but Darren Woodson echoed the same thoughts that the GM’s see film and still show interest in JG so one off year does not make him a bad prospect. Darren would be in favor of keeping JG over TO because he feels that he will be a very good coach and will be in the league longer than TO. Darren also echoed your mention of missed opportunities by JJ to have a coach for the long haul.

great article, enjoyed reading it…

and as I wrote on another post, you are right that debate involves Jerry Jones and is being orchestrated through the media via leaks. I really believe that Jerry doesn’t want to lose Garrett or cut Owens, and is building himself up as the good cop vs. his bad cop son, Stephen, who is playing the heavy wanting to cut Owens. This will earn Jerry the trust and confidence of the exceedingly sensitive Owens, but only if Owens agrees to cooperate with Garrett.

The Redskins former GM Bobby Beathard and Scott Pioli. These two have a total of 7 Super Bowls titles. Beathard won 2 with the Dolphins in the 70’s and 2 with the Redskins in the 80’s, (and brought the Chargers to another in ’94). Pioli has 3 with the Pats. These types of guys don’t grow on trees however so I don’t expect the Cowboys to just hand pick someone of that caliber.

They certainly had an impressive draft last season and I was also happy with their free agent pickups the year before.

It is the area of play design and play calling that I was most frustrated last season. Who knows, perhaps the fault does not lie with Garrett but I lost a lot of confidence in him last season.

If Stephen wants T.O. out, I’d be very very surprised if Jerry went against the wishes of his son. Like I mentioned in a previous: Jerry wanted Hardy, Stephen told his father to chill out, and we ended up with Martellus Bennet.

I think it’s wrong to say what Jerry wants Jerry gets; it’s really what Stephen wants Stephen gets. I really get the impression that the past few years Jerry has been the face of the franchise but Stephen pulls all the strings whether Jerry realizes it or not.

How the hell does he still have a job?

Also I was never Pro Parcells so I don’t have “Short Term” Amneisa. Bill was good at drafting but that T Rex couldn’t coach anymore. We need a GM desperately! We need a Safety desperately! and we need someone with the initals T.O to get lost!

However, I am not sure what you are getting at with your first point. Are you saying we should not want Jerry to bring in a “football guy” because football guys do not always produce super bowls? If that is the case, you misunderstand those like myself who would like to see Jerry get some help. Of course we all want another super bowl. But what we really want is a good GM that puts us in a better position to win (according to your article, that’s the best we can hope for and i agree). But Jerry is not that guy. Just look at what Jerry 2.0 has done since Bill left (here i could catalog all the bad signings, extensions, hirings, trades, etc.). I don’t think Jerry is horrible and clueless, I just think he needs help in the form of a strong personality. Now Garrett may be that guy. But we know Phillips is not that guy. Therefore, Jerry needs to get beyond his paralysis and elevate Garrett. Let Garrett bring in his own DC, cut TO, and let the chips fall where they may.

I’m ready to play poker.
 I’d rather lose with what your saying than lose with T.O.

Tex has had the privilege of dining with Mr. Garrett and the kid is impressive. Being locked in a coordinator’s booth doesn’t allow for Jason’s fire and emotion to show through. The Princeton-trained Garrett is exactly who the Cowboys need leading this franchise for the next decade.

JG is better suited to be a head coach than an assistant, see Singletary. Barack Obama was limited, if not lost, in the Senate, but on the World’s center state he proved to be a leader of men. Garrett will do the same… unlike Wade, Jason has “it”.

Tex is hoping that Garrett gets an offer from the St. Louis Rams of Anaheim, forcing Jerry to end this Wade Phillips experiment. He should have done it last year when the great Garrett had Capers and Cameron lined up as coordinators. Tex 4 Garrett.

One less option for Garrett, although, I think we all new he wasn’t headed there

Out-freakin-standing post!!!

Of the Lions don’t want Garrett, who does? Rex Ryan or Spagnuolo deserve the job in St. Louis more.

like Rotoworld taking shots at Wreder now!!

If the Cowboys cut Terrell Owens this offseason, he will count $680,000 more against their 2009 salary cap than if he were left on the roster.
ESPN’s Ed Werder reported late Wednesday that the Cowboys might consider cutting T.O. because otherwise they could “find it difficult to sign NFL sack leader DeMarcus Ware to a new contract.” Werder, again, is wrong. The Cowboys will actually have less money to play with if Owens is released.

If the O-line performs like they should next season, and injuries don’t afflict us like the plague…

We should be back in the playoffs…

Go Hudson go!

Having Kosier healthy will help too

Reports from last year’s Senior Bowl had him singling out Donny Avery and Eddie Royal as desirable WR targets, and they were impressive as rookies.

Because nobody likes to hear it, but I have been saying this all along. Garrett is our guy. He is a shrewd judge of talent, and we can ill afford to lose the guy that gave us such a rich draft last year. It could be said that Wade got lucky with Scandrick. He did pick Jenkins in the first round, and while Jenkins may end up being great, the signs were a little scary. Wade’s last defensive pick was Spencer, and that’s looking scary. I say we had a great draft because Garrett got us Felix, Tashard, and Martellus. On offensive draft picks we raked. I want JG to be our next HC. I want him in the war room every April. I want to give this man the chance he deserves. I can’t BELIEVE how quickly Cowboys fans are calling for heads. KNOCK IT OFF!!!

That being said, if you want to call for someone’s head, call for the right head. I would celebrate if Dallas got rid of TO. He was good for a while, but the rumor from someone in the locker room is we don’t know the half of what that guy does behind closed doors. I’m tired of seeing him drop the ball, then bitch for more passes. He was 28th in the league in catches, and didn’t even break the top FIFTY in yards per catch. We threw 140 passes at TO this year, and he had a 49% catch rate. He’d have set a new NFL record for receptions if he could do what he thinks he can do. Drop TO for principle, and let the man with the plan, Jason Garrett, continue imprinting his style on the team.

they all agree to keep him
http://www.nfl.com/videos?videoId=09000d5d80e24da7

and jamie dukes calls out ed werder in a way

I’m so tired of fighting this battle I just can’t muster up the enthusiam to lay out yet again all the reasons why JJ is a football guy. You want to take this one and I’ll get the next one a month down the road?

everything has been rehashed ad nauseum. I would like to say I thoroughly enjoy Rafeals’ posts though. They make me think even when I don’t want to.

Come out and settle this debate, so we can move on..

I guess JG’s status goes in to the decision.

..grown men who act like children. Last year we went 13-3 and love was in the air. This year, TO is poisoning the locker room with his bad attitude and Jason Garrett is threatening to quit if he has to share with TO?

Sheesh!

Is TO hard too take sometimes? Of course.

I work and have worked with people I don’t particularly like…sometimes they are negative, sometimes they say bad things about the company..they have no effect on me. They have their deal, I have mine. Does TO really have such a magnetic, powerful, charismatic personality that he can make other guys who are making millions, stop playing? He’s a powerful, influential guy. Secretary of State material.

Would Garrett actually be so weak that TO’s personality can over-power him? Would Garrett actually issue an ultimatum that sounds like a 7th grader? “You have to choose between him or me, he makes me so angry.” Usually, if people give ultimatums, they get shown the door.

I’m obviously over stating the case a bit, but these are two grown men, making millions. Their end goal is the same.

Do you know what would happen in the military if you went to your platoon sarge and said, “I don’t like private Owens/Garrett, we can’t get along.”? The Sarge would move things around, and you would not only be rack mates, but you two would be partners on EVERY detail. The net result is, the sarge makes you ‘man-up’ and learn to work together.

It seems like if two really young guys (E-1s in the military) and really old guys (me) can suck it up and find a way to get along with co-workers…these two guys ought to be able to ‘man-up’ as well.

…maybe that’s why I never got to play in the NFL!?!? and I always thought it was because I was under 6’, slow and cried when I got tackled.

This whole cutting TO and everybody will practice harder is illogical. The disease is Coach Cupcake. The lack of chemistry, aka in fighting between players is what happens when the leader doesn’t want to take the responsibility for the power he has. Remember spiderman’s quote “with great power comes great responsibility.” Coach Cupcake treats his player like men aka does take responsibility for making them practice hard, show up to meetings, pay attention. He assumes they all do, and ignores it when they don’t. The result is the in fighting, TO flare ups, etc.. Getting rid of TO will not help any player pick up a blitz or make a tackle, or help focus anyone on playing the game. They played horribly against St. Louis, the Bengals and Washington when none of the TO stuff was at issue. Anything done this offseason, short of removing Coach cupcake is irrelevant.

TO is old, and this or next off season Jerry needs to move on. Because a declining players don’t win superbowls, they just sell tickets for losing teams.

in a matter of a few weeks. I do remember how many people wanted to get rid of Garret during the last month of the season, saying he wasn’t good, terrible decision making, too soft and scared to be a head coach. What a change. Is Garret great during off season and terrible during the season. Well, that seems to be a problem when your a coach in the NFL.
As for keeping TO, honestly, I don’t know. I kind of like the player, even if he is high maintenance. But I am glad to not have to make that decision.
One last thing, I agree with the post of JIm Vance above. If JC cannot stand to a player, or work his problem with him, then what ? Everytime he will be in that position he will cry to Jerry ? Better not sign long term contract with players in this case. I have nothing against Garret too, he was part of the 90’s Cowboys and that sounds good to me, but I am really not sure he is the answer.

Jason Carrot?
or did i seriously just think of that at 2 in the morning

…that proves he is even on par with the likes of Shanahan or Turner as a play-designer or play-caller? I have seen nothing over the past two seasons to convince me at all. From what I’ve seen he has a clouded sense of what the defense is doing and is very slow to adjust. I am rarely if ever surprised by anything this offense ever runs.

The receivers are almost never in motion. The formations are almost never designed to create mismatches. There is almost never any sort miss-direction plays of any kind. There are very little if ever any adjustments in the protection schemes during the course of game.

Go back and look at the Steelers win over the Chargers from this past weekend and look at the multiple bunch formations and tight formations they line their receivers up in and look at how many miss-matches it created for them. The Cowboys never ran anything like this, all year. Had they done so I can near guarantee we would have seen huge plays out of the passing game and a lot more points on the score board. Take a look at how effectively Shanahan used rolling-out pass plays to open things up for Cutler this year. We saw virtually none of this from Dallas this year and it’s the type of play Romo would be very good at. Garret makes opposing defenses jobs easier by putting the most predictable offense, in the NFL, on the field, every weekend.

Garrett may have demonstrated that he has an eye for talent; great make him a GM or a director of player personnel because I’ve seen nothing that indicates he can play chess with the best of them on any given Sunday.

Jimmy Johnson once said that Norv Turner made the best game day adjustments of any coach he has ever worked with. I’m not sure anyone who has worked with Garret could honestly say the same thing.

A lot folks on here seem ready to anoint Garrett as the next Bill Walsh… I’m sorry but I have just not seen it.

TO is now a cancer just like he was in SF and Philly. He has divided the locker room, questioning the coaches and their decisions. He has to go. It’s the GM’s job to watch over and critique the coaches, and the coaches job to watch and critique the players. When it starts going the other way things unravel and you get a brainless, heartless team that will not win no matter how talented they are.

Canning TO will send a message to the players that dissention will not be tolerated. They may not be the team on paper that they once were, but the great paper team of 2008 finished 9-7. There’s a lot more to a team than pure talent.

Do you want the Cowboys to remain an NBA team—a bunch of overpaid prima donas who never take responsibility and strive to blame and run off any coach who tries to hold them accountable? Right now the inmates are running the asylum, and the best, most effective, message to send to them is to cut the chief lunatic. That way, the other 52 players begin to question whether they are next, and I predict will drop the drama and get back to business. The beauty of the NFL, and the chief reason why it is the most successful sport in this country, is the absence of guaranteed contracts.

Not sure how you can confidently say the Cowboys are currently “in the hunt.” In my opinion, a team that finishes 9-7, exhibits zero continuity and shows no will to fight in the biggest of games is “in the hunt” for high draft picks, not Super Bowls.

And I don’t care how much talent they’ve got! I’m just so tired of the “This team IS in the hunt! Look at all the talent they’ve got!” argument…haven’t we been tortured enough already with all this talent talk? Yes, talent they’ve got; heart, unfortunately, they do not. One is really no good without the other. There’s nothing more common than unsuccessful teams with talent.

Addtionally, measuring individuals by ‘Super Bowls won’ is a faulty measuring stick to begin with, really. I mean, any measuring device that can produce a “Trent Dilfer was better than Dan Marino” conclusion has to be considered flawed, no?

To me, it’s nearly impossible to deny that when this team—under JJ’s ownership—had “football men” in charge of the football operations (Jimmy, BP), it was successful. When JJ’s been in charge of the football operations, it’s been a disaster.