No. I read all of it.
I don't think he went overboard. If you want to call that "fair", fine.
The biggest difference is he, by his own admission, regards the Garrett regime as a blight on the franchise.
You take his attempt at being "fair" as seeing him in the same light as you do.
And given the totality of the week of articles, that is simply wrong.
Few people view Garrett like you do.
You are putting words in both my and Sturm’s mouths. It is not an issue of the “totality,” of the week of articles, nor is it about “seeing him in the same light as I do.”
The clear point of this series of articles was to spend the first two entries documenting the “fireable offenses,” - though I put that phrase in quotes because that is the language a reader suggested, and Sturm makes clear that it’s not as if each incident on its own is fireable nor were the incidents in summation fireable, in his opinion, until the end of 2012.
After that, the third entry was to be a conclusion based on a review of the errors and mistakes of the regime, but also on its positives.
From the get-go it was obvious this piece DID take a fair look at things because while it did not absolve him ultimately or change the conclusion that he deserved firing, it did correctly point out that there were things that were not his fault. This does basically align with what I’ve always said, because I never argued that things like “icing his kicker,” were not mistakes. So I was in agreement with Sturm there. Nor was I, by (I would estimate) 2015 or so, entirely opposed to the idea of firing and replacing him (I simply wanted to know what I was getting). And finally, I rejected the concept that he was bottom of the league terrible and that he did nothing well.
So as these first two articles progressed, other than he and I differing on when he would have fired him versus when I would have started reaching out to see about lining up a replacement, I had no real qualms with any of his criticisms.
So again, it’s not “him seeing it like I do.” I’m saying, literally, “Sturm is right on this. His characterizations (Garrett was not good enough!) is correct.”
The key takeaway here though is that he neither says NOR IMPLIES that Garrett was a “turd” or a “scrub” or any of the other garbage we constantly here from the posters on this board. He makes abundantly clear in the conclusory final article this morning the following:
1) He believes Garrett is not good enough, and should have been replaced years ago, but going this long at one stop is mostly attributable to Jerry bungling, and that his overall record places him alongside other “journeymen” head coaches like Dave Wannstedt and Dick Jauron. I agree this is classification of Garrett’s skills as a head coach. Roughly journeyman, average head coach. Not good enough to elevate.
2) He believes while the flaws outweigh the strengths, Garrett has strengths that very few ever acknowledge on here: (a) he developed and assisted Romo and Prescott into quality NFL QBs, (b) he was “widely” regarded as being an above-average Monday-to-Saturday coach, it was mostly his game day coaching that was lacking, (though I would agree this does not devote enough attention to allegations that he became stale and predictable on both sides of the ball), (c) a functional locker room was significantly his doing and the “RKG” approach was significantly his idea and implementation despite Jerry’s circus and undermining. Yes there were many suspensions but it was the stress in high character through most of the locker room that allowed them to take risks on the outliers, and (d) he actually did win a lot in the regular season which is nothing to scoff at, it was the playoffs - where the elite separates from the good or average - that he couldn’t cut it.
He concludes, and I quote, “He was a good coach and probably earned his position. Nobody should question that.”
If you read this as “Sturm is backing me up,” then you are, again, misinterpreting both of us. This is not “me being right” that we should have kept him nor is it “me being wrong,” that he should have been fired in 2012. The common ground is that Sturm’s final analysis of the era was - a wasted generation (I agree, hard to argue against), a coach who should have been replaced earlier (he says 2012, I would go a little later and be picky about a replacement, but i don’t sit here saying the only right approach was giving him until 2019), but a coach who had to deal with Jerry adversity here and does have his positives worth acknowledging.
For everyone who says “you secretly love Garrett, why else would you always point out his positives,” - I am glad to have an ally in Sturm. I’m not citing him as some justification of the Garrett tenure, clearly Sturm believes it should have been many years shorter than it was.
The reason I cite Sturm is as ammunition against all the people who belittle my efforts to point out the positives, or to acknowledge the challenges that the administration faced, because I think it’s valuable to acknowledge those things if only for an honest evaluation.
If others would acknowledge some of that common ground, there would never be debates about this subject. And none of that would preclude anyone from being convinced he should have been fired in 2012.