Cowboys at Chargers | Week 4 Game Day Chatter Thread | 09/29/2013

You simply need to look no further than my post count to see my interest in the sport has declined. I lurk here every now and then but I'm not here as religiously as I used to be during the season.

I find myself trying to think of other teams Romo could go to and finally get a ring.

Genghis Khan said:

When you know what you have now isn't good enough, it's stupid to sit around waiting for a guaranteed all-timer. Did we know Mike Smith would be a good HC before Atlanta hired him? Would we have advocated hiring him? How about Bellichick coming off of his stint in Cleveland? How about before the Eagles hired Andy Reid? He was a QB coach, not even a coordinator. How about Pete Carroll? How about John harbaugh?

It's just dumb to sit on a HC simply because you don't have a guaranteed upgrade. Obviously you'd prefer to hire Bill Parcells in his prime. But even Parcells was a nobody before he got a chance.

There are plenty of upgrades over Garrett available every year. Andy Reid is the obvious one from last year. Maybe McCoy, maybe Marrone, or Arians, or Tressman.

Garrett hasn't been good enough. Time to look for someone who is.

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Absolutely right.

kidd said:

The question is this:

Was Garrett better than Wade when Wade was fired?

I'd say no.

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I'd say the next 8 games kinda ended all debate on that issue.

mschmidt64 said:

I'd say the next 8 games kinda ended all debate on that issue.

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There was nowhere to go but up from there.

They were 1-7 and not even trying. It's very possible that they could have put someone else in charge other than Garrett and they might have gotten the same results simply because the new coach would have also told them a lot of the same things Garrett did at the time.

It's not like he took a 2-6 team and reeled off 7 or 8 wins and got to the playoffs or something.

mschmidt64 said:

Ehm, no. There are "unknowns" and then there are upcoming stars. A guy like Jim Harbaugh, for example, everyone was hot for, even though he had never coached in the league before. If you're not getting an Andy Reid, then it should be a Jim Harbaugh coming up through the ranks.

Tressman, McCoy, Marrone?

Laughable. You're just trolling on those ones. McCoy, the same guy we are saying is running the "AFC Cowboys"?

Yeah, he'll come in and do a lot better than 8-8 with Jerry Jones bearing down on him.

Now, I'd prefer an unknown to a guy I know about like Lovie Smith. But that's only if I have no say and Garrett is autofired. And of course, if you remember, I said I would have supported firing Garrett for Reid last offseason, but no one else besides you seemed to like that idea.

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John Harbaugh. John. He was a special teams coach. Now he's won the super bowl, and his team is good every year and overcomes all kinds of injuries and personnel changes. Before he became a HC and known commodity, if some one suggested that guy as a replacement in a hypothetical situation where Garrett was already our HC you would've said no because there's no guarantee he'd be an upgrade.

As for Andy Reid, yes you said you'd be ok with him here because you like Reid. Not because you recognized that Garrett isn't good enough and needs to be replaced. Otherwise you'd have been screaming to the hills for Reid.

I'm not sure what more you need to see to recognize Garrett isn't good enough. The offensive line excuse you've rolled out for two years is gone. Yet same problems as always. The talent on this offense should be putting up 30 points a game. The offensive line isn't an obstacle anymore.

Texas Ace said:

There was nowhere to go but up from there.

They were 1-7 and not even trying. It's very possible that they could have put someone else in charge other than Garrett and they might have gotten the same results simply because the new coach would have also told them a lot of the same things Garrett did at the time.

It's not like he took a 2-6 team and reeled off 7 or 8 wins and got to the playoffs or something.

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New blood in the coaches seat is part of why the team turned it around that year. The team was re-energized. They had hope and purpose again. Same thing would happen if Garrett got replaced. There would once again be hope.

Did any reporter ask Garrett why the Cowboys didn't run more when they were averaging 5 yards a pop?

That is why they lost. They could have dominated TOP and kept Rivers on the bench if they just committed to the running game.

Guess they ran it too much last week.

Just terrible fucking coaching.

Iamtdg said:

New blood in the coaches seat is part of why the team turned it around that year. The team was re-energized. They had hope and purpose again. Same thing would happen if Garrett got replaced. There would once again be hope.

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Exactly.

Seeing at what Garrett has done since then has led me to believe that any type of coaching change that season would've resulted in the same results that we got from Garrett.

Texas Ace said:

I've never been a fan of Garrett so firing him certainly wouldn't bother me one bit. But while I don't agree with Schmitty's idiotic stance of let's-not-fire-him-because-you-can't-guarantee-the-next-guy-will-be-better, I do agree with him that it may not make much of a difference.

If all Jerry is going to do is replace him with someone similar, a coach who he can control and undermine on a weekly basis, then firing Garrett won't matter. It'll be the same shit, different pile.

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Yes, my stance is so idiotic that you agree with me in the very next sentence that it won't make a difference unless we get an elite head coach who Jerry can't undermine.

Continuity actually is worth something when the guy you are continuing with isn't a head coach who doesn't make his players practice hard. I'd rather continue with the average head coach we have then get another Chan Gailey in here who will go 8-8 with a brand new system and then get fired in 3 years as well.

Plus, the new guy resets the clock on how long you have to keep him around. Jerry would never admit defeat after a single season on a head coach. If the results will be 8-8 no matter what (and with a Mike McCoy or Marc Trestman, they will be, as you yourself just admitted), then I'd also rather have a guy with a large enough amount of opportunities that I could convincingly fire him for an upgrade as soon as I saw one.

You guys have bloodlust for Garrett but it's just not the smart idea on any level. The next move needs to be calculated very deliberately or you will get more of the same, or worse. You've seen it for 20 years now. Yeah, Jerry is just going to magically get the next call right. Not.

Genghis Khan said:

John Harbaugh. John. He was a special teams coach. Now he's won the super bowl, and his team is good every year and overcomes all kinds of injuries and personnel changes. Before he became a HC and known commodity, if some one suggested that guy as a replacement in a hypothetical situation where Garrett was already our HC you would've said no because there's no guarantee he'd be an upgrade.

As for Andy Reid, yes you said you'd be ok with him here because you like Reid. Not because you recognized that Garrett isn't good enough and needs to be replaced. Otherwise you'd have been screaming to the hills for Reid.

I'm not sure what more you need to see to recognize Garrett isn't good enough. The offensive line excuse you've rolled out for two years is gone. Yet same problems as always. The talent on this offense should be putting up 30 points a game. The offensive line isn't an obstacle anymore.

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The O-line excuse would have better served Romo but he still made sure to pile on whenever Romo was under the gun.

mschmidt64 said:

I'd say the next 8 games kinda ended all debate on that issue.

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You see that happen all the time when a coach is fired. Did our immediate change to an opportunistic turnover creating defense mean Pasqualoni was some defensive genius? If Garrett was so much better, how come after the honeymoon of a coaching change was past, it was back to the same old shit?

BipolarFan said:

Did any reporter ask Garrett why the Cowboys didn't run more when they were averaging 5 yards a pop?

That is why they lost. They could have dominated TOP and kept Rivers on the bench if they just committed to the running game.

Guess they ran it too much last week.

Just terrible fucking coaching.

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That's what always happens with this team. It's like the run the shit out of it one week just to get it out of the way as if it's like an annoying chore they are trying to finish.

Committing to the running game for this group is like asking them to drink poison.

mschmidt64 said:

Yes, my stance is so idiotic that you agree with me in the very next sentence that it won't make a difference unless we get an elite head coach who Jerry can't undermine.

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The big difference is that I do want Garrett fired no matter what. His results are mediocre and the same problems that were plaguing this team in 2011 are still plaguing them now. I don't think another puppet will do much, but I'm at least willing to find out.

That's where you and I strongly differ.

Texas Ace said:

There was nowhere to go but up from there.

They were 1-7 and not even trying. It's very possible that they could have put someone else in charge other than Garrett and they might have gotten the same results simply because the new coach would have also told them a lot of the same things Garrett did at the time.

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Sure.

Because as I've said a billion times, literally ANYONE would have been better than Wade Phillips. It's almost impossible to find a guy less qualified to be a head coach than him. He destroys every team he takes the helm of, and he did it here too.

Garrett, yes, maybe a lot of guys could have done that. Because, as I've also said, Garrett is very much on par with a lot of other coaches in this league.

Texas Ace said:

The big difference is that I do want Garrett fired no matter what. His results are mediocre and the same problems that were plaguing this team in 2011 are still plaguing them now. I don't think another puppet will do much, but I'm at least willing to find out.

That's where you and I strongly differ.

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You have no reasoning other than you want to see him punished because you are angry and you feel he's responsible. Get an appropriate succession plan in place first. Otherwise it's gonna hurt more than help as we've seen with Jerry time and again.

You know who is next on his hiring list.... Mike Zimmer. We have seen that story before. You yourself have complained about how awful Zimmer was here.

Of course, Zimmer goes to Cincy, without a Jerry Jones present, and he looks half decent, and now we'll have people saying that he's an upgrade.

Except he's not. We've seen that story. We've seen all these Jerry Jones created storylines before.

They end in unperformance and failure.

Texas Ace said:

There are so many problems with this offense and these are problems that have existed throughout the majority of Garrett's time here as the offensive "mastermind".

Along with the constant abandoning of the running game, I'd say the one thing that has always bothered me the most is the lack of scheming. We NEVER create mismatches.

How is it that Calvin Johnson can be constantly seen running free in Detroit when every team gives him so much attention? How has Andre Johnson always been able to get involved in the Texans offense despite being the only offensive weapon they had for about 10 years? That's because their offensive coaches find ways to get those players involved.

On top of that, we have never EVER been an offense that makes adjustments at the half and come out taking advantage of something we saw in the 1st half or made an adjustment to counter what the defense had done to stop certain plays of ours. We don't do anything to free up our best players and never have.

We are only successful with what a defense allows us to be successful with. Once they make their adjustments and decide to take X out of the game, we are incapable of coming back with Y and Z. We just labor along in the 2nd half as we did in the KC San Diego games. Hell, I didn't even think we were all that impressive in the Giants game as an offense and were lucky that we had such an extreme amount of turnovers or we would have lost.

Garrett just isn't a good offensive coach nor is he a sharp offensive mind. Anyone who tries to argue that is blind and/or stupid.

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It's funny. I'm pretty sure I saw Danny Woodhead matched up against a linebacker one on one on 2 TDs.

Funny how I never seem to see favorable match ups like that for our receivers.

I still blame Parcells for this coaching debacle. Had he retired one year earlier instead of trying to squeeze one more paycheck out of jerry, then I believe Sean Payton would have been his successor.

kidd said:

The question is this:

Was Garrett better than Wade when Wade was fired?

I'd say no. They're about the same. But Schmitty was all about firing Wade at the time. Even when there were "no better options out there" at that time.

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To be fair, we were 1-7 and had severely bottomed out when Wade was fired. We were getting blown out weekly. We aren't seeing that under Garrett.

Genghis Khan said:

John Harbaugh. John. He was a special teams coach. Now he's won the super bowl, and his team is good every year and overcomes all kinds of injuries and personnel changes. Before he became a HC and known commodity, if some one suggested that guy as a replacement in a hypothetical situation where Garrett was already our HC you would've said no because there's no guarantee he'd be an upgrade.

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Sure. I'm not arguing that no unknown head coach ever becomes a great coach. Look at Andy Reid -- same thing, he was a QB coach before becoming HC.

I'm arguing that Jerry isn't going to find an unknown and turn him into a good head coach in this environment. Our only shot at improvement is to get another Parcells. An established guy with skins on the wall who will make Jerry back down.

I'd love a Jim (not John) Harbaugh because everyone saw coming out that he'd be a very good NFL coach. That is the kind of non-fossil head coach Jerry would need to get if we're not going the re-tread route in order for it to work out. A guy that everyone in the room can identify as a sure thing.

There's zero percent chance that an unknown will come into this locker room and make a difference in the very things everyone complains about... lack of focus, discipline, penalties, etc. You'll get another offensive system that ends up undermined by poor play.

As for Andy Reid, yes you said you'd be ok with him here because you like Reid. Not because you recognized that Garrett isn't good enough and needs to be replaced. Otherwise you'd have been screaming to the hills for Reid.

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I recognized that Reid was lots better than Garrett, not sure how that is some sort of negative.

Yeah, I reject your notion that Marc Trestman is enough better to make a difference under Jerry.

I'm not sure what more you need to see to recognize Garrett isn't good enough. The offensive line excuse you've rolled out for two years is gone. Yet same problems as always. The talent on this offense should be putting up 30 points a game. The offensive line isn't an obstacle anymore.

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Yeah, I'm not sure that problem is gone, but I will defer that argument until I've seen a little more. I don't agree that the offense should be putting up "30 points a game" but I agree it's not cutting it right now and the OL is not as bad as previous years where we have done better, so we should be seeing more than we are right now.

As for recognizing it, clearly I do recognize it, what I don't recognize is your assertion that any old coach would be better.

I'm not sure what else YOU need to see to recognize that hiring another Chan Gailey-type run of the mill offensive coordinator like Mike McCoy, or another Dave Campo-type defensive coordinator like Mike Zimmer, simply is not going to work here. We need to get an elite HC here or its not going to make a damn bit of difference.