Give Credit where Credit is due

[junk]

I'll readily admit 12-4 far exceeded my expectations. I'll admit the season surprised me, but I'm going to give credit where credit is due.

Jerry Jones - I'll readily admit, I am anti Jerry as GM. I still don't think he is qualified and I think he only spends a small part of his time playing GM (and has way too large of a say for someone who isn't there day to day). I think he is impulsive, I think he swings for the fences and I think he listens to the wrong people too often. However, the last couple of years, he appears to be listening to the right people. I'm not sure who that is, but I think it is less Lacewell/Switzer and more Will McClay/Stephen Jones.

Scott Linehan - Probably the single biggest reason for this year's success. Focused on the run game. Created (and executed) an offense that kept the defense off the field and limited Romo's penchant for mistakes. Thank you!

Rod Marinelli - Made chicken salad out of chicken ####. 'Nuff said.

Bill Callahan - I think his contribution will be diminished, but does the OL become the unit it is without his tutelage?

The Salary Cap - I know the popular sentiment is that Dallas was never in "cap hell" and could "do whatever they wanted". Well, while they weren't ever in cap hell, there were certainly years that they were limited in what they could do simply because of the way they'd managed the salary cap. I saw a Fischer article where he claimed they could clear like $50 million in cap space.....but he had no analysis on the impact on future years. I did see an article where they claimed they were trying to avoid restructuring Romo's deal. Great, if true. I do think being salary cap constrained forced the team to play young guys and avoid extensions/re-ups/restructures for guys already on the roster (Hatcher. Ware, etc.)/ I also have to wonder if being in a contract year elevated the performance of certain players.

Garrett - When he was hired, I had high hopes, but knew he was very inexperienced. When the Dan Reeves thing happened (and disappeared), I was very bummed. Garrett needed some vet influence to guide him through game management and playcalling. He resisted that and what happened? Missing the playoffs by a game and a lot of wins missed by a very small sum of points. In 2013, they lost 5 games by 3 points or less. What changed? They focused on the running game and took pressure off of the defense.

General thoughts on Garrett: I think he has done a fantastic job of keeping the team motivated and playing hard. I think, theoretically, he has good ideas. I don't think he has the slightest clue on how to make those ideas translate to the field though. I think he does a great job with Jerry/Stephen. I do not, for one instance, believe he had some long term plan that is suddenly coming to fruition. Anyone watching the draft cam in the Frederick year knew he wasn't too enthused about that trade down and selection. Martin was their 4th choice after they couldn't move down. Callahan is a great coach and I'm glad that they benefitted form is time here.

My biggest beef with Garrett is his offensive playcalling. Horrendous. Calling on a real OC helped a lot (like Linehan). I love the way he has the team going now, but I'm pretty upset with the way he mismanaged the team the last three years. Could have been in the playoffs with even a semi-competent HC.

 

[peplaw06]

The only credit I'm going to give Jones is to the extent he has deferred to others. The more he steps out of personnel decisions, the more credit he will get from me.

Garrett gets credit for accepting his lot in life, that he can't be a HC and playcaller at the same time. I can't imagine anyone thought it would be a good idea for a rookie HC who had 3 years of playcalling experience after spending a couple of seasons as a QB coach to be a HC and playcaller. For those reasons alone a real GM would lose his job, and if the GM made the HC step away from playcalling and the HC didn't do it, then he should lose his job too.

They're both backhanded compliments. You guys will do great things if you don't make the decisions. We're basically seeing what the talent on this roster can do without Jerry and Garrett fucking things up. I don't even know that I'd call that credit.

 

[NoShame]

Great post, junk. I can agree with all of that.. Eventhough it's extremely hard to give Jerry and Garrett credit. I think they did enough this year to warrant some credit for sure.

 

[Midswat]

I credit Jerry for .... getting out of the way???? Not sure how else to put it. Drafting Manzel would've been catastrophic. I just can't credit the guy for being some great GM when he still says some of the things he says. But I love that he's listening more to Stephen and McClay.

I also credit him for neutering Jason. I mean, if you insist on having an inept coach so you don't have to walk on eggshells and can still have fun, then props for finally surrounding him with stud coordinators to mask his shortcomings.


I can't credit Jason with much. There's too much I dislike him for. For wasting the primes of some great players, from mismanaging games, from blowing huge leads, from lackluster game plans and lacking creativity to utilize talent. Etc.

And I especially hate how he just claps and claps and claps.

If you were in the game day thread against GB, you might remember me losing my shit over the Murray fumble and Jason subsequently clapping him off the field like "Hey, it's cool. No worries."

Fuck that. Fuck that. Give me the Parcells icy stare that players feared. What is this clapping shit there? Is Murray a 9 year old? You don't want to hurt his feelings? Murray has fumbled what, 5,6 times this year? We couldn't correct that?

Why is there no repercussions?


I'm ranting here.

We had a lot of success this year. I credit most of that to the OLine, Linehans play calling, Romo, and a shit ton of lucky breaks along the way (which a lot of winning teams get - parity league, lucky breaks often seperate the good from great).

Unfortunately I think next year will be a crash back to reality. In other words, 2014 wasn't "our 1991."

 

[LAZARUS_LOGAN]

Fuck that. Fuck that. Give me the Parcells icy stare that players feared.

Remember when Miles Austin fumbled on the kickoff return in Seattle? Parcells just stared him down, had to have felt knee-high to a cornflake.

 

[ThoughtExperiment]

I also credit him for neutering Jason. I mean, if you insist on having an inept coach so you don't have to walk on eggshells and can still have fun, then props for finally surrounding him with stud coordinators to mask his shortcomings.

And that's exactly what has happened. All joking and exaggeration aside, that's really what he's done. He's always devalued the position of head coach going back to his "500 coaches" statement, because he's convinced it's the players who win. So he put Jason in there to be a comfortable liaison between himself and the team and accept what he wants to do (give up playcalling, accept scheme changes like 34 to 43, etc.) without barking back and while putting a good public face on things.

So yeah, I have to give Jerry credit, it's for somehow being smart enough to see that hey, my guy is average as hell as a playcaller , and even though everyone says he's so smart he apparently can't handle doing that and managing the game at the same time, so I have to get someone else to call plays. I'll also credit him for paying up for things like OCs and DCs and OL coaches. I bet those three are, or were when Callahan was here, making as much as anyone in football at their positions. Jerry even admitted that yesterday.

But really, so much of this staff is pure luck. One example: Marinelli is one of the best DCs and one of the best assistant coaches in football? And how did we get him? He came along with Kiffin. And how and why did we get Kiffin? Because Larry Freaking Lacewell recommended his decades-long buddy. And he did it because 1) it was the style defense he coached years ago and 2) he and Jerry both wanted to eliminate any trace of Bill Parcells. What horrible reasoning to make a major coaching change. But it worked out.

And how and why did we get Linehan? Because Jerry told Jason he wasn't calling plays again, so he had to hire someone. Linehan is about the only guy Jason, with his limited years of coaching anywhere, knew who was qualified for that job. Linehan apparently has this great rapport with Tony and gets through to Tony how much he has to value the ball. He also gets us to finally run into 8 man boxes instead of always checking out, something Garrett himself either couldn't or didn't want to do. But do you think Garrett
knew Linehan and Tony would hit it off so well personally and totally change the offense? Hell no. He was just the only guy Jason knew.

Also, I think Steve is actually a decent executive, or at least better than his daddy. If nothing else, he seems focused on actually getting the best players and not being buddies with the players like Jerry always did. And we've drafted better the last couple of years, but some of that was good fortune and Tony's input, and I'm not convinced we've found some secret that will allow us to draft great every year. Why would we think we've found that when pretty much no other team has. The disastrous Claiborne trade was just a couple of drafts ago.

TLDR Version: Less Jerry, Less Garrett, and more Steve + two good coordinators + great health = improvement.

And that's Thoughts from the Thought Experiment Field.

 

[Doomsday]

Well Junk, I somewhat agree with some of your observations. But....

So, now we give credit to the two blind squirrels (Jerruh and Carrot Top) who find part of a acorn once in seven years? Not even a whole acorn?

It seems to never occur to anyone that most of the 12-4 we saw was mostly, just things going our way where they hadn't before. All of the 8-8 seasons could easily have been 12-4 or 11-5, if not for a play or two here, a break or two there, less injuries or three here..... In the NFL every season, there's 20 teams who have the ingredients to make the playoffs and go all the way once there. Dallas has been one of those for the last several years. One of those 20 of which, only three or four aren't mediocre. Mediocrity IS the NFL due to parity, salary cap, and etc.

There's no reason to believe the "success" we saw continues. They won't build on this season any more than they built off 2007 or 2009. All 12-4 does for you is give you that chance to take a shit in the playoffs again, and lower your draft pick.

I've seen no evidence over the years that they either build off success, plan for the future, or learn a fucking thing from their mistakes. To convince me they are going to have to do at least as well next season if not even better.

I still think at its core this is a mediocre team with a mediocre owner and a clueless oaf of a GM. When they stumble into a 12-4 season, it really doesn't impress me that much. Let's see it twice in a row for the first time in 20 years.

And that's the memo.

 

[ThoughtExperiment]

Totally agree, Dooms, but I don't think Junk was really giving those two credit, except for getting out of the way more.

 

[Sheik]

Jesus Christ, I officially hate this season now.

What has this team had, 5 good to pretty good years over the last 18+ years?

Two playoff wins? Pardon me if I'm not falling over myself eager to give Jerry or Jason credit.

 

[Sheik]

Hey, and let's get this coach guy a 5 year deal, he obviously deserves it. Just make sure nobody puts batteries in his headset.

He can't manage a game, but he can recite the shit out of meaningful passages from Dr. Seuss books.

 

[Doomsday]

Totally agree, Dooms, but I don't think Junk was really giving those two credit, except for getting out of the way more.

Right, I was being a snark with that part.

 

[ThoughtExperiment]

Hey, and let's get this coach guy a 5 year deal, he obviously deserves it. Just make sure nobody puts batteries in his headset.

He can't manage a game, but he can recite the shit out of meaningful passages from Dr. Seuss books.

Six mil a year for making Jerry comfortable. Good work if you can get it.

 

[Doomsday]

It's grim, fellas.

 

[jnday]

Jesus Christ, I officially hate this season now.

What has this team had, 5 good to pretty good years over the last 18+ years?

Two playoff wins? Pardon me if I'm not falling over myself eager to give Jerry or Jason credit.

I agree. Callahan sure came out looking good this year considering that two years ago his coaching helped set records for all time rushing lows in team history. This was after he hand picked talent like Livings and Bernadeau. Last season, Pollack had the line headed in the right direction while Callahan was busy calling plays and doing OC duties. I think Pollack will do a better job than Callahan. Considering the first round talent on the line, I could coach that group and do a decent job.

 

[Doomsday]

And all the "well nobody expected them to go 12-4" stuff? Give it a fucking rest. There's damn good and valid REASONS why nobody expected 12-4 and I won't name names, but their initials are JJ and JG and everything that comes with them.

Of COURSE nobody expected 12-4. Nobody expects the fucking blind squirrel to find the acorn either. That he oops, does, doesn't mean shit. It doesn't mean all the naysayers were wrong. It simply means that hey oh look, isn't this cute - the fucking blind squirrel found a acorn!

 

[Rock Slamdance]

I've enjoyed watching the mental breakdown of Dooms.

 

[Doomsday]

I've enjoyed watching the mental breakdown of Dooms.

Crazy like a Fox.

 

[Doomsday]

We live in a world where 7-9 next year wouldn't really surprise anyone. Anyone that is, who's honest.

 

[ThoughtExperiment]

Jnday, I give Callahan credit because he's shown to have great lines at several teams now, not just here. And he did reportedly have a big hand, probably was the main guy, in drafting Frederick. As for Livings and Berny, I doubt he ever believed they were great players, but what are you going to do when Jerry says here's x dollars you can spend on the OL and that x is a way-too-small number?

And to what Dooms said, yeah. The "This team was picked 5-11!" crowd can't honestly say a team with six All-Pros, with a top QB and good health, is a 5-11 team. So next year when people pick us as Superbowl winners and we go 10-6 or 9-7, are people going to say it was a shitty year? Doubt it. Most will probably claim it was just bad luck.

Of course this board is smarter than that, which is why it's great.

 

[Sheik]

The best breakdown I ever seen was this retarded kid when the soda machine ate his dollar.

Talk about the world ending.