Archer: Cowboys coaches will have to play catch up

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Cowboys coaches will have to play catch up
January, 26, 2015

By Todd Archer | ESPNDallas.com

IRVING, Texas -- With the Pro Bowl over, the Dallas Cowboys coaches will be off for the rest of Super Bowl week.

When they return to work, however, they will be busy playing catch up.

After lasting two rounds in the playoffs and then coaching in the Pro Bowl, the Cowboys have yet to have closure on the 2014 season. After their loss to the Green Bay Packers and before they headed to Phoenix to coach Team Irvin in the Pro Bowl, most of the coaches had to get new contracts.

Coach Jason Garrett admitted the calendar has been pushed back a little bit.

"All that stuff has to be pretty clean," Garrett said. "The most important thing at the outset is to evaluate our own players and try to get that done the first week we get back."

Having almost all of the coaching staff back should help those evaluations, according to Garrett. Offensive coordinator/offensive line coach Bill Callahan left for the Washington Redskins but his replacement, Frank Pollack, has been hands on with the line the last two years. Assistant head coach/defense Monte Kiffin is not under contract and his status is in doubt.

The only new face so far on the coaching staff could be Marc Colombo, who is considered the leader to become Pollack's assistant line coach.

Having the coaches back helps in the "evaluation and when we start talking about our schemes for the coming year," Garrett said. "We'll go back and evaluate what we've done but it's not like we're teaching a coach or a number of coaches, 'This is what the offensive system is,' or the defensive system. We have a lot of those things in place. So that gives you a chance to go back and really evaluate it and make improvements on it instead of getting people up to speed. It applies to personnel and it applies to our schemes."

In addition to the evaluation of the players on the roster, the coaches have to get up to speed with the players who could one day be on their roster. The coaches would have spent three days in Mobile, Alabama, for the Senior Bowl if not for their coaching duties in the Pro Bowl. That is their introduction to the college players after the season.

They will have the chance to see the practice tape from the week and their scouts will get them up to speed before the NFL scouting combine in February.

In effect, the coaches will go through two-a-days.

"The priority will be these personnel meetings, evaluating our own team, but then you start to get that [college] stuff started," Garrett said. "Typically we work on our football in the morning and our college evaluation stuff in the afternoon."
 
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