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By Jennifer Floyd Engel
jenfloyd@ star-telegram.com
IRVING -- Being coach of the Cowboys has to be a confusing proposition on so many levels, starting on Day 1 when signing on is tantamount to agreeing to defer all football decisions to the guy least qualified to make them.
Welcome to Jerry Jones' Cowboys.
Please keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times, and prepare for a bumpy ride.
And yet a guy considered by many NFL types to be an up-and-comer, Jason Garrett, wants the job anyway. He wanted to be Cowboys coach so badly that a couple of years ago he turned down opportunities to take his talents to Baltimore and elsewhere to stay in Dallas and be Coach-In-Waiting, or Co-Coach, or whatever his actual title was.
OK, so maybe he's not all genius.
His chance came seven weeks ago, when things had grown so ugly, so unruly that Owner Jones had to go back on his intent and change coaches midseason. It was billed as an audition for The Redheaded Genius but really amounted to a dare.
Try turning this around, genius. I dare you.
Prevailing wisdom was he had to rack up Ws to stay, which is standard operating procedure in the league. He has won, more than anybody expected, turning the Cowboys into a semi-respectable football operation, and he's being ripped for not losing.
I cannot make this up. E-mailers flooded my inbox with this nonsense. And when I called it "junk science," they offered up testimonials from my media brethren spreading the gospel of losing.
Blessed are the losers for they shall inherit the draft picks.
The caveat was nobody really blames JG.
"No truth at all," Jason Garrett said when I asked Monday if he'd be handling player deployment differently if the job were his.
So even if they were to put the medal around your neck and crown on your head and call you King Cowboy Coach, I asked?
"The goal every day is to put your best foot forward and to be your best," JG said. "That's an important thing for anybody, whether you are a coach or a player, a football team or whether you are a person in life. And that's what we are going to continue to do."
I believe him, and he is 100 percent right when it comes to this team.
These Cowboys have done plenty of losing. And as far as I can tell, it has done very little for them. They lost way more under Dave Campo and how exactly did all of those high draft picks work out for them?
They were traded away for Joey Galloway, and frittered away on Quincy Carter, and recently on a 2009 draft class that is almost to a man unemployed.
Or look at Detroit and Oakland, if the Cowboys' situation does not spell it out enough. Just because you draft high in this league does not mean you draft well, that usually requires a real-deal football guy, or for Jerry Jones to blind-squirrel his way into a Dez Bryant.
They did not get Dez because they drafted high. They got him because they drafted smart. This is not typical.
About the only thing sillier than exhorting JG to lose is this idea that somehow he is holding back this cadre of young talent secretly hidden on the inactive list.
Who exactly? I want a name and preferably not Barry Church's.
All I heard for weeks was how we needed to see safety Barry Church. Play Church. What about Church? Barry Church, Barry Church, Barry Church. I had not seen a second of Barry Church practice time, and thus was intrigued to see this player so clamored for by those who had.
And, after Sunday, I am pretty sure I do not need to see that again, or at least not without parental guidance.
Is it not possible that maybe what these guys are showing in practice is enough for JG to say, "Yeah, Gerald Sensabaugh is having a rough year but he is better than Church," or enough to deduce Stephen McGee and Sam Young are not in fact better than what they have playing.
Players were rightfully dropped in the grease for quitting on the coach, and now we admonish the coach for not quitting on the players. And that is exactly the message JG would be sending to this Cowboys locker room if he went to the all-tank squad against Arizona and Philly.
"Hey, guys, thanks for buying into my whole culture change deal, about playing with pride and winning mattering. Just kidding, please say hello to Stephen McGee."
JG asked them to fight for him, and they have. He asked them not to give up, and they haven't. He asked Bradie James to play with bumps and bruises, and he has. He has told his players winning matters, and they followed his lead. He asked Jon Kitna to lead his team, and he led them to four wins, including Sunday's against Washington.
JG would be a fraud in this locker room if he backed up on this now.
Being the coach of the Cowboys is a confusing proposition, for sure. What JG has to know is, when you sign on, the only thing you will for sure to have control over is the locker room, how they view you and do they play for you.
And this is way more valuable than finding out that Barry Church is just a guy, or hoping the least-qualified guy chooses the right guy at No. 5 instead of No. 10.
jenfloyd@ star-telegram.com
IRVING -- Being coach of the Cowboys has to be a confusing proposition on so many levels, starting on Day 1 when signing on is tantamount to agreeing to defer all football decisions to the guy least qualified to make them.
Welcome to Jerry Jones' Cowboys.
Please keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times, and prepare for a bumpy ride.
And yet a guy considered by many NFL types to be an up-and-comer, Jason Garrett, wants the job anyway. He wanted to be Cowboys coach so badly that a couple of years ago he turned down opportunities to take his talents to Baltimore and elsewhere to stay in Dallas and be Coach-In-Waiting, or Co-Coach, or whatever his actual title was.
OK, so maybe he's not all genius.
His chance came seven weeks ago, when things had grown so ugly, so unruly that Owner Jones had to go back on his intent and change coaches midseason. It was billed as an audition for The Redheaded Genius but really amounted to a dare.
Try turning this around, genius. I dare you.
Prevailing wisdom was he had to rack up Ws to stay, which is standard operating procedure in the league. He has won, more than anybody expected, turning the Cowboys into a semi-respectable football operation, and he's being ripped for not losing.
I cannot make this up. E-mailers flooded my inbox with this nonsense. And when I called it "junk science," they offered up testimonials from my media brethren spreading the gospel of losing.
Blessed are the losers for they shall inherit the draft picks.
The caveat was nobody really blames JG.
"No truth at all," Jason Garrett said when I asked Monday if he'd be handling player deployment differently if the job were his.
So even if they were to put the medal around your neck and crown on your head and call you King Cowboy Coach, I asked?
"The goal every day is to put your best foot forward and to be your best," JG said. "That's an important thing for anybody, whether you are a coach or a player, a football team or whether you are a person in life. And that's what we are going to continue to do."
I believe him, and he is 100 percent right when it comes to this team.
These Cowboys have done plenty of losing. And as far as I can tell, it has done very little for them. They lost way more under Dave Campo and how exactly did all of those high draft picks work out for them?
They were traded away for Joey Galloway, and frittered away on Quincy Carter, and recently on a 2009 draft class that is almost to a man unemployed.
Or look at Detroit and Oakland, if the Cowboys' situation does not spell it out enough. Just because you draft high in this league does not mean you draft well, that usually requires a real-deal football guy, or for Jerry Jones to blind-squirrel his way into a Dez Bryant.
They did not get Dez because they drafted high. They got him because they drafted smart. This is not typical.
About the only thing sillier than exhorting JG to lose is this idea that somehow he is holding back this cadre of young talent secretly hidden on the inactive list.
Who exactly? I want a name and preferably not Barry Church's.
All I heard for weeks was how we needed to see safety Barry Church. Play Church. What about Church? Barry Church, Barry Church, Barry Church. I had not seen a second of Barry Church practice time, and thus was intrigued to see this player so clamored for by those who had.
And, after Sunday, I am pretty sure I do not need to see that again, or at least not without parental guidance.
Is it not possible that maybe what these guys are showing in practice is enough for JG to say, "Yeah, Gerald Sensabaugh is having a rough year but he is better than Church," or enough to deduce Stephen McGee and Sam Young are not in fact better than what they have playing.
Players were rightfully dropped in the grease for quitting on the coach, and now we admonish the coach for not quitting on the players. And that is exactly the message JG would be sending to this Cowboys locker room if he went to the all-tank squad against Arizona and Philly.
"Hey, guys, thanks for buying into my whole culture change deal, about playing with pride and winning mattering. Just kidding, please say hello to Stephen McGee."
JG asked them to fight for him, and they have. He asked them not to give up, and they haven't. He asked Bradie James to play with bumps and bruises, and he has. He has told his players winning matters, and they followed his lead. He asked Jon Kitna to lead his team, and he led them to four wins, including Sunday's against Washington.
JG would be a fraud in this locker room if he backed up on this now.
Being the coach of the Cowboys is a confusing proposition, for sure. What JG has to know is, when you sign on, the only thing you will for sure to have control over is the locker room, how they view you and do they play for you.
And this is way more valuable than finding out that Barry Church is just a guy, or hoping the least-qualified guy chooses the right guy at No. 5 instead of No. 10.
