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Jason Garrett interview transcript
Posted by Mike Florio on May 10, 2011, 8:38 AM EDT
Editor's note: Cowboys coach Jason Garrett joined PFT Live on Monday. He touched on so many interesting topics that we decided to transcribe the entire interview. So here it is.
MF: Coach, thanks for taking some time.
JG: Thank you Mike, thanks for having us on.
MF: So, what’s going on down there? I mean, we’re 8-9 days removed from the draft and we’re back in the lockout. Anything happening?
JG: Well, you know, it was awfully lonely on Monday after the draft. You know, typically you finish up over the weekend and you’re excited about having your rookies come in typically the following week and you’re excited about getting practice schedules together and talking about how everyone is going to fit together and you know, it was pretty quiet on that Monday. So, I guess what you do more than anything else is wrap up the draft, you have those discussion about how things went and you know, you start doing some offseason opponent stuff and your really doing a lot of things you would do in a shorter period of time and you’re just stretching it out over the week, over the course of the offseason because typically we would have the players in now.
MF: There was an unnamed head coach who told Peter King of SI.com before the draft that Andy Dalton’s red hair could be a red flag at the quarterback position. Is it safe to say that you are not the source for that report?
JG: I think it’s fairly safe, you know, the red heads continue to try to stick together and find their way in the world. So, I was definitely on Dalton’s side.
MF: So you didn’t feel compelled to dye your hair coming out of Princeton. You still got your 15 years in pro football and really have had — it’s amazing how quickly you’ve risen through the ranks as a coach. Just a couple years in Miami as a quarterbacks coach before coming to Dallas as an offensive coordinator and the team had a big year in 2009, your third year in that position but things kind of went backward in 2010. And I was intrigued by comments made this year by Paul Pasqualoni, who was on the staff last year he’s now the head coach of Connecticut. He suggested there was maybe some complacency in the locker room in 2010 after that great 2009 season. Do you think there’s any validity to Pasqualoni’s observation?
JG: First of all, I have tremendous respect for Paul. I think he’s one of the best people and coaches I’ve ever been around in my life in the NFL. So, I respect his opinions immensely. I think something everyone guards against when you’ve had some success is maybe if it’s not complacency it’s somehow staying on the exact road that you’ve been on because you feel like you’ve been successful doing things that way and I believe we all know as individual players and coaches and as teams that you have to constantly continue to challenge yourself as much as you can. And I believe that we were trying to do that. We certainly weren’t doing it as effectively as we needed to and I used that word “challenge” because I think the best thing about the NFL for players, coaches, and for teams is that. You get challenged each and every week every time you come off the football and every game that you play. So we understand the importance of that and for whatever reason we didn’t get off to a great start and we didn’t accept those challenges that we had and we put ourselves in a hole.
MF: Denny Green, former Vikings and Cardinals coach, used to call it that “valley of zero and zero” to come back from a good season to go back to that “from scratch” position where you’re starting all over again, where you got to prove yourself again. And I have to think that after you’ve had a bad season, maybe you’ll welcome that chance to get a clean slate. Are you hoping that last year’s experience will be kind of a kick in the pants for the veteran players who are still there?
JG: Well, again, I think everyone believed that they were working as hard as possible, practicing as hard as possible, getting themselves prepared as can be, but unfortunately, we didn’t get off to a good start and it kind of snowballed. I do agree with what Coach Green says though. You can have the exact same coaching staff come back, you can have the exact same group of players come back but regardless, once you go to training camp it’s a new football team. The chemistry changed, the dynamics changed. You have to understand that and you have to really build from ground zero each and every year.
MF: The season is scheduled to get started on September 11 with the Cowboys going to the Jets playing in primetime on NBC by the way. Coach Rex Ryan told us last week that he thinks there is no doubt that game is going to be played. What’s your feeling? What’s your gut feeling on whether or not that game goes forward in light of the lockout?
JG: Well, our approach has always been that there is going to be football and we have to prepare for football. Clearly, the offseason has been a little bit different at this point but regardless of what situation we’re in, what circumstance we’re in. Everyone individually and us collectively need to get ourselves ready knowing were going to play that game, and again, typically the players are out at Valley Ranch were doing OTA’s, were involved in minicamps, all those things, and that’s been different, but that can’t change your mindset. You cant relax in any way and say, “Well this is going to be a different kind of year.” There’s going to be football At some point, there’s going to be football and we need to be ready to play it. And certainly, for us, the Cowboys, it’s a great challenge to go up to New York and play that football team.
MF: Coach, assuming we do have football Week One with the Cowboys at the Jets on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, how much time do you need at a minimum, you know, from the standpoint of opening the doors and having the opportunity to get ready for that game. How much time, bare minimum, to get a team ready?
JG: Well, we have training camp for a reason and years ago training camp was a lot longer. It was six weeks and there were six preseason games and all of that. So, we’ve shortened this process over the course of a number of years. But it is important to have it. Its important to have time prior to the live bullets because for no other reason than the health and safety of the players. It’s a physical sport we play. It’s a demanding sport that we play and to put those guys out there before they’re ready I think is a really dangerous situation. So, however many weeks you want to call it, in my mind, it’s got to be a minimum of three weeks. There has to be some kind of competitive situation before you go play that first live regular-season game you need some kind of preseason type action just to get everybody acclimated because anybody who’s been around this game know how fast and physical this game is played and to put players out there before they’re ready to do it I think is a big mistake.
MF: Packers linebacker A.J. Hawk very recently had some harsh comments about the value of the player-led workouts, that it’s really not doing anything to get the players ready to play. What’s your view on whether or not it’s valuable for the players to be out there trying to do things on their own? There are a lot of Cowboys who’ve been together working out very recently. Do you think that’s going to have any value or is that not a substitute for getting players back into the facility?
JG: I don’t think it’s the same, but I definitely think there are some benefits to doing it.
The time that you spend with your teammates out on the practice field, by yourself working out is really invaluable. The relationships you develop, the camaraderie and the cohesion that forms is really critical, and we encourage that with our players in a typical offseason. Spend some time after practice, spend some time doing things on your own with your teammates. We believe that’s an important part of the process. It’s obviously more important this year when we’re not having the time we’d typically have at Valley Ranch. So, I don’t think it’s the same but I do think it’s important and it’s important to have the kind of guys who have the willingness to do that and understand to try to get themselves ready. This is the time of year for running and lifting and getting your body right, but as this offseason continues you have to start getting into a little football mentality too. So, we believe its an important thing.
MF: Coach, one of the big changes this year is the shift from Wade Phillips’ 3-4 defense to the Rob Ryan 3-4 defense and even though it’s the same alignment, the same basic defense, what changes, what differences can we expect to see between those two attacks?
JG: One of the interesting things about the 3-4 defense is that there are so many different way to play it and you know, the Pittsburgh Steelers have their way of playing it and the New England Pats play it a certain way, San Diego plays it a certain way. The defense we play here in Dallas is played a certain way. So there are a lot of little nuances with how the people in the front seven align and how they play their different techniques. Some teams are more two-gapped; some teams are more one-gapped in playing it. So, when you look around the league and people make that blanket statement about 3-4 teams, its not always quite the same and certainly Rob, when he comes in, will bring his style of 3-4 defense based on the experiences he’s had. Four years as a linebackers coach up in New England and then how he played it in a couple of different spots in Oakland and in Cleveland. He brings a certain thing to the table and we’re excited about that. It is that same 3-4 structure but there will be some nuances.
MF: There was a perception when Wade Phillips was coach that he ran the defense and you ran the offense. Is that how it will be going forward? Are you just going to let Rob handle the defense and your going to focus on the offense?
JG: Well, I’m the head coach of the football team just as Wade was and you have to take that part of your job very seriously, and certainly I will be focused on the offensive side of the ball, that’s what I have done, but you are the head coach of the entire team so I think a bad chemistry on a football team is when you start saying, “Hey he’s the head coach of one side and he’s the head coach of the other side.” We’re all in this together and we all have different responsibilities and my number one responsibility is to be the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys. One of the reasons that Rob was so attractive to us is because I think he understands the concept of team really well and understands the idea that were all doing this together. We’re working together and we do have different responsibilities but we’re going to work on those responsibilities in a way that tries to help us be the best team we can be, and I think he understands that and everyone in our organization understands that. The job description of being the head coach, that’s my number one job.
MF: The on-field leader of your offense continues to be quarterback Tony Romo. Now, earlier this off-season, tight end Martellus Bennett raised some eyebrows by suggesting there should be a competition between Romo and John Kitna. What was your reaction when you heard that from Martellus Bennett?
JG: We like competition throughout our football team and we certainly like it at the quarterback position as well as every position. At the tight end spot, offensive spot, offensive/defensive line, the runners, receivers, running backs and the cover guys. We believe that’s an important component and important dynamic to have in a good football team. To have each and every day come out and compete against the guy across from you but also with the guy next to you. To earn the time you have, or the particular role you have on our football team and that goes from the number one guy on our team to all the way to 53 and throughout training camp and all the way to number 80. So we think that’s important. So Martellus is dead-on about that and were going to that throughout our football team. Tony has done a great job competing and if you ask me one of that traits that really makes Tony the player that he is, is that desire to compete. You know, if you watch him practice, really throughout the training camp, the preseason and during the regular season, he’s a tremendous competitor. He loves it, and I don’t have any real concerns about Tony and his desire to compete in anything that he does.
MF: As we speak, Tony Romo is doing something that I may end up doing this month if this lockout continues, which is playing golf. He is, Gregg Rosenthal tells me, five over at the U.S. Open Qualifying Tournament through 11 holes. Sounds like you wont have to worry about him playing at the U.S. Open this year, but what do you think generally of how much time he spends golfing? Is there a point where that becomes a distraction in his duties as the quarterback of the Cowboys?
JG: Since I’ve been around the NFL, players love to play golf. They love to play golf in the offseason. It’s really a way for them to kind of get away from really what they’re doing at the facility or what the workouts or practices there involved in. So its always been a relief to a lot of guys in a lot of different positions. Tony just happens to be really good at it so he gets a lot of attention for it, but we probably have a lot of guys on our team that play a lot more golf than Tony does. One of the things that I like about it is that he loves to compete. You know, talking about the earlier discussion, he loves to get out there and compete in that case against people who are probably better than he is. He loves to put himself in those positions. I think he believes that one of the things that helps him as a competitor on the football field is constantly putting himself in competitive situations. We’ve never viewed it as a distraction. He’s always, you know the first guy at the building, he stays there late, he loves football, and he loves his role as quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys. He’s never shown us any reason to think that it’s a distraction in any way from what he’s doing for us with the Cowboys.
MF: You used your first round pick this year on a player who hopefully will help buy more time for Tony Romo when he’s setting up the throw, that’s Tyron Smith. He said after he was drafted that he had the potential to be a Hall of Famer. Now, some people would be concerned about confidence/brashness like that, but that’s an attitude that you welcome?
JG: Well, I think for me with Tyron, it didn’t bother me at all because I think he really was speaking of his work ethic and his approach. He’s got a great story, I don’t know how many people know but he grew up helping his parents their janitorial business. So he was a guy that from when he was really young spent a lot of time after school really into the night going around with his parents and working. So he really has a tremendous amount of respect for the value of hard work and what that can bring him in his life and we think that’s important. We like confident people on our team. We like guys that are going to come to work everyday and really be their best. We talk a lot about the word pride and pride is really trying to be our best and everything we can do in regard to circumstance and I think that’s what Tyron was alluding to was that he was going to come in here and try to be the best Tyron Smith he could be for the Dallas Cowboys. And he believes he can be one of the elite players for that position and we drafted him too. So we’re excited about his approach.
MF: And, Coach, the chances of getting to Canton for any tackle are much greater if you’re playing the left side. Where do you see Smith long term? Left side or right side? I know there are different schools of thought on where he’s going to be.
JG: Yes, there are. There’s been a discussion that we’ve had. We feel like he’s certainly has the attributes and traits to be a left tackle in this league. His experience at USC over the last couple of years has been as a right tackle and we feel great about how Doug Free played for us at left tackle last year. So, he’s a young guy, there’s been discussion about plugging him in on the right side and just letting him do that and get himself acclimated to the transition he’ll have to make to the NFL. Like we do with all of our lineman throughout training camp, we try to put them in different spots and to see how they feel in different stances, how they feel making the different blocks, and how the combinations of the offensive line work together. He’ll have equal opportunity at both sides , we’ll just see how it plays out.
MF: Another one of your draft picks is creating some buzz. DeMarco Murray, third rounder from Oklahoma, there was talk that he may come in as the number one guy when the season starts. Is there any chance of that happening, Murray being at the top of a pretty good depth chart at running back?
JG: Well, we like DeMarco Murray. We like what he brings to the table. He’s a versatile back. He’s a guy who’s shown he can run the football. He’s been a productive receiver and also been very good as third-down as a receiver out of the backfield. But maybe more importantly, as a blocker. He seems to have a really good understanding of protection and not only who to block, but how to block them. So, we really liked his versatility. We liked the kind of young man that he is and he certainly has been a productive player. So back to the earlier discussion about competition, we feel like that’s a competitive position for us and we like that. We like guys who are competing for time and for touches We think that’s a good thing. That’s how we’ve done it in the past and DeMarco will be apart of that mix this year.
MF: And I assume that means that going forward, the approach to the running game is going to be the same as its been in recent years and the Cowboys have been at the forefront of this trend. Not just two guys but three guys having regular opportunities to come in and get their hands on the football. Are you going to continue using a rotation plan going forward?
JG: Yes, we believe and I think the league is showing this now that there are very few teams that have the one back that gets it 30 times a game. The days of Emmitt Smith carrying as much as he did in the NFL seem to have gone by the wayside a little bit. But you need to have other guys come in and fill that gap. Keep them all fresh, keep them all attacking the defense. In some ways, it’s a little like teams that have great pass rushes. They seem to have more than four guys. They rotate these guys in there, and there always fresh and always attacking those offensive lineman and getting after the quarterback. We think there’s an analogy for the running back position as well and we think DeMarco can be in that mix.
MF: You know, when you took Murray with the 71st overall pick, there was a quarterback from Arkansas still on the board. Jerry Jones is an Arkansas guy. Was he lobbying at all for Ryan Mallet to be the pick there?
JG: He probably was not, although the Arkansas roots run deep. Ryan is a guy that we had a lot of respect for as a player. He throws the ball awfully well and he’s going to do a great job up there in New England for them, but when we had the chance to draft DeMarco we thought that was the best thing for our team.
MF: Receiver Dez Bryant had a difficult offseason. He still hasn’t gotten in any real trouble but he seems to find his way into the headlines for the wrong reasons. Did you get a chance to talk to him during that period of time that the lockout was lifted a couple of weeks ago?
JG: Yeah, I think that thing was lifted 24-48 hours, so we did get a chance to see a number of players and visit with a number of them who were out of town just over the phone, so he was in that mix. He seems like he’s doing better. For a lot of young guys, transitioning into the league is important for them to have structure and we feel like for Dez and other guys on our team and really throughout the NFL the importance of having an offseason program and OTA’s and all of those things really help them. It helps them get acclimated to this game, level and lifestyle. So that’s been an unfortunate byproduct of this lockout offseason for us. But he seems to be getting himself back in line and we can’t wait to get him and the team back together.
MF: There was a report last week that there was an expectation that Dez was going to show up the facility and he didn’t. Can you confirm that, or is that something that isn’t accurate?
JG: I don’t have all the details on that to be honest with you and I’d rather not visit on that but we were able to make contact with him during that time and again, just reaching out and hoping we can get this thing lifted so we can get him and the rest of the group back in action.
MF: Everybody assumes this is going to be lifted at some point, it’s just a question of when, but when you look at the fact that the dynamics seem to have taken a turn over the past six or seven weeks, things are getting a little bit nastier. Most of the owners are separated from the football operation but Jerry Jones is also the G.M. Do you have any concern that things might be a little awkward for a while after this is all over because the owner is also the G.M. of the team?
JG: Well, my experience with these kinds of things has been that everyone understands that it’s a business and when you need to get the business of football taken care of those discussions are above my pay grade. Let other people directly involved with it take care of that stuff. Our job as coaches and players and anyone involved with the football part of it is to keep it pure and get ourselves ready to play some football and whatever role or responsibility that we have and not let the business side negatively affect it in any way. So, we’re going to continue with that approach it seemed to work fine for us up to this point.
MF: Last one for you, you’re back at zero and zero. At some point the season is going to start. What can Cowboys fans expect out of the Dallas Cowboys in 2011 under Jason Garrett?
JG: Well, we’re just excited to get going. We’re excited. We did some positive things in the last half of last year and hopefully it will get us going in the right direction. We believe we have the right kind of guys on our team. We believe we’ve added more good guys in the draft. We like our coaching staff. We like our football players. We’re excited to get to work and one of the things we talk to our guys about each and every day is to simply be great today. Some people want to make bold predictions about how were going to do the season and those kind of things. That’s not the way we operate down here. Everyone understands what the goals are, what we want to do and the importance of shooting towards being the best team in the league. We all get that. But we’re going to focus on practice and hopefully put in good practice days together. We’ll have a good challenge going up to New York against the Jets in week 1 and hopefully we’ll get ourselves ready to go and put our best foot forward that week.
Posted by Mike Florio on May 10, 2011, 8:38 AM EDT
Editor's note: Cowboys coach Jason Garrett joined PFT Live on Monday. He touched on so many interesting topics that we decided to transcribe the entire interview. So here it is.
MF: Coach, thanks for taking some time.
JG: Thank you Mike, thanks for having us on.
MF: So, what’s going on down there? I mean, we’re 8-9 days removed from the draft and we’re back in the lockout. Anything happening?
JG: Well, you know, it was awfully lonely on Monday after the draft. You know, typically you finish up over the weekend and you’re excited about having your rookies come in typically the following week and you’re excited about getting practice schedules together and talking about how everyone is going to fit together and you know, it was pretty quiet on that Monday. So, I guess what you do more than anything else is wrap up the draft, you have those discussion about how things went and you know, you start doing some offseason opponent stuff and your really doing a lot of things you would do in a shorter period of time and you’re just stretching it out over the week, over the course of the offseason because typically we would have the players in now.
MF: There was an unnamed head coach who told Peter King of SI.com before the draft that Andy Dalton’s red hair could be a red flag at the quarterback position. Is it safe to say that you are not the source for that report?
JG: I think it’s fairly safe, you know, the red heads continue to try to stick together and find their way in the world. So, I was definitely on Dalton’s side.
MF: So you didn’t feel compelled to dye your hair coming out of Princeton. You still got your 15 years in pro football and really have had — it’s amazing how quickly you’ve risen through the ranks as a coach. Just a couple years in Miami as a quarterbacks coach before coming to Dallas as an offensive coordinator and the team had a big year in 2009, your third year in that position but things kind of went backward in 2010. And I was intrigued by comments made this year by Paul Pasqualoni, who was on the staff last year he’s now the head coach of Connecticut. He suggested there was maybe some complacency in the locker room in 2010 after that great 2009 season. Do you think there’s any validity to Pasqualoni’s observation?
JG: First of all, I have tremendous respect for Paul. I think he’s one of the best people and coaches I’ve ever been around in my life in the NFL. So, I respect his opinions immensely. I think something everyone guards against when you’ve had some success is maybe if it’s not complacency it’s somehow staying on the exact road that you’ve been on because you feel like you’ve been successful doing things that way and I believe we all know as individual players and coaches and as teams that you have to constantly continue to challenge yourself as much as you can. And I believe that we were trying to do that. We certainly weren’t doing it as effectively as we needed to and I used that word “challenge” because I think the best thing about the NFL for players, coaches, and for teams is that. You get challenged each and every week every time you come off the football and every game that you play. So we understand the importance of that and for whatever reason we didn’t get off to a great start and we didn’t accept those challenges that we had and we put ourselves in a hole.
MF: Denny Green, former Vikings and Cardinals coach, used to call it that “valley of zero and zero” to come back from a good season to go back to that “from scratch” position where you’re starting all over again, where you got to prove yourself again. And I have to think that after you’ve had a bad season, maybe you’ll welcome that chance to get a clean slate. Are you hoping that last year’s experience will be kind of a kick in the pants for the veteran players who are still there?
JG: Well, again, I think everyone believed that they were working as hard as possible, practicing as hard as possible, getting themselves prepared as can be, but unfortunately, we didn’t get off to a good start and it kind of snowballed. I do agree with what Coach Green says though. You can have the exact same coaching staff come back, you can have the exact same group of players come back but regardless, once you go to training camp it’s a new football team. The chemistry changed, the dynamics changed. You have to understand that and you have to really build from ground zero each and every year.
MF: The season is scheduled to get started on September 11 with the Cowboys going to the Jets playing in primetime on NBC by the way. Coach Rex Ryan told us last week that he thinks there is no doubt that game is going to be played. What’s your feeling? What’s your gut feeling on whether or not that game goes forward in light of the lockout?
JG: Well, our approach has always been that there is going to be football and we have to prepare for football. Clearly, the offseason has been a little bit different at this point but regardless of what situation we’re in, what circumstance we’re in. Everyone individually and us collectively need to get ourselves ready knowing were going to play that game, and again, typically the players are out at Valley Ranch were doing OTA’s, were involved in minicamps, all those things, and that’s been different, but that can’t change your mindset. You cant relax in any way and say, “Well this is going to be a different kind of year.” There’s going to be football At some point, there’s going to be football and we need to be ready to play it. And certainly, for us, the Cowboys, it’s a great challenge to go up to New York and play that football team.
MF: Coach, assuming we do have football Week One with the Cowboys at the Jets on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, how much time do you need at a minimum, you know, from the standpoint of opening the doors and having the opportunity to get ready for that game. How much time, bare minimum, to get a team ready?
JG: Well, we have training camp for a reason and years ago training camp was a lot longer. It was six weeks and there were six preseason games and all of that. So, we’ve shortened this process over the course of a number of years. But it is important to have it. Its important to have time prior to the live bullets because for no other reason than the health and safety of the players. It’s a physical sport we play. It’s a demanding sport that we play and to put those guys out there before they’re ready I think is a really dangerous situation. So, however many weeks you want to call it, in my mind, it’s got to be a minimum of three weeks. There has to be some kind of competitive situation before you go play that first live regular-season game you need some kind of preseason type action just to get everybody acclimated because anybody who’s been around this game know how fast and physical this game is played and to put players out there before they’re ready to do it I think is a big mistake.
MF: Packers linebacker A.J. Hawk very recently had some harsh comments about the value of the player-led workouts, that it’s really not doing anything to get the players ready to play. What’s your view on whether or not it’s valuable for the players to be out there trying to do things on their own? There are a lot of Cowboys who’ve been together working out very recently. Do you think that’s going to have any value or is that not a substitute for getting players back into the facility?
JG: I don’t think it’s the same, but I definitely think there are some benefits to doing it.
The time that you spend with your teammates out on the practice field, by yourself working out is really invaluable. The relationships you develop, the camaraderie and the cohesion that forms is really critical, and we encourage that with our players in a typical offseason. Spend some time after practice, spend some time doing things on your own with your teammates. We believe that’s an important part of the process. It’s obviously more important this year when we’re not having the time we’d typically have at Valley Ranch. So, I don’t think it’s the same but I do think it’s important and it’s important to have the kind of guys who have the willingness to do that and understand to try to get themselves ready. This is the time of year for running and lifting and getting your body right, but as this offseason continues you have to start getting into a little football mentality too. So, we believe its an important thing.
MF: Coach, one of the big changes this year is the shift from Wade Phillips’ 3-4 defense to the Rob Ryan 3-4 defense and even though it’s the same alignment, the same basic defense, what changes, what differences can we expect to see between those two attacks?
JG: One of the interesting things about the 3-4 defense is that there are so many different way to play it and you know, the Pittsburgh Steelers have their way of playing it and the New England Pats play it a certain way, San Diego plays it a certain way. The defense we play here in Dallas is played a certain way. So there are a lot of little nuances with how the people in the front seven align and how they play their different techniques. Some teams are more two-gapped; some teams are more one-gapped in playing it. So, when you look around the league and people make that blanket statement about 3-4 teams, its not always quite the same and certainly Rob, when he comes in, will bring his style of 3-4 defense based on the experiences he’s had. Four years as a linebackers coach up in New England and then how he played it in a couple of different spots in Oakland and in Cleveland. He brings a certain thing to the table and we’re excited about that. It is that same 3-4 structure but there will be some nuances.
MF: There was a perception when Wade Phillips was coach that he ran the defense and you ran the offense. Is that how it will be going forward? Are you just going to let Rob handle the defense and your going to focus on the offense?
JG: Well, I’m the head coach of the football team just as Wade was and you have to take that part of your job very seriously, and certainly I will be focused on the offensive side of the ball, that’s what I have done, but you are the head coach of the entire team so I think a bad chemistry on a football team is when you start saying, “Hey he’s the head coach of one side and he’s the head coach of the other side.” We’re all in this together and we all have different responsibilities and my number one responsibility is to be the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys. One of the reasons that Rob was so attractive to us is because I think he understands the concept of team really well and understands the idea that were all doing this together. We’re working together and we do have different responsibilities but we’re going to work on those responsibilities in a way that tries to help us be the best team we can be, and I think he understands that and everyone in our organization understands that. The job description of being the head coach, that’s my number one job.
MF: The on-field leader of your offense continues to be quarterback Tony Romo. Now, earlier this off-season, tight end Martellus Bennett raised some eyebrows by suggesting there should be a competition between Romo and John Kitna. What was your reaction when you heard that from Martellus Bennett?
JG: We like competition throughout our football team and we certainly like it at the quarterback position as well as every position. At the tight end spot, offensive spot, offensive/defensive line, the runners, receivers, running backs and the cover guys. We believe that’s an important component and important dynamic to have in a good football team. To have each and every day come out and compete against the guy across from you but also with the guy next to you. To earn the time you have, or the particular role you have on our football team and that goes from the number one guy on our team to all the way to 53 and throughout training camp and all the way to number 80. So we think that’s important. So Martellus is dead-on about that and were going to that throughout our football team. Tony has done a great job competing and if you ask me one of that traits that really makes Tony the player that he is, is that desire to compete. You know, if you watch him practice, really throughout the training camp, the preseason and during the regular season, he’s a tremendous competitor. He loves it, and I don’t have any real concerns about Tony and his desire to compete in anything that he does.
MF: As we speak, Tony Romo is doing something that I may end up doing this month if this lockout continues, which is playing golf. He is, Gregg Rosenthal tells me, five over at the U.S. Open Qualifying Tournament through 11 holes. Sounds like you wont have to worry about him playing at the U.S. Open this year, but what do you think generally of how much time he spends golfing? Is there a point where that becomes a distraction in his duties as the quarterback of the Cowboys?
JG: Since I’ve been around the NFL, players love to play golf. They love to play golf in the offseason. It’s really a way for them to kind of get away from really what they’re doing at the facility or what the workouts or practices there involved in. So its always been a relief to a lot of guys in a lot of different positions. Tony just happens to be really good at it so he gets a lot of attention for it, but we probably have a lot of guys on our team that play a lot more golf than Tony does. One of the things that I like about it is that he loves to compete. You know, talking about the earlier discussion, he loves to get out there and compete in that case against people who are probably better than he is. He loves to put himself in those positions. I think he believes that one of the things that helps him as a competitor on the football field is constantly putting himself in competitive situations. We’ve never viewed it as a distraction. He’s always, you know the first guy at the building, he stays there late, he loves football, and he loves his role as quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys. He’s never shown us any reason to think that it’s a distraction in any way from what he’s doing for us with the Cowboys.
MF: You used your first round pick this year on a player who hopefully will help buy more time for Tony Romo when he’s setting up the throw, that’s Tyron Smith. He said after he was drafted that he had the potential to be a Hall of Famer. Now, some people would be concerned about confidence/brashness like that, but that’s an attitude that you welcome?
JG: Well, I think for me with Tyron, it didn’t bother me at all because I think he really was speaking of his work ethic and his approach. He’s got a great story, I don’t know how many people know but he grew up helping his parents their janitorial business. So he was a guy that from when he was really young spent a lot of time after school really into the night going around with his parents and working. So he really has a tremendous amount of respect for the value of hard work and what that can bring him in his life and we think that’s important. We like confident people on our team. We like guys that are going to come to work everyday and really be their best. We talk a lot about the word pride and pride is really trying to be our best and everything we can do in regard to circumstance and I think that’s what Tyron was alluding to was that he was going to come in here and try to be the best Tyron Smith he could be for the Dallas Cowboys. And he believes he can be one of the elite players for that position and we drafted him too. So we’re excited about his approach.
MF: And, Coach, the chances of getting to Canton for any tackle are much greater if you’re playing the left side. Where do you see Smith long term? Left side or right side? I know there are different schools of thought on where he’s going to be.
JG: Yes, there are. There’s been a discussion that we’ve had. We feel like he’s certainly has the attributes and traits to be a left tackle in this league. His experience at USC over the last couple of years has been as a right tackle and we feel great about how Doug Free played for us at left tackle last year. So, he’s a young guy, there’s been discussion about plugging him in on the right side and just letting him do that and get himself acclimated to the transition he’ll have to make to the NFL. Like we do with all of our lineman throughout training camp, we try to put them in different spots and to see how they feel in different stances, how they feel making the different blocks, and how the combinations of the offensive line work together. He’ll have equal opportunity at both sides , we’ll just see how it plays out.
MF: Another one of your draft picks is creating some buzz. DeMarco Murray, third rounder from Oklahoma, there was talk that he may come in as the number one guy when the season starts. Is there any chance of that happening, Murray being at the top of a pretty good depth chart at running back?
JG: Well, we like DeMarco Murray. We like what he brings to the table. He’s a versatile back. He’s a guy who’s shown he can run the football. He’s been a productive receiver and also been very good as third-down as a receiver out of the backfield. But maybe more importantly, as a blocker. He seems to have a really good understanding of protection and not only who to block, but how to block them. So, we really liked his versatility. We liked the kind of young man that he is and he certainly has been a productive player. So back to the earlier discussion about competition, we feel like that’s a competitive position for us and we like that. We like guys who are competing for time and for touches We think that’s a good thing. That’s how we’ve done it in the past and DeMarco will be apart of that mix this year.
MF: And I assume that means that going forward, the approach to the running game is going to be the same as its been in recent years and the Cowboys have been at the forefront of this trend. Not just two guys but three guys having regular opportunities to come in and get their hands on the football. Are you going to continue using a rotation plan going forward?
JG: Yes, we believe and I think the league is showing this now that there are very few teams that have the one back that gets it 30 times a game. The days of Emmitt Smith carrying as much as he did in the NFL seem to have gone by the wayside a little bit. But you need to have other guys come in and fill that gap. Keep them all fresh, keep them all attacking the defense. In some ways, it’s a little like teams that have great pass rushes. They seem to have more than four guys. They rotate these guys in there, and there always fresh and always attacking those offensive lineman and getting after the quarterback. We think there’s an analogy for the running back position as well and we think DeMarco can be in that mix.
MF: You know, when you took Murray with the 71st overall pick, there was a quarterback from Arkansas still on the board. Jerry Jones is an Arkansas guy. Was he lobbying at all for Ryan Mallet to be the pick there?
JG: He probably was not, although the Arkansas roots run deep. Ryan is a guy that we had a lot of respect for as a player. He throws the ball awfully well and he’s going to do a great job up there in New England for them, but when we had the chance to draft DeMarco we thought that was the best thing for our team.
MF: Receiver Dez Bryant had a difficult offseason. He still hasn’t gotten in any real trouble but he seems to find his way into the headlines for the wrong reasons. Did you get a chance to talk to him during that period of time that the lockout was lifted a couple of weeks ago?
JG: Yeah, I think that thing was lifted 24-48 hours, so we did get a chance to see a number of players and visit with a number of them who were out of town just over the phone, so he was in that mix. He seems like he’s doing better. For a lot of young guys, transitioning into the league is important for them to have structure and we feel like for Dez and other guys on our team and really throughout the NFL the importance of having an offseason program and OTA’s and all of those things really help them. It helps them get acclimated to this game, level and lifestyle. So that’s been an unfortunate byproduct of this lockout offseason for us. But he seems to be getting himself back in line and we can’t wait to get him and the team back together.
MF: There was a report last week that there was an expectation that Dez was going to show up the facility and he didn’t. Can you confirm that, or is that something that isn’t accurate?
JG: I don’t have all the details on that to be honest with you and I’d rather not visit on that but we were able to make contact with him during that time and again, just reaching out and hoping we can get this thing lifted so we can get him and the rest of the group back in action.
MF: Everybody assumes this is going to be lifted at some point, it’s just a question of when, but when you look at the fact that the dynamics seem to have taken a turn over the past six or seven weeks, things are getting a little bit nastier. Most of the owners are separated from the football operation but Jerry Jones is also the G.M. Do you have any concern that things might be a little awkward for a while after this is all over because the owner is also the G.M. of the team?
JG: Well, my experience with these kinds of things has been that everyone understands that it’s a business and when you need to get the business of football taken care of those discussions are above my pay grade. Let other people directly involved with it take care of that stuff. Our job as coaches and players and anyone involved with the football part of it is to keep it pure and get ourselves ready to play some football and whatever role or responsibility that we have and not let the business side negatively affect it in any way. So, we’re going to continue with that approach it seemed to work fine for us up to this point.
MF: Last one for you, you’re back at zero and zero. At some point the season is going to start. What can Cowboys fans expect out of the Dallas Cowboys in 2011 under Jason Garrett?
JG: Well, we’re just excited to get going. We’re excited. We did some positive things in the last half of last year and hopefully it will get us going in the right direction. We believe we have the right kind of guys on our team. We believe we’ve added more good guys in the draft. We like our coaching staff. We like our football players. We’re excited to get to work and one of the things we talk to our guys about each and every day is to simply be great today. Some people want to make bold predictions about how were going to do the season and those kind of things. That’s not the way we operate down here. Everyone understands what the goals are, what we want to do and the importance of shooting towards being the best team in the league. We all get that. But we’re going to focus on practice and hopefully put in good practice days together. We’ll have a good challenge going up to New York against the Jets in week 1 and hopefully we’ll get ourselves ready to go and put our best foot forward that week.
unce
