MacMahon: Jerry Jones - Jason Garrett 'really just getting started'

Cotton

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Jerry Jones: Jason Garrett 'really just getting started'
December, 15, 2014

By Tim MacMahon | ESPNDallas.com

PHILADELPHIA -- A matter of principle is the only thing preventing owner and general manager Jerry Jones from publicly declaring that Jason Garrett will continue coaching the Dallas Cowboys next season.

"The only reason I'm not going to because I've said that I'm just not going to talk about his business," Jones said after the Cowboys seized control of the NFC East and improved to 10-4 with a 38-27 win against the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday night. "His business in this context is his contract. I'm just not going to talk about that. I haven't talked about it and there’s no need to talk about it. We'll sit down after the season and take a look at how things are going.

"It's very obvious that he is doing very well and his hard work is paying off."

It’s paying off much more than Jones would have predicted, to be honest.

Remember that Jones, who has earned a reputation for being optimistic to the point of delusion, essentially labeled this as a rebuilding season during the summer. He made a point to mention that Garrett, coming off three consecutive 8-8 campaigns in his first three full years as a head coach, would not be judged solely on the Cowboys’ record.

That’s the kind of talk that comes from an owner who was looking for reasons to keep his head coach and didn’t anticipate a 10-win season.

"It is beyond my expectation when we started the year that we’re sitting here with the wins," Jones said. "It doesn’t surprise me when I look at the work of Jason, when I look at the work of the staff, when I look the preparation, when I look at the resolve that they exhibited during our [organized team activities] and training camp, it doesn’t surprise me that we’ve had exceeded our expectation at all."

Jones has said several times that he considers this coaching staff to be the best of his ownership tenure. He has frequently lavished praise on coordinators Rod Marinelli and Scott Linehan, both of whom are in their positions in large part because Garrett was given more leeway to decide on staff changes last offseason.

Jones refers to Garrett as a coach who "has the chance to be at the top of his profession." Jones sees the potential for greatness in Garrett after living through the first-time head coach’s growing pains the last few years.

"I am confident that he’s eons away from when he started, walking in here as a coordinator, and when he started as a head coaching taking Wade Phillips' place," Jones said. "He’s way far down the line. Seasoned? No, that’s the good news. The good news is he’s really just getting started."
 

Rev

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Slow starter but you better watch out now
 

Clay_Allison

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Jones has said several times that he considers this coaching staff to be the best of his ownership tenure. He has frequently lavished praise on coordinators Rod Marinelli and Scott Linehan, both of whom are in their positions in large part because Garrett was given more leeway to decide on staff changes last offseason.
That's some impressive spin. If Garrett gets more "leeway" in 2015 he will take back the playcalling that he was forced to give up and put a stop to this "running the football" nonsense.
 

Smitty

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That's some impressive spin. If Garrett gets more "leeway" in 2015 he will take back the playcalling that he was forced to give up and put a stop to this "running the football" nonsense.
Do you even believe what you write? Yeah, he's gonna order Linehan to stop running the ball so much.

You haters have completely fabricated most of Garrett's "incompetence" and that's why he gets stuck up for despite only being average.

As if we're supposed to believe he's some evil genius hell bent on derailing our successful running game -- at the expense of the success that has clearly saved his job. As if he can't recognize that... as if there is no correlation between the personnel on the line and the increased commitment to running.... As if he's gonna go back to only running the ball 300 times a season just to prove a point that he "hates" running or because he's "friends" with Romo.

Then last night we had to hear in game how terrible the offensive schemes are that led to 38 points. Yeah, they're fucking horrible. :lol
 
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Clay_Allison

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Do you even believe what you write? Yeah, he's gonna order Linehan to stop running the ball so much.

You haters have completely fabricated most of Garrett's "incompetence" and that's why he gets stuck up for despite only being average.

As if we're supposed to believe he's some evil genius hell bent on derailing our successful running game -- at the expense of the success that has clearly saved his job. As if he can't recognize that... as if there is no correlation between the personnel on the line and the increased commitment to running.... As if he's gonna go back to only running the ball 300 times a season just to prove a point that he "hates" running or because he's "friends" with Romo.

Then last night we had to hear in game how terrible the offensive schemes are that led to 38 points. Yeah, they're fucking horrible. :lol
Yesterday, we ran the ball 31 times despite an abysmal 2.6 yards per carry. Garrett wouldn't run the ball when the team was averaging over 6. It's a clear difference in philosophy, and it didn't happen because Garrett got more leeway, it happened because the offense was taken away from him. If he got it back he would go right back to who he is: the most unbalanced play caller in the NFL.
 

Chocolate Lab

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You haters have completely fabricated most of Garrett's "incompetence" and that's why he gets stuck up for despite only being average.
So you admit he's only average? Good to know.

Average guy who takes orders = perfect Jerry coach. Which is why he plotted to hire him for about a decade.
 

Smitty

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So you admit he's only average? Good to know.

Average guy who takes orders = perfect Jerry coach. Which is why he plotted to hire him for about a decade.
I've said many times that he is average. However, he is not one of the worst coaches in the league, which is what people around here would have you think. He also does not "hate the run".

We will not be going back to 330 rush attempts per year with this OL here, no matter who is calling plays, Garrett or otherwise. This line is too good for that now, and it's previous ineptness was too big a part in why we ran so little in years past.

As a coach, Garrett is pass happy in general, but then again, so was Linehan in Detroit. While I don't expect that Garrett would do what we are seeing now if he was calling plays by himself, Clays claims that he's immediately go back to being "the most unbalanced playcaller in the league" is just nonsense.

Oh, and by the way, Linehan is a Garrett buddy so his presence here, calling all those running plays, is in fact a reflection on Garrett's input.
 
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Chocolate Lab

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We will not be going back to 330 rush attempts per year with this OL here, no matter who is calling plays, Garrett or otherwise. This line is too good for that now, and it's previous ineptness was too big a part in why we ran so little in years past.
You think this line was "inept" just one year ago? Zack Martin transformed the line all by himself?
 

Clay_Allison

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You think this line was "inept" just one year ago? Zack Martin transformed the line all by himself?
We've been over this. Schmitty always said it just took Garrett a lot of "time to adjust". It's bullshit. Garrett is what he is. He thinks he wants to run the football, but the Green Bay game last year is who he is.
 

boozeman

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He also does not "hate the run".
Look at what his offenses are designed off of. Did Coryell love the run and believe in it as a foundation of his offense? Of course not.

If given the choice, he will throw.
 

Smitty

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Look at what his offenses are designed off of. Did Coryell love the run and believe in it as a foundation of his offense? Of course not.

If given the choice, he will throw.
There's a difference between that and hating the run. I've always said Garrett is pass first and pass happy.

But we are never, ever going back to 330 carries a year with this OL, even if Garrett returns to calling plays. That's a delusion that some haters float out there to back up the fantasy that he "hates the run" and allows them to pretend the state of the OL wasn't culpable in the playcalling decisions at least to an extent.
 

boozeman

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There's a difference between that and hating the run. I've always said Garrett is pass first and pass happy.

But we are never, ever going back to 330 carries a year with this OL, even if Garrett returns to calling plays. That's a delusion that some haters float out there to back up the fantasy that he "hates the run" and allows them to pretend the state of the OL wasn't culpable in the playcalling decisions at least to an extent.
So pass happy means likes the run? I'm confused.
 

Clay_Allison

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There's a difference between that and hating the run. I've always said Garrett is pass first and pass happy.

But we are never, ever going back to 330 carries a year with this OL, even if Garrett returns to calling plays. That's a delusion that some haters float out there to back up the fantasy that he "hates the run" and allows them to pretend the state of the OL wasn't culpable in the playcalling decisions at least to an extent.
2013 Green Bay Game. Dominant running the football, abandons the run second half, gives up a big lead, laughed at by Packers for not running. Give Garrett playcalling back and he'll do that again. It doesn't matter how good the running game is.
 

Smitty

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You think this line was "inept" just one year ago? Zack Martin transformed the line all by himself?
1) It's a complete fiction that Martin is the only difference between last year and this year. Leary and Frederick are also playing significantly better than they did last year, especially Leary who was nothing more than average at best last year. Frederick was good as a rookie (a revelation over Costa in fact) but has taken a big step in his 2nd year.

2) The year before, with a struggling Doug Free, and no Martin or Leary OR Frederick, and a much less developed Smith, yes, the line was inept, just like it was the year before that and the year before that. So keep in mind that for 3+ years before the last half of 2013, Garrett knew for a fact that the line couldn't be trusted to run block when he needed it to.

3) Garrett did not adjust well enough as the OL began to come together later in the year. That's on him.

But it remains a complete delusion that he would go back to running the ball 330 times a year with the OL like it is now. Completely unsubstantiated nonsense.
 
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boozeman

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I will go one step further. I think the run suddenly became important with Romo's injury situation. It became a necessity to limit his exposure. No back issues with Romo, he is doing exactly what he was doing late last season...even down to having the fricking backup sling it 40+ times with the season on the line.
 

Smitty

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2013 Green Bay Game. Dominant running the football, abandons the run second half, gives up a big lead, laughed at by Packers for not running. Give Garrett playcalling back and he'll do that again. It doesn't matter how good the running game is.
2007-2009 we ran the ball much more when the OL was half decent. So that disproves the "he won't run the ball" argument.

Your one game anecdotal evidence fits in nicely with my theory that he tends to get pass happy and let the playcalling get away from him, but again, to apply that to a whole season is pure delusion.

Especially when your theory rests on him hiring the guy who is doing something Garrett doesn't want to do. Why hasn't he seized playcalling back from Linehan then, if he doesn't want to run it?

It's because he does.
 

Smitty

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So pass happy means likes the run? I'm confused.
Garrett is pass happy. No one is disputing that. He will always, if calling plays himself, call more passes than we'd like.

But the days of running the ball only 330 times a year were also VERY STRONGLY correlated to the state of the OL. Now that it has been indisputably proven that the OL is reliable, we won't be going back to that, despite the pass happiness tendencies that Garrett does possess. Not even if he took back over playcalling (which he won't -- since he brought in Linehan and supports/approves of all the run calling he's doing).
 

Clay_Allison

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2007-2009 we ran the ball much more when the OL was half decent. So that disproves the "he won't run the ball" argument.

Your one game anecdotal evidence fits in nicely with my theory that he tends to get pass happy and let the playcalling get away from him, but again, to apply that to a whole season is pure delusion.
I've been saying that he thinks he wants to run until he gets tunnel vision and starts passing, so we're describing the same thing.

It doesn't have to be a whole season to screw over the team. He just has to go into Garrett Mode 2-3 games out of 16 and that's enough to drop us back to 8-8.

Also, he doesn't admit that he's wrong when he does that. He whines and makes excuses like "we wanted to stay aggressive" "we didn't just want to take a knee" which shows you how little he really trusts running the football in general, regardless of the line.

Finally, Garrett has never adjusted anything in his Madden offense to his personnel. He has consistently miscast and misused WRs, refusing to change the plays to suit the routes they are best at running, he comes in with a pass-happy mindset even when we are starting Brad Johnson at QB. So suddenly he notices the offensive line is bad and his answer is to expose his QB to more hits behind that offensive line? Awesome strategy.
Especially when your theory rests on him hiring the guy who is doing something Garrett doesn't want to do. Why hasn't he seized playcalling back from Linehan then?
Because uncle Jerry took the playcalling away from him for real this time. Admittedly, it was a compromise on Jerry's part. He took away the "I don't trust Callahan" element and made Garrett pick a guy to turn over the offense to.

It's not that I think Garrett is offended by Linehan running the ball. I just think at some point he'll want his toy back and he will revert to form and be pass happy.
 

Chocolate Lab

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Garrett is pass happy. No one is disputing that. He will always, if calling plays himself, call more passes than we'd like.

But the days of running the ball only 330 times a year were also VERY STRONGLY correlated to the state of the OL. Now that it has been indisputably proven that the OL is reliable, we won't be going back to that, despite the pass happiness tendencies that Garrett does possess. Not even if he took back over playcalling (which he won't -- since he brought in Linehan and supports/approves of all the run calling he's doing).
I asked this on another board I used to post on before some overzealous mods took over, but why is it assumed as sound thinking that if you have a bad OL, you can't possibly even attempt to run the ball, but it's perfectly acceptable and even preferable to put your 100 miliion dollar franchise QB at risk 55 times a game?
 
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