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Cowlishaw: Jason Garrett lacked common sense late in Cowboys game against Jaguars
The next time you see Jerry Jones on the Cowboys’ sideline during a game, don’t scream at your TV set. Don’t even complain about it. He may just be down there dispensing common sense.
There wasn’t much of that to be found in head coach Jason Garrett’s handling of a 31-17 win over the hapless Jacksonville Jaguars in London on Sunday. The game itself was filled with Cowboys highlights, offering assurances that this team is very much back in the thick of things in the NFC playoff chase following a two-game losing skid.
But as a 31-7 third-quarter lead became a 31-7 fourth-quarter lead, Cowboys fans across the pond here were all shouting the same question:
Why is Romo still playing?
I don’t need to recite all the details of the fractures in his back. You’ve heard about that for two weeks. And you saw how this offense failed to function without him in a 28-17 loss to the Arizona Cardinals, so you know what he means to this team’s future.
But there he was, third-and-10, less than nine minutes to play, Cowboys holding a 31-7 lead. And there he went, sacked to the turf, very deliberate in getting to his feet after a 6-yard loss. With 8:07 to play, the Cowboys punted and when they got the ball back, Brandon Weeden finally entered the game.
That was almost a quarter too late.
Once the game got to 31-7 in the third quarter, there was no sense in sending Romo back into harm’s way. The Jaguars’ defense was still capable of the occasional sack, but the Jacksonville offense wasn’t mounting a comeback.
I know how quickly things can unravel in an NFL game, but this is a Jaguars team that starts a rookie quarterback, two rookie wide receivers and first- and second-year men all over the offensive line.
This is a Jacksonville team whose drives from first to fourth quarter Sunday went: Touchdown. Punt. Punt. Fumble. Punt. Punt. Downs. Punt. Downs.
Garrett seemed baffled afterward that questions would be raised as to how he handled Romo in his current delicate state. And that’s always been part of the problem with Garrett as head coach.
A Princeton graduate, he fears coming across as a pointy-headed intellectual at all costs. He wraps himself in the history of the game, spinning Pudge Heffelfinger stories and talking toughness.
At some point a little cold-blooded logic is in order. Just because Romo didn’t suffer debilitating injuries on the fourth-quarter hits he absorbed doesn’t make it OK.
We have seen it for years, and every coach in football is reluctant to pull his starting quarterback, but look how two teams with Super Bowl aspirations handled their blowout situations Sunday.
Denver’s Peyton Manning did not set foot on the field in Oakland in the fourth quarter. Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers turned the reins over to Matt Flynn against Chicago with seven minutes left in the third quarter.
Scores and opponents make for different situations, but neither Manning nor Rodgers were nursing damaged backs in the wake of off-season surgery.
On Saturday night at Amon Carter Stadium, I wondered — if only briefly — why TCU head coach Gary Patterson still had his electrifying quarterback, Trevone Boykin, on the field in the fourth quarter after he had landed awkwardly out of bounds in the third and appeared to injure his left wrist.
TCU held a 41-14 lead at the time, and Kansas State wasn’t rallying from that. But Patterson knows what happened to a 21-point lead with eight minutes to go in Waco last month. In addition — right or wrong — seemingly every passing and rushing yard counts when a player is in the middle of a Heisman Trophy chase. Boykin has injected himself into that conversation.
With six minutes to play, Boykin finally retired to the bench. He can continue his Heisman pursuit Saturday in Lawrence, Kan.
Romo gets a much needed week of rest. No harm was done when Garrett allowed him to overstay his return from last week’s inactive list. That doesn’t make it right. Poor decisions that somehow avoid costly results should not be applauded.
And the next time the Cowboys find themselves having put away an opponent long before the final gun sounds, I’m all for the general manager transporting himself to the sideline and telling the head coach to do the right thing.
The next time you see Jerry Jones on the Cowboys’ sideline during a game, don’t scream at your TV set. Don’t even complain about it. He may just be down there dispensing common sense.
There wasn’t much of that to be found in head coach Jason Garrett’s handling of a 31-17 win over the hapless Jacksonville Jaguars in London on Sunday. The game itself was filled with Cowboys highlights, offering assurances that this team is very much back in the thick of things in the NFC playoff chase following a two-game losing skid.
But as a 31-7 third-quarter lead became a 31-7 fourth-quarter lead, Cowboys fans across the pond here were all shouting the same question:
Why is Romo still playing?
I don’t need to recite all the details of the fractures in his back. You’ve heard about that for two weeks. And you saw how this offense failed to function without him in a 28-17 loss to the Arizona Cardinals, so you know what he means to this team’s future.
But there he was, third-and-10, less than nine minutes to play, Cowboys holding a 31-7 lead. And there he went, sacked to the turf, very deliberate in getting to his feet after a 6-yard loss. With 8:07 to play, the Cowboys punted and when they got the ball back, Brandon Weeden finally entered the game.
That was almost a quarter too late.
Once the game got to 31-7 in the third quarter, there was no sense in sending Romo back into harm’s way. The Jaguars’ defense was still capable of the occasional sack, but the Jacksonville offense wasn’t mounting a comeback.
I know how quickly things can unravel in an NFL game, but this is a Jaguars team that starts a rookie quarterback, two rookie wide receivers and first- and second-year men all over the offensive line.
This is a Jacksonville team whose drives from first to fourth quarter Sunday went: Touchdown. Punt. Punt. Fumble. Punt. Punt. Downs. Punt. Downs.
Garrett seemed baffled afterward that questions would be raised as to how he handled Romo in his current delicate state. And that’s always been part of the problem with Garrett as head coach.
A Princeton graduate, he fears coming across as a pointy-headed intellectual at all costs. He wraps himself in the history of the game, spinning Pudge Heffelfinger stories and talking toughness.
At some point a little cold-blooded logic is in order. Just because Romo didn’t suffer debilitating injuries on the fourth-quarter hits he absorbed doesn’t make it OK.
We have seen it for years, and every coach in football is reluctant to pull his starting quarterback, but look how two teams with Super Bowl aspirations handled their blowout situations Sunday.
Denver’s Peyton Manning did not set foot on the field in Oakland in the fourth quarter. Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers turned the reins over to Matt Flynn against Chicago with seven minutes left in the third quarter.
Scores and opponents make for different situations, but neither Manning nor Rodgers were nursing damaged backs in the wake of off-season surgery.
On Saturday night at Amon Carter Stadium, I wondered — if only briefly — why TCU head coach Gary Patterson still had his electrifying quarterback, Trevone Boykin, on the field in the fourth quarter after he had landed awkwardly out of bounds in the third and appeared to injure his left wrist.
TCU held a 41-14 lead at the time, and Kansas State wasn’t rallying from that. But Patterson knows what happened to a 21-point lead with eight minutes to go in Waco last month. In addition — right or wrong — seemingly every passing and rushing yard counts when a player is in the middle of a Heisman Trophy chase. Boykin has injected himself into that conversation.
With six minutes to play, Boykin finally retired to the bench. He can continue his Heisman pursuit Saturday in Lawrence, Kan.
Romo gets a much needed week of rest. No harm was done when Garrett allowed him to overstay his return from last week’s inactive list. That doesn’t make it right. Poor decisions that somehow avoid costly results should not be applauded.
And the next time the Cowboys find themselves having put away an opponent long before the final gun sounds, I’m all for the general manager transporting himself to the sideline and telling the head coach to do the right thing.
