Dallas Cowboys: Can Jason Garrett get himself off the hot seat?

lostxn

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Dallas Cowboys: Can Jason Garrett get himself off the hot seat?
by Terence Watson

The 2018 season will be a make or break season for Jason Garrett. Can he save himself or will the Dallas Cowboys pull the trigger on a new head coach?

Over the past eight years, the Dallas Cowboys have been led by Head Coach Jason Garrett. During Garrett’s time as the head coach, he has only had three winning seasons. Four if you count the 2010 season after the firing of Wade Phillips where he ended the season with a 5-3 record.

The average lifespan of a head coach in the NFL is four years. Garrett is going into his ninth season with a .588 win-loss percentage. Garrett will need to make some big changes to save his job. Here are three things that may help him do just that.

Change the Offensive Scheme

Last year, we heard players tell the media that they felt the offense was too predictable for defenses. If the players feel this way you have to make a change before you lose them. One way to do that is to change the teams offensive scheme.

Get more guys involved and make the game fun for the players again. We keep hearing they want a Dak Prescott friendly offense, well to do that would be playing more of a power running game out of a spread offense look.

The Cowboys already have the offensive line, running back and quarterback to play in this scheme. What they were missing was an athletic pass-catching tight end and receivers that can create spaces for Dak to make throws.

The departures of Jason Witten and Dez Bryant will be hard for the team to replace but will assist in the scheme change if done correctly. Place Rico Gathers or Blake Jarwin in Witten’s position and Michael Gallup in Dez Bryant’s and you may be able to make the scheme work.

Spread teams out with your receiving threats Prescott can throw to, while also tasking linebackers and defensive lineman with stopping either Ezekiel Elliott and Prescott from beating you with their legs.

Play Your Best Players
We’ve seen over his coaching career that if Garrett likes you then they are going to play. Even to the detriment of the team. Jason Witten was a prime example of this. We are all sad to see him go but for years he has been a progress stopper at the position.

Before he was a dominant tight end with the New York Giants, Chicago Bears, and New England Patriots, Martellus Bennett was a Dallas Cowboy. Drafted in the second round of the 2008 NFL draft, being selected so high meant they saw a lot of potential in him, yet he was never given the chance to make plays.

He wasn’t the only one though: Gavin Escobar, Anthony Fasano, John Phillips and Rico Gathers are additional examples. None of them had a chance to prove themselves on the field. With the exception of Gathers when they all left the Cowboys they were able to make plays for their new teams when given the chance.

Coaches around the league know that to win games you need to play your best players. Hopefully, Garrett can finally get this right.

Make Halftime Adjustments

This may be his biggest problem of all. How many times did you scream at your tv during the Cowboys vs. Falcons game last year?

This is a prime example of not making any adjustments during a game to counter the Falcons how they were playing them? Chaz Green was left on his own for a majority of the game. In that time, Green gave up five sacks to Adrian Clayborn. No adjustments were made until after the fifth sack of Prescott when Byron Bell was inserted at left tackle. This adjustment didn’t happen until the fourth quarter.

For some reason, Jason Garrett seems to believe that following the game plan they started the game with will eventually work. We all know this is not the case. Garrett needs to able to make adjustments that can catch teams off guard and get the Cowboys back into games. If he doesn’t fix this he has no chance of staying on as the Dallas Cowboys head coach.

What other changes do you think Garrett needs to make to keep his job?
 

boozeman

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It will really impress me if he can get this team to the playoffs and win a game.

I see the same old scratchin' battlin' clawin' 8-8.
 

Rev

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I see another good regular season record and same old story when it counts.
 

lostxn

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I see another good regular season record and same old story when it counts.
I have a hard time making predictions with this team. There are so many moving parts. We will be depending on so many new pieces. We have holes at TE and FS which may or may not bite us. There is some very good strategy to how this roster is being put together. However, it might not work. Things might not gel. Coaching will obviously be key to getting the most out of this new team.

This team is loaded at talent but we don't have a proven, elite QB to make all things right. Being in that situation always makes things a crapshoot.
 

NoDak

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I see another good regular season record and same old story when it counts.
Yeah. I think this team has the talent to be a playoff contender. But do they have the coaching? Doubtful.

We're kind of in a shitty spot. I think the team is talented enough to win in spite of Garrett during the regular season. Maybe enough to get us a playoff spot. But when the cream rises and the playoffs start, that's when coaching steps forward and shines. And that's where we lack.

So therein lies the problem. We make the playoffs but lose in the first round, so Garrett gets a pass for 'getting us there'. And he comes back again next year. Gosh darn it, we can't get rid of a playoff HC... So we can continue on the just good enough to get there, not good enough to finish merry-go-round. We need to either bottom out or hope to catch lightning in a bottle. Yay. I sure hope a good safety falls to pick 20 next spring.
 

deadrise

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It makes you wonder if Ginger and his staff can evolve, go to the next level.

Game plan against a specific defense, make adjustments at half time, etc.

They haven't done it so far.

Back in the day Lombardi would say, "we're going to run the Green Bay sweep at you, you know it's coming, but you can't stop it."

It seems that's where Ginger's head is. "We've got this really simple, basic offense based on execution." When other teams stop it, he's lost.
 

lostxn

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It makes you wonder if Ginger and his staff can evolve, go to the next level.

Game plan against a specific defense, make adjustments at half time, etc.

They haven't done it so far.

Back in the day Lombardi would say, "we're going to run the Green Bay sweep at you, you know it's coming, but you can't stop it."

It seems that's where Ginger's head is. "We've got this really simple, basic offense based on execution." When other teams stop it, he's lost.
You're right. It's because that's what we did in the 90s and it worked. But that was the last of the great teams. It's virtually impossible to construct a team as complete as those teams in today's NFL. Elite O-line, elite D-line, elite WR, elite RB, elite TE, elite QB, elite safety, elite CB. Amazing...
 

Cotton

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It makes you wonder if Ginger and his staff can evolve, go to the next level.

Game plan against a specific defense, make adjustments at half time, etc.

They haven't done it so far.

Back in the day Lombardi would say, "we're going to run the Green Bay sweep at you, you know it's coming, but you can't stop it."

It seems that's where Ginger's head is. "We've got this really simple, basic offense based on execution." When other teams stop it, he's lost.
I think all of the coaches allowed 2016 to give them a big head. And, then when those same plays didn’t work, because of injuries/suspensions, they had zero clue how to adjust.
 

p1_

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It will really impress me if he can get this team to the playoffs and win a game.

I see the same old scratchin' battlin' clawin' 8-8.
I need 2 playoff wins at least.
 

deadrise

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I need 2 playoff wins at least.
All 2 playoff wins will do is placate the fan base and season ticket holders. It will postpone Jerry having to confront the fact that his "Tom Landry" will never be Tom Landry.

Garrett, as they say, is the Marvin Lewis of the NFC. Not a good coach, not a horrible coach. A coach who will win just enough to keep Jerry "relevant", the networks interested, 90,000 showing up for home games -- that's about it.

Unless the team craters this year, I don't believe Garrett is on the hot seat. At this stage of his life Jerry doesn't want to go out and look for another head coach.
 

p1_

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All 2 playoff wins will do is placate the fan base and season ticket holders. It will postpone Jerry having to confront the fact that his "Tom Landry" will never be Tom Landry.

Garrett, as they say, is the Marvin Lewis of the NFC. Not a good coach, not a horrible coach. A coach who will win just enough to keep Jerry "relevant", the networks interested, 90,000 showing up for home games -- that's about it.

Unless the team craters this year, I don't believe Garrett is on the hot seat. At this stage of his life Jerry doesn't want to go out and look for another head coach.
Im thinking 2 wins might get us to the NFC title game. If we were to get there, Id give the team an opportunity to win in spite of Garrett.
 

midswat

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"Play your best players"

"Make halftime adjustments"


Garretts been here for almost a decade, and he still hasn't mastered things that seem like they would've been covered in the first chapter of a Complete Idiots Guide to Coaching book.
 

DCUDoomsday

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Garrett, as they say, is the Marvin Lewis of the NFC. Not a good coach, not a horrible coach.
No. He is a horrible coach.

And I seriously doubt even a really bad result like 5-11 or below gets Garrett fired. This "hotseat" stuff is a myth. Or, wishful thinking.
 

deadrise

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Im thinking 2 wins might get us to the NFC title game. If we were to get there, Id give the team an opportunity to win in spite of Garrett.
Haven't been to the NFC title game since 1995, 23 years, one of only three NFC teams to share that humiliation. As of 2017, Garrett was the HC for 9.5 of those years. 2018 would make it 11, which would be 47% of the time encompassing that dismal failure.

Garrett was named OC in 2007. So for 13 of the 23 years Dallas has not made the NFC title game, Garrett has been an instrumental part of the team, OC or HC, 57% of the time.

Hot seat? How does this guy even still have a job?
 

ravidubey

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One and done preserves Garrett’s job.

I loved when the Chargers fired Marty S. after a 14-2 season when he went one and done.

We’ve nowhere near that kind of clued-in and gutsy front office.
 

NoDak

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That clued in and gutsy front office is laughed at ON THIS BOARD for being the Cowboys of the AFC. What exactly have they ever won with all those clues and guts you love so much?
 

DLK150

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Garrett's hot seat is only as warm as the front office wants it to be.
 
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