Absolutely.
Listen... this success is nothing. It's really nothing. In the end, Garrett is a clueless bastard and Jerry is an egomaniac without any idea of what he's doing. Enjoy this 4-1 because this season ends in a crash and burn someway, somehow. And next season will likely be another circus.
As long as Jason is the coach and Jerry is alive, the Dallas Cowboys are like a heroin addict. 2016 represents the time in a heroin addicts life where they tell their family they're clean, they get a job, things are really looking up!!!!! But they'll be back on the dust eventually. We're all just waiting with baited breath until it happens.
I'll be perfectly honest... I'm not even a fan of this team anymore. I'm a fan of Dez. Fan of Witten. Fan of Dak and Elliott. A few more guys probably. But ultimately this team has been a clown show for so long that my loyalty has been broken. Which says a lot if you knew what kind of fan I was not even that long ago.
Middy is right in a lot of ways. I was riding high on the team while the play calling and running game were one step of the Bengals and ready to both put points on the board and run the clock into the 4th quarter.
Suddenly this Dallas team, facing the Bengals, went backward into 2010-2012 where games just disintegrated right before our eyes when the coach had no idea how to manage a game; no idea how to vary a gameplan; no idea how to dictate to the defense; and no idea how to finish. The team was carrying dominating momentum of basically a running, ball control and high percentage pass play offense and then somebody decides to stop the play designs that had got them to that point.
They go into an offense that Jason Garrett has destroyed Dallas's chances of winning with for years. He abandons the strength and the leverage of the formations and play action and just shows the Bengals that we are going to pass the ball. Pressure and sack at will.
Why do I know it's Jason Garrett? First I recognize it from other years. Second because in interviews Garrett has claimed this "strategy" is "aggressive". And third, because Linehan just said in an interview during the week that in this scenario you run the ball, you don't pass.
The Green Bay Packer playoff game was similar. Dallas was leading 14-7 and driving. It was 3rd down and short. Any amount of yards gained would have either brought a first down or given Dan Bailey a good chance at a field goal. But the most important part was not allowing Green Bay to have the ball. Run the ball. Run the clock.
They passed.
They passed to a player who doesn't reach above his head to catch.
They passed to a player who has no success with high pointing a contested catch.
We watched as the player jumped, missed terribly, fell down, pretended that he was hurt and showed the team why he is unreliable.
Bailey then missed from 50, Green Bay drive and kicked a FG. Should have been at least 17-7 kicking off to a reeling Packer team.
Now the 6 point change of Dallas losing 3 and Green Bay gaining 3 showed up glaringly in the fourth quarter.
Same thing, the diversified running game was outplaying the Packer defense and instead of just playing for the first down, the game came down to what Steve Young criticized as a desperate "50-50 bubblegum" pass.
Why?
If you watched the momentum shift in the Bengal game, there was a chance that the Bengals would be down 28-7 going into the fourth quarter. Their second TD also gave them enough time to just need two scores to tie.
This is not what Linehan said in his interview.
This was a head coach interfering with the game because he is determined that his "system" that he continues to impose is not a failure.
Middy is right because this last game showed that at any given moment Jason can impose his idiocy and lose the games.
This Packer game is going to tell a lot. Dom has beaten Jason every single time. Wade was fired when Romo was getting thrown around and Capers said the success of the Packers was based on predictable OFFENSIVE plays.
Last year, the Dallas offense was stalled and could only score 14 points. Jerry concluded it was the defenses fault. That they "had a chance to get momentum back by getting to Rodgers but they couldn't tackle him". Can you imagine Parcells saying "14 points was enough and although they had more points than us and our offense was not scoring, the blame goes to the defense for the offense not scoring".
That's where Middy is right.