse.

With the end of the NFL's labor discord finally in sight, Garrett has been hunkered down at team headquarters in Irving making final preparations for training camp, which could start this week at the Alamodome should the players approve a new collective bargaining agreement.

In his first full season as coach of the Cowboys, the Princeton alum will face stiff challenges when the team finally reports to San Antonio. The moving parts will be many, and a steady hand will be needed to navigate the team through a frantic period that will include many make-or-break chores. He'll have to make a plethora of personnel decisions, outline a practice schedule that adheres to the safety guidelines of the proposed labor deal, and ensure wide receiver Dez Bryant is centered after a rocky offseason.

One longtime Garrett observer believes he's more than up to the task.

“Jason has tremendous organizational skills,” said Babe Laufenberg, the Cowboys' radio analyst and the sports director at Dallas-Fort Worth's KTVT-TV. “There is no doubt he has had contingency plans in place for any date of return by the players. And when that time comes, he will have a solid plan in place.”

The long work stoppage wiped out an offseason in which Garrett had planned to fully implement a disciplined program, so his first task could be to remind the players he wants accountability, professionalism and physical play to be their watchwords. Although he made strides in imparting that message last year after he took over for the fired Wade Phillips at midseason, a quick refresher course could be beneficial once the team settles in for camp.

“There's no question momentum was generated after Jason took over,” Laufenberg said. “In an ideal world, the lockout never occurs, but it did. Now you have to deal with it, and coaches preach about dealing with adversity all the time. The good organizations and the good coaches in a normal season will be the good organizations and good coaches under the current restraints.”

Novacek recalled a perpetually prepared Garrett during their days together on the Cowboys' Super Bowl teams of the 1990s. But Novacek believes the former quarterback's ability to motivate is the asset he must use most at camp.

“He's very knowledgeable about the game, and that's all fine, well and dandy,” Novacek said. “But you can have the most knowledgeable person in the world be a coach, and not be a very good one. The biggest trick in the whole book is having the players and the other coaches believe in what you want to get done and why you want to get it done.

“That's the main thing with any program. You can't go out there on Sunday and just flip the switch on and expect to play 100 percent if you are not prepared mentally.”

With that in mind, Garrett strove last season to instill toughness in the Cowboys after they spent nearly four years under Phillips' soft touch. He re-introduced full-pad Wednesday practices, established a dress code and demanded punctuality, moves many believe contributed to Dallas going 5-3 after a 1-7 start under Phillips.

“Jason made his mark immediately,” Novacek said. “He changed the way the players thought. He changed the way they practiced. That helped a lot. He is going to do things more like we did them (under Jimmy Johnson). When it was time to practice, we practiced. And we did it knowing we were going to do a little hitting, were going to work hard.”

But Garrett's plan to transform the Cowboys into a bruising bunch might have hit a snag with the proposed labor deal's elimination of two-a-day practices during camp and its reduction of contact practices throughout the season. Another challenge: whipping into shape a team that will arrive in camp without the benefit of supervised offseason workouts.

Garrett likely will find a way to handle all of it, Laufenberg suggested.

“Jason already went through this to a degree when he took over in the middle of last season,” Laufenberg said. “He knew then what needed to be implemented, but he also understood there would be diminishing returns if he tried to change too much.

“This will be a similar balancing act. How hard do you push a team that will not be in as good as physical shape as it would have been after a normal offseason? That will be the hard part.”

Can Garrett handle it?

“Jason,” Novacek said, “is very intelligent.”

Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/...cupcake-for-Garrett-1560844.php#ixzz1T1wDNVC9
 
Top Bottom