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Garrett's interim stint is Dallas' secret weapon
http://www.foxsportssouthwest.com/m...nding_cowboys.html?blockID=439671&feedID=4519
By MIKE PIELLUCCI
A quick perusal of bodog.com’s early Super Bowl odds reveals three teams sitting at 16-1, good for ninth in the NFL. Two of them are the Philadelphia Eagles and Atlanta Falcons, birds of a similar feather that claimed division titles with double-digit wins in 2010.
The third is the Dallas Cowboys.
One of these things is not like the other, what with Dallas’ 26th-ranked pass defense and embarrassing 6-10 record in 2010.
Of course, it’s possible to generate a small pamphlet’s worth of material contrasting America’s Team with their new contemporaries near the top of the oddsmaker’s favorites, but one stat stands out among the rest.
While a quarter of the league’s 32 teams begin next season with a different head coach than the one with whom they started the 2010 season, the Cowboys are the only one with odds lower than 40-1 and viewed as a possible title contender.
Certainly, myriad factors play into that discrepancy:
* A healthy Tony Romo and Dez Bryant.
* The Cowboys' cushy third-place schedule instead of 2010’s first-place gauntlet.
* A widely anticipated roster purge after owner-general manager Jerry Jones promised widespread change.
But Dallas’ greatest advantage over those seven other teams isn’t borne out of health, scheduling or talent. Rather, it stems from the continuity of retaining Jason Garrett after a successful stint as interim coach.
The easiest area to start is momentum. Six of the other seven teams with new coaches will enter training camp stuck in neutral, their last pre-lockout memories of their new head men an introductory press conference. The seventh, Minnesota, went the same route as Dallas and tabbed interim coach Leslie Frazier for their full-time job; after a 1-3 finish with average losing margin of 17, the taste of defeat is fresh in the Vikings’ mouths.
The Cowboys, meanwhile, finished the season 5-3 under Garrett’s watch after the 44-year-old offensive coordinator salvaged the wreckage of a 1-7 start under Wade Phillips without the services of Romo. After a season in which very little broke right, the team can head into 2011 buoyed by a season-ending win over bitter rival Philadelphia that, if nothing else, gives the Cowboys a positive foundation to build on in preparation for Garrett’s first full season at the helm.
Yet momentum’s cursory impact only scratches the surface of Garrett’s impact. By virtue of his three-season tenure as offensive coordinator and half-season as interim head coach, he is a known quantity within locker room.
From a game-planning perspective, it ensures no surprises in the playbook. The terminology, coding, formations and audibles will be tweaked rather than overhauled, allowing the players to devote any post-lockout camp time to refining and improving their sets rather than learning and developing a familiarity with the new sets. While Rob Ryan’s installation as defensive coordinator will necessitate such an acclimation process, Garrett reprising his role as offensive coordinator will allow for one of the league’s most potent attacks to continue to build up steam instead of starting from scratch.
On the coaching side of things, the Cowboys understand Garrett’s methodology.
There are no questions about how meetings are run or how power is distributed, the attitude surrounding practice or the essentials of game day preparation. The players know that Wednesdays mean practicing in full pads; that Garrett will have zero tolerance for rule breaking, as he demonstrated by fining Marion Barber for a relatively minor dress code violation; that they must bring notebooks to meetings.
There is no feeling-out process in Dallas. The Cowboys know how Garrett operates, and rather than wasting energy trying to adjust, they will fall in line from the get-go.
Having a lengthy interim stint also gave Garrett a uniquely large window for what was essentially a warm-up run. Not only did Garrett have the opportunity to personally assess what went wrong during the team’s swoon, having a half-season to tinker meant he also was able to gauge how well his own changes registered, what he needed to retain and what must be scrapped.
While John Fox can only predict how he can bolster Denver’s running game or Jim Harbaugh can presume how his offensive philosophy will improve San Francisco’s passing attack, Garrett knows the impact his play calling — which demonstrably was tweaked after he took over as head coach — had on the running game, which nearly doubled its yardage per game from 75.6 under Phillips to 147.6 under him, and that the refinements on defense led to forcing 20 turnovers under his watch, compared with 10 under Phillips.
Conversely, Garrett also is aware those tweaks did little to help Dallas’ sieve-like secondary, and that the offensive line didn’t offer Romo's replacement, Jon Kitna, much more protection in the pocket than it did Romo earlier in the season.
That process extends to the player personnel arena and to the rumored roster overhaul that so many have anticipated. While new head coaches have assessed their players only from afar, Garrett understands their strengths and weaknesses. He also has seen them play out in his schemes, providing him with equally important knowledge of whether players' best qualities can be brought out within his system, as well as whether their weaknesses can be hidden.
With the lockout promising less evaluation time than ever before, new coaches will be forced to lean heavily on their front offices to help determine who can make the grade and who cannot. Garrett, by contrast, can work with his to clearly identify which players must go, as well as pinpoint the skill sets their replacements must have to flourish.
Most crucial of all, there’s the matter of the front office itself. Every new head coach must familiarize and align himself with his team’s general manager and owner, but Dallas is one of two places in which the same man wears both hats.
Jones’ thirst for control has correctly identified him as one of the league’s most complex power brokers, and he has demonstrated a willingness to speak directly to his players should the need strike him. Having come through the organization as a player and coach, Garrett is better equipped to handle that challenge than any head coach in the Jones era, and he enters the job with a strong rapport with Jones. While it’s true Garrett will face a stiffer test from Jones than the other new coaches will at their posts, he also has more familiarity going in.
The 2010 Cowboys serve as a painful reminder that expectations can go awry in the worst possible way. Even with Vegas showing renewed optimism in the Cowboys, plenty can go wrong. Romo’s shoulder might not heal, or another key player could be injured. The schedule might not be as soft as it looks once the season kicks off. The lockout could go so long as to eliminate a free-agency period altogether, leaving the Cowboys stuck with much of the roster dead weight that drowned them last year.
What is assured, though, is Jason Garrett will be prepared, and thanks to his interim stint, his players will be prepared for him.
That’s the safest bet one can make all year.
http://www.foxsportssouthwest.com/m...nding_cowboys.html?blockID=439671&feedID=4519
By MIKE PIELLUCCI
A quick perusal of bodog.com’s early Super Bowl odds reveals three teams sitting at 16-1, good for ninth in the NFL. Two of them are the Philadelphia Eagles and Atlanta Falcons, birds of a similar feather that claimed division titles with double-digit wins in 2010.
The third is the Dallas Cowboys.
One of these things is not like the other, what with Dallas’ 26th-ranked pass defense and embarrassing 6-10 record in 2010.
Of course, it’s possible to generate a small pamphlet’s worth of material contrasting America’s Team with their new contemporaries near the top of the oddsmaker’s favorites, but one stat stands out among the rest.
While a quarter of the league’s 32 teams begin next season with a different head coach than the one with whom they started the 2010 season, the Cowboys are the only one with odds lower than 40-1 and viewed as a possible title contender.
Certainly, myriad factors play into that discrepancy:
* A healthy Tony Romo and Dez Bryant.
* The Cowboys' cushy third-place schedule instead of 2010’s first-place gauntlet.
* A widely anticipated roster purge after owner-general manager Jerry Jones promised widespread change.
But Dallas’ greatest advantage over those seven other teams isn’t borne out of health, scheduling or talent. Rather, it stems from the continuity of retaining Jason Garrett after a successful stint as interim coach.
The easiest area to start is momentum. Six of the other seven teams with new coaches will enter training camp stuck in neutral, their last pre-lockout memories of their new head men an introductory press conference. The seventh, Minnesota, went the same route as Dallas and tabbed interim coach Leslie Frazier for their full-time job; after a 1-3 finish with average losing margin of 17, the taste of defeat is fresh in the Vikings’ mouths.
The Cowboys, meanwhile, finished the season 5-3 under Garrett’s watch after the 44-year-old offensive coordinator salvaged the wreckage of a 1-7 start under Wade Phillips without the services of Romo. After a season in which very little broke right, the team can head into 2011 buoyed by a season-ending win over bitter rival Philadelphia that, if nothing else, gives the Cowboys a positive foundation to build on in preparation for Garrett’s first full season at the helm.
Yet momentum’s cursory impact only scratches the surface of Garrett’s impact. By virtue of his three-season tenure as offensive coordinator and half-season as interim head coach, he is a known quantity within locker room.
From a game-planning perspective, it ensures no surprises in the playbook. The terminology, coding, formations and audibles will be tweaked rather than overhauled, allowing the players to devote any post-lockout camp time to refining and improving their sets rather than learning and developing a familiarity with the new sets. While Rob Ryan’s installation as defensive coordinator will necessitate such an acclimation process, Garrett reprising his role as offensive coordinator will allow for one of the league’s most potent attacks to continue to build up steam instead of starting from scratch.
On the coaching side of things, the Cowboys understand Garrett’s methodology.
There are no questions about how meetings are run or how power is distributed, the attitude surrounding practice or the essentials of game day preparation. The players know that Wednesdays mean practicing in full pads; that Garrett will have zero tolerance for rule breaking, as he demonstrated by fining Marion Barber for a relatively minor dress code violation; that they must bring notebooks to meetings.
There is no feeling-out process in Dallas. The Cowboys know how Garrett operates, and rather than wasting energy trying to adjust, they will fall in line from the get-go.
Having a lengthy interim stint also gave Garrett a uniquely large window for what was essentially a warm-up run. Not only did Garrett have the opportunity to personally assess what went wrong during the team’s swoon, having a half-season to tinker meant he also was able to gauge how well his own changes registered, what he needed to retain and what must be scrapped.
While John Fox can only predict how he can bolster Denver’s running game or Jim Harbaugh can presume how his offensive philosophy will improve San Francisco’s passing attack, Garrett knows the impact his play calling — which demonstrably was tweaked after he took over as head coach — had on the running game, which nearly doubled its yardage per game from 75.6 under Phillips to 147.6 under him, and that the refinements on defense led to forcing 20 turnovers under his watch, compared with 10 under Phillips.
Conversely, Garrett also is aware those tweaks did little to help Dallas’ sieve-like secondary, and that the offensive line didn’t offer Romo's replacement, Jon Kitna, much more protection in the pocket than it did Romo earlier in the season.
That process extends to the player personnel arena and to the rumored roster overhaul that so many have anticipated. While new head coaches have assessed their players only from afar, Garrett understands their strengths and weaknesses. He also has seen them play out in his schemes, providing him with equally important knowledge of whether players' best qualities can be brought out within his system, as well as whether their weaknesses can be hidden.
With the lockout promising less evaluation time than ever before, new coaches will be forced to lean heavily on their front offices to help determine who can make the grade and who cannot. Garrett, by contrast, can work with his to clearly identify which players must go, as well as pinpoint the skill sets their replacements must have to flourish.
Most crucial of all, there’s the matter of the front office itself. Every new head coach must familiarize and align himself with his team’s general manager and owner, but Dallas is one of two places in which the same man wears both hats.
Jones’ thirst for control has correctly identified him as one of the league’s most complex power brokers, and he has demonstrated a willingness to speak directly to his players should the need strike him. Having come through the organization as a player and coach, Garrett is better equipped to handle that challenge than any head coach in the Jones era, and he enters the job with a strong rapport with Jones. While it’s true Garrett will face a stiffer test from Jones than the other new coaches will at their posts, he also has more familiarity going in.
The 2010 Cowboys serve as a painful reminder that expectations can go awry in the worst possible way. Even with Vegas showing renewed optimism in the Cowboys, plenty can go wrong. Romo’s shoulder might not heal, or another key player could be injured. The schedule might not be as soft as it looks once the season kicks off. The lockout could go so long as to eliminate a free-agency period altogether, leaving the Cowboys stuck with much of the roster dead weight that drowned them last year.
What is assured, though, is Jason Garrett will be prepared, and thanks to his interim stint, his players will be prepared for him.
That’s the safest bet one can make all year.
