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Rainer Sabin / Reporter
On Tuesday, Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett was one of the guests on NFL Network host Rich Eisen's podcast. Here is a transcript of the interview:
Rich Eisen: What is your world like now in the middle of a lockout at a top of a month we could be back in business by the end of it?
Jason Garrett: This offseason has not been as active as it normally is. Typically right nowwe're in the middle of OTAs, getting ready for a mini-camp. That hasn't happened. The players have not been around all offseason so that's been a little bit difficult and different for us. But we have kept ourselves busy and there's some things we do to wrap up the previous season - some studies that we do of ourselves and our team and other teams and obviously we're preparing for the upcoming season and getting practice schedules and training camp schedules and all of those things together as well as studying other teams.
Rich Eisen: So, do you think most teams will know the other team's tendencies more than any other previous NFL season based on the downtime we've had so far?
Jason Garrett: Well, there's been more time to do this kind of stuff and I think you have to be careful of overdoing it. But I think, in general, coaching staffs do a good job understanding what the tendencies are of their opponents. This is the time to do it. We've just had more time to do it this year.
Rich Eisen: What do you think your offense is going to look like this year, coach? Do you think it's going to be similar to what we saw in the last weeks of last year? How much were you able to build off last year coming into this year with the Dallas Cowboys offensively?
Jason Garrett: Well, we feel like our offense has been the same system, the same style, the same philosophy of offense the last years. And we pride ourselves on being balanced. And we pride ourselves on being an attacking style of offense. So we'll try to continue to do that. At times, over the last four years, we have done better than at other times. We did play fairly well down the stretch on offense and I think it goes to what I was talking about. We were more balanced and I think we were more explosive and we'll hope to continue to do those things and do them lots of different ways.
Rich Eisen: I guess that was my inartful way of saying that your offense was better in the second half of last season than it was in the first half. Offensively, running-back wise that seems to have been a bone of contention certainly with a lot of the fanbase about who runs the football and how it has been divvied up and I am wondering if out of the three running backs you have seen running the football there in Dallas over the last couple of years if you're going to choose one more over the other. Do you have a plan to do that?
Jason Garrett: I think each of our runners over the past couple of years have strengths and weaknesses and we have tried to put them in roles that best suit their strengths. Each of them are real talented guys and we're excited about each of those guys - Felix Jones, Marion Barber and Tashard Choice. We like their versatility. We feel like they can run inside. They can run outside. They can block. They can catch. So we try to give each of those guys opportunities to do what they do best and let them compete with each other within the position and we feel like that's helped each of them be better players and it's helped our football team. We'll continue to do that. We drafted DeMarco Murray and we feel like we can add him to the mix and again generate some of that competition and hopefully we will all be better for it.
Rich Eisen: Do you think the competition will lead to a bell cow? Do you think it will lead to you putting the bell around the neck of this one guy and give it to him 25 times, maybe even 30 times a game. Do you think that's feasible?
Jason Garrett: Well, there's no question that what's emerged in the past couple years is that Felix Jones has gotten the ball a little more than he had early on in his career. He has been healthier so we like to get him the ball. I think he has proven he is a guy who can carry it a lot both inside and outside. And he's proved to be more durable this past year. I don't know if we'll go so far as saying a bell cow because we like the idea of keeping the backs coming and attacking the defense with different guys and staying fresh. But certainly he has been a guy who has emerged and again we want to see how Marion does and how Tashard does and certainly add DeMarco to mix as well.
Rich Eisen: Many observers of the Dallas Cowboys - and as you know there are many observers of the Dallas Cowboys certainly in the media - are talking about how much hand-wringing there is in the organization over Dez Bryant and your inability because of the lockout rules to keep tabs on him as closely as you would like. Is there a lot of hand-wringing in the organization about Dez Bryant or is that an inaccurate description?
Jason Garrett: That's probably not a very accurate description. You know, Dez, like all of our players, is some we're concerned about, we care about and what happens with young players is they transition from the college level to the NFL. There's a transition as a player but there is also a transition in their life and they need to understand what it means to be on their own and to be in a professional environment. And we pride ourselves on trying to help our guys with that transition. And we do that with Dez but also other young guys and guys who are a couple to three years into the league. Calvin Hill is a guy who heads our player programs department and he does an outstanding job with that. And we continue to pride ourselves on doing that well. Unfortunately, when you're in a lockout-type situation, the players can't be around and you can't help the players - Dez and others - in any way in this kind of environment. So we're hopeful our players get back for lots of different reasons and that's certainly one of them.
Rich Eisen: So, there's no more concern about Dez than anyone else that you're not able to have contact with?
Jason Garrett: Well, Dez is a high-profile player as you know. He has a very good year as a rookie before he got injured. There have been some things attached to his name that have come out this offseason, so again that probably goes to the nature of being a high-profile guy as well as the incidents themselves. But like with all of our guys, we want to support him - we care about him -- and help him in any way that we can.
Rich Eisen: I want to pick your brain about the lockout lifting. I get this asked all the time: Is there a date which you really need to know in order to have as regular an offseason as you possibly can. Let's start with this: Do you expect to have any OTAs? Any OTAs right now?
Jason Garrett: Well, I think the most important thing we've talked about in our organization is just to be prepared for anything. And obviously the offseason has been very different. We haven't had the running and the lifting as a team that we typically have that starts in late March. We haven't had the rookie mini-camp or the OTAs up to this point. So, we have to continue to wait and see what happens, what unfolds, and then be prepared for it. We need to have everything in place for training camp and up to training camp be flexible, be nimble to adapt to any circumstance that comes up.
Rich Eisen: It does appear that best-case scenario you're going to be dealing with a lot of free agency issues leading up to training camp, maybe through parts of training camp. It seems as if it's going to be all mashed together, if we're lucky. And I just wanted to see what you are doing organizationally if you can let us in on what you're thinking is. How are you going to be able to process all of this information as the head coach and make sure as many rookies and as many young players as possible could be brought up to speed and many veterans can stay healthy without having been in an offseason workout program? That's the thing many fans are concerned about. It might lead to a level of play we're not used to seeing in the National Football League.
Jason Garrett: Well, I think the first thing you have to understand is that this is a league-wide issue. Everybody is dealing with this and we need to be prepared and we need to be prepared for college free agency, for NFL free agency, and all of the different business aspects that we're going to go through. We need to understand that if we have fewer practices maybe we do less and focus on some things more than other things that we typically would do and just be realistic about that. And we have to understand where our players are physically once they do come back and again be nimble and responsive to where they are and not do anything stupid or premature that doesn't allow them to function healthily as a football player. And then I think the biggest thing for the league to understand - and I think they are very well aware of this - is that the amount of preparation we need to get all of our players ready before playing a real, live football game. It's a physical sport. It's a very demanding sport. And getting them ready and making sure they're ready is really going to be a critical piece of that. And think the decision-makers understand that really, really well and I think they'll give us the appropriate amount of time to get us ready to play.
Rich Eisen: What do you think is appropriate? Would a couple of preseason games - if you only played half of them - would that be doable? I'd love to know your thoughts on what you consider appropriate.
Jason Garrett: Well, as coaches, we want more. We want more practices. We want more preseason games. We want as much time as we can get. So, rather than get in the little discussions about what the specifics are, you need time. You need time to practice. You need time to hit each other in training camp, because, again, it is a violent sport. It's a very physically-demanding sport so before live bullets start to travel we need to make sure we're ready and the more the better from our standpoint.
Rich Eisen: And last question before I finish up with you. Don't get into specifics. You and the Joneses - let's say business opens up. Do you have Plan, Plan B, Plan C for free agency? Exactly, this is what your first move is going to be? This is what your second move is going to be? Is that the way things are working right now?
Jason Garrett: I think that's part of the preparation. We really need to know what the needs are on our football team and what's out there on the NFL landscape. Who is available? What the price tag is? What their health considerations are? All of those things -as you said - you need to have Option 1, Option 2, Option 3, and you need to be flexible, nimble in those situations to address the needs that we have.
Rich Eisen: Last question for you and this is the most important question I am going to ask you, Coach. And I need the most honest, straightforward answer possible. How was the Romo wedding? What was that like?
Jason Garrett: It was outstanding. It really was. They did a great job with it and there were a lot of people there. It was quite an affair down here in Dallas. He is a high-profile guy. Candice is fabulous. But what was really interesting for us - the observers who were there - it really felt like a down-home wedding, too...like one we have been to, even though it was bigger and got a lot of publicity and attention you can tell they have great feeling for each other and it was fun to be a part of.
Rich Eisen: Did he have a live band?
Jason Garrett: Oh, I would say the band was very live.
Rich Eisen: Who was at your table? Can you remember who was at your table?
Jason Garrett: Without getting into the specifics, it was a really nice affair.
Rich Eisen: Can you tell me where he is registered, at least?
Jason Garrett: I have no idea. That's not my department.
On Tuesday, Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett was one of the guests on NFL Network host Rich Eisen's podcast. Here is a transcript of the interview:
Rich Eisen: What is your world like now in the middle of a lockout at a top of a month we could be back in business by the end of it?
Jason Garrett: This offseason has not been as active as it normally is. Typically right nowwe're in the middle of OTAs, getting ready for a mini-camp. That hasn't happened. The players have not been around all offseason so that's been a little bit difficult and different for us. But we have kept ourselves busy and there's some things we do to wrap up the previous season - some studies that we do of ourselves and our team and other teams and obviously we're preparing for the upcoming season and getting practice schedules and training camp schedules and all of those things together as well as studying other teams.
Rich Eisen: So, do you think most teams will know the other team's tendencies more than any other previous NFL season based on the downtime we've had so far?
Jason Garrett: Well, there's been more time to do this kind of stuff and I think you have to be careful of overdoing it. But I think, in general, coaching staffs do a good job understanding what the tendencies are of their opponents. This is the time to do it. We've just had more time to do it this year.
Rich Eisen: What do you think your offense is going to look like this year, coach? Do you think it's going to be similar to what we saw in the last weeks of last year? How much were you able to build off last year coming into this year with the Dallas Cowboys offensively?
Jason Garrett: Well, we feel like our offense has been the same system, the same style, the same philosophy of offense the last years. And we pride ourselves on being balanced. And we pride ourselves on being an attacking style of offense. So we'll try to continue to do that. At times, over the last four years, we have done better than at other times. We did play fairly well down the stretch on offense and I think it goes to what I was talking about. We were more balanced and I think we were more explosive and we'll hope to continue to do those things and do them lots of different ways.
Rich Eisen: I guess that was my inartful way of saying that your offense was better in the second half of last season than it was in the first half. Offensively, running-back wise that seems to have been a bone of contention certainly with a lot of the fanbase about who runs the football and how it has been divvied up and I am wondering if out of the three running backs you have seen running the football there in Dallas over the last couple of years if you're going to choose one more over the other. Do you have a plan to do that?
Jason Garrett: I think each of our runners over the past couple of years have strengths and weaknesses and we have tried to put them in roles that best suit their strengths. Each of them are real talented guys and we're excited about each of those guys - Felix Jones, Marion Barber and Tashard Choice. We like their versatility. We feel like they can run inside. They can run outside. They can block. They can catch. So we try to give each of those guys opportunities to do what they do best and let them compete with each other within the position and we feel like that's helped each of them be better players and it's helped our football team. We'll continue to do that. We drafted DeMarco Murray and we feel like we can add him to the mix and again generate some of that competition and hopefully we will all be better for it.
Rich Eisen: Do you think the competition will lead to a bell cow? Do you think it will lead to you putting the bell around the neck of this one guy and give it to him 25 times, maybe even 30 times a game. Do you think that's feasible?
Jason Garrett: Well, there's no question that what's emerged in the past couple years is that Felix Jones has gotten the ball a little more than he had early on in his career. He has been healthier so we like to get him the ball. I think he has proven he is a guy who can carry it a lot both inside and outside. And he's proved to be more durable this past year. I don't know if we'll go so far as saying a bell cow because we like the idea of keeping the backs coming and attacking the defense with different guys and staying fresh. But certainly he has been a guy who has emerged and again we want to see how Marion does and how Tashard does and certainly add DeMarco to mix as well.
Rich Eisen: Many observers of the Dallas Cowboys - and as you know there are many observers of the Dallas Cowboys certainly in the media - are talking about how much hand-wringing there is in the organization over Dez Bryant and your inability because of the lockout rules to keep tabs on him as closely as you would like. Is there a lot of hand-wringing in the organization about Dez Bryant or is that an inaccurate description?
Jason Garrett: That's probably not a very accurate description. You know, Dez, like all of our players, is some we're concerned about, we care about and what happens with young players is they transition from the college level to the NFL. There's a transition as a player but there is also a transition in their life and they need to understand what it means to be on their own and to be in a professional environment. And we pride ourselves on trying to help our guys with that transition. And we do that with Dez but also other young guys and guys who are a couple to three years into the league. Calvin Hill is a guy who heads our player programs department and he does an outstanding job with that. And we continue to pride ourselves on doing that well. Unfortunately, when you're in a lockout-type situation, the players can't be around and you can't help the players - Dez and others - in any way in this kind of environment. So we're hopeful our players get back for lots of different reasons and that's certainly one of them.
Rich Eisen: So, there's no more concern about Dez than anyone else that you're not able to have contact with?
Jason Garrett: Well, Dez is a high-profile player as you know. He has a very good year as a rookie before he got injured. There have been some things attached to his name that have come out this offseason, so again that probably goes to the nature of being a high-profile guy as well as the incidents themselves. But like with all of our guys, we want to support him - we care about him -- and help him in any way that we can.
Rich Eisen: I want to pick your brain about the lockout lifting. I get this asked all the time: Is there a date which you really need to know in order to have as regular an offseason as you possibly can. Let's start with this: Do you expect to have any OTAs? Any OTAs right now?
Jason Garrett: Well, I think the most important thing we've talked about in our organization is just to be prepared for anything. And obviously the offseason has been very different. We haven't had the running and the lifting as a team that we typically have that starts in late March. We haven't had the rookie mini-camp or the OTAs up to this point. So, we have to continue to wait and see what happens, what unfolds, and then be prepared for it. We need to have everything in place for training camp and up to training camp be flexible, be nimble to adapt to any circumstance that comes up.
Rich Eisen: It does appear that best-case scenario you're going to be dealing with a lot of free agency issues leading up to training camp, maybe through parts of training camp. It seems as if it's going to be all mashed together, if we're lucky. And I just wanted to see what you are doing organizationally if you can let us in on what you're thinking is. How are you going to be able to process all of this information as the head coach and make sure as many rookies and as many young players as possible could be brought up to speed and many veterans can stay healthy without having been in an offseason workout program? That's the thing many fans are concerned about. It might lead to a level of play we're not used to seeing in the National Football League.
Jason Garrett: Well, I think the first thing you have to understand is that this is a league-wide issue. Everybody is dealing with this and we need to be prepared and we need to be prepared for college free agency, for NFL free agency, and all of the different business aspects that we're going to go through. We need to understand that if we have fewer practices maybe we do less and focus on some things more than other things that we typically would do and just be realistic about that. And we have to understand where our players are physically once they do come back and again be nimble and responsive to where they are and not do anything stupid or premature that doesn't allow them to function healthily as a football player. And then I think the biggest thing for the league to understand - and I think they are very well aware of this - is that the amount of preparation we need to get all of our players ready before playing a real, live football game. It's a physical sport. It's a very demanding sport. And getting them ready and making sure they're ready is really going to be a critical piece of that. And think the decision-makers understand that really, really well and I think they'll give us the appropriate amount of time to get us ready to play.
Rich Eisen: What do you think is appropriate? Would a couple of preseason games - if you only played half of them - would that be doable? I'd love to know your thoughts on what you consider appropriate.
Jason Garrett: Well, as coaches, we want more. We want more practices. We want more preseason games. We want as much time as we can get. So, rather than get in the little discussions about what the specifics are, you need time. You need time to practice. You need time to hit each other in training camp, because, again, it is a violent sport. It's a very physically-demanding sport so before live bullets start to travel we need to make sure we're ready and the more the better from our standpoint.
Rich Eisen: And last question before I finish up with you. Don't get into specifics. You and the Joneses - let's say business opens up. Do you have Plan, Plan B, Plan C for free agency? Exactly, this is what your first move is going to be? This is what your second move is going to be? Is that the way things are working right now?
Jason Garrett: I think that's part of the preparation. We really need to know what the needs are on our football team and what's out there on the NFL landscape. Who is available? What the price tag is? What their health considerations are? All of those things -as you said - you need to have Option 1, Option 2, Option 3, and you need to be flexible, nimble in those situations to address the needs that we have.
Rich Eisen: Last question for you and this is the most important question I am going to ask you, Coach. And I need the most honest, straightforward answer possible. How was the Romo wedding? What was that like?
Jason Garrett: It was outstanding. It really was. They did a great job with it and there were a lot of people there. It was quite an affair down here in Dallas. He is a high-profile guy. Candice is fabulous. But what was really interesting for us - the observers who were there - it really felt like a down-home wedding, too...like one we have been to, even though it was bigger and got a lot of publicity and attention you can tell they have great feeling for each other and it was fun to be a part of.
Rich Eisen: Did he have a live band?
Jason Garrett: Oh, I would say the band was very live.
Rich Eisen: Who was at your table? Can you remember who was at your table?
Jason Garrett: Without getting into the specifics, it was a really nice affair.
Rich Eisen: Can you tell me where he is registered, at least?
Jason Garrett: I have no idea. That's not my department.