Garrett Postmortem Thread...

[jsmith6919]

It's fitting that Garrett finally got fired because the team quit on him

 

[Simpleton]

'Several wasted seasons' is an understatement that trivializes the gravity of what we wasted. Two windows that were a Top 7 QB's prime in Romo and salary cap-friendly-cheap-QB with Dak.

A coach getting one of those windows is a rare blessing. Getting two is riding a unicorn.

Yea and with an all time type of OL group to boot in 2014 and 2016.

To be fair I can't really blame Garrett for 2014.

 

[Smitty]

Sturm quite literally started that article with, "I would've fired him long ago", and consistently claims he wanted him fired at the end of 2012.

Yet somehow Sturm's take is an indication that most Cowboys fans are way off on Garrett just because he is self-aware enough to admit that he pondered that he may have been wrong following 2014?

That's a massive reach, especially because the underlying premise, which is that Garrett was out of his depth and should've been fired years earlier, was ultimately correct and proven out after several wasted seasons.

It’s not a massive reach. I agree with most of what Sturm is saying.

It’s the insane hyperbole that Sturm doesn’t engage in that is the cause of most of the arguing on this subject.

You’ll notice he doesn’t label him “one of the worst,” or say he does nothing well or blame him for many of the contradictory things that he’s been blamed for around here.

 

[Smitty]

This just came up on my bleacher report Cowboys feed and even I thought it was too funny not to share:

Jason Garrett's offensive success in Dallas shouldn't be overlooked

Many have pooh-poohed the New York Giants’ hire of Jason Garrett as their offensive coordinator, but his numbers in Dallas don’t lie.

giantswire.usatoday.com

 

[Texas Ace]

This just came up on my bleacher report Cowboys feed and even I thought it was too funny not to share:

Jason Garrett's offensive success in Dallas shouldn't be overlooked

Many have pooh-poohed the New York Giants’ hire of Jason Garrett as their offensive coordinator, but his numbers in Dallas don’t lie.

giantswire.usatoday.com

Why do you try so hard?

Seriously....why?

Why does it bother you so much to see him so heavily criticized that you feel compelled to make counter arguments every.single.time.

Why?

 

[boozeman]

Why do you try so hard?

Seriously....why?

Why does it bother you so much to see him so heavily criticized that you feel compelled to make counter arguments every.single.time.

Why?

He went to Giantswire.


Yep. He did.

 

[Simpleton]

It’s not a massive reach. I agree with most of what Sturm is saying.

It’s the insane hyperbole that Sturm doesn’t engage in that is the cause of most of the arguing on this subject.

You’ll notice he doesn’t label him “one of the worst,” or say he does nothing well or blame him for many of the contradictory things that he’s been blamed for around here.

So if I say that Garrett should've been fired years earlier, managed to save his job multiple times when it was hanging by a thread, only to disappoint the season immediately thereafter, generally squandered top tier talent over the years, and at times actively weakened our chances of either making the playoffs or advancing further in the playoffs, ultimately grading out as an average at absolute best HC (but some or most would likely say below average or worse), you'd agree?

Because as far as I can tell that's Sturm's take on him in a nutshell.

 

[Simpleton]

Garrett's teams generally had pretty offensive stats because his rosters were littered with Pro Bowlers/HOF talent throughout his entire tenure.

2007-09: Romo, Witten, Owens, Austin, Barber, Flozell, Gurode, Davis
2014-19: Romo, Witten, Dez, Murray, Tyron, Frederick, Martin, Cooper, Elliott, Dak

At any given time between 2007-09 and 2014-19 we had anywhere from 4 to 6 Pro Bowlers on offense, including a stretch where in my opinion we had one of the best OL's of the last 20+ years in 2014 and 2016.

The problem, aside from the fact that despite all that talent we couldn't even make it to one damn NFCC, is that from 2011-13 when our OL was hollowed out our offense was a dumpster fire that would often start extremely slowly and then rely on Romo going no-huddle and running his own offense. Even in 2013 when the OL and Murray were starting to take shape Garrett still stuck by his shitty offense, only going run-heavy when basically forced to do so in 2014.

In 2018 we had plenty of offensive talent but putzed around until Cooper came in to breathe some life into the unit. The theme of all this is that Garrett was never some sort of offensive mastermind, he was just a guy who lucked into a good bit of talent, rode Romo for several years because he didn't know any better and then was seemingly guilted into going with a run-heavy offense because of how the bumbling failures had mounted over time.

Even in 2018 when we ONLY had 4 Pro Bowlers (Dak, Elliott, Tyron, Martin) the offense was average at best until Cooper came in and opened things up, because ultimately Garrett had no idea how to adjust strategy/schematics on the fly and more or less relied on players winning 1 on 1 battles ("execute", "bone on bone", etc.).

He clearly has nowhere near that talent on the Giants.

I'm sure he'll ride Barkley like a rented mule, run heavy play-action off of it and maybe cobble together an average offense if Barkley goes off for one of his peak seasons, but ultimately we all know damn good and well that Garrett isn't going to have some sort of McVay-type influence on the Giants because quite frankly he's incapable of that.

 

[L.T. Fan]

This just came up on my bleacher report Cowboys feed and even I thought it was too funny not to share:

Jason Garrett's offensive success in Dallas shouldn't be overlooked

Many have pooh-poohed the New York Giants’ hire of Jason Garrett as their offensive coordinator, but his numbers in Dallas don’t lie.

giantswire.usatoday.com

I think this writer makes a very valid point. The offenses of Dallas has been pretty good with his system but Garrett’s tendencies as a HC gave up games because he tends to back off and plays the clock when he gets the lead. These non aggressive tendencies have cost the Cowboys some games and he would not change. No killer instinct and wouldn't step on their necks when he had them running. He just couldn’t lose his play safe tendencies. He reavealed himself to the opponents and they used it against him.

 

[Cotton]

And fwiw the Storm article today is not “10 times he should have been fired,” - it’s ten instances of mistakes

You want to talk about having an honest discussion yet you start it off with being dishonest. He literally wrote the article to answer a tweet asking him to rank to most fireable moments of the Garrett era.

 

[Cotton]

I mean, he literally says each moment was fireable.

This was a pretty scathing article. Props for posting it.

Should have read the rest of the thread before posting.

 

[Cowboysrock55]

This just came up on my bleacher report Cowboys feed and even I thought it was too funny not to share:

Jason Garrett's offensive success in Dallas shouldn't be overlooked

Many have pooh-poohed the New York Giants’ hire of Jason Garrett as their offensive coordinator, but his numbers in Dallas don’t lie.

giantswire.usatoday.com

An article that claims the Giants offensive talent is on par with the Cowboys? What was that written by a Giants fan or something...

 

[Smitty]

He went to Giantswire.


Yep. He did.

No, it came up in my bleacher report Cowboys feed. And I said "Even I thought this was too funny."

I'm saying this article is giving Garrett ridiculous credit.

 

[Smitty]

So if I say that Garrett should've been fired years earlier,

I would not have fired him in 2012 like Sturm says he would have. Or in 2013. Sturm acknowledges the "handicapped by the OL" problem but also highlights the coaching errors that would have made him move on. I would not have been so quick, but I also acknowledge the mistakes. So I'm agreeing with Sturm on the mistakes he made.... I just would not personally have fired after 2012.

I do say that by 2015 I was saying a targeted upgrade was a preferred option. I don't know why everyone needs to gloss over this point... I simply was not gonna sign up for another coaching search that resulted in Wade Phillips.

Given how quickly we settled on McCarthy (he was practically hired before it was even announced Garrett was gone) it kinda seems like that's the way we went. Though by the end of the 2019 season I would have said the "targeted replacement" campaign was no longer necessary, his back half of that season was enough for me as a fan and I'm sure the team to lose faith in him... there were no personnel excuses for that underperformance like there was in 2011-13, 2015, 2017 or even the first half of 2018.

managed to save his job multiple times when it was hanging by a thread

Agreed. After 3 straight 8-8 seasons where talent deficiencies but ALSO coaching mistakes cost us the playoffs, he was out of chances in 2014... but for the first time in his tenure with truly superior talent, he had a 12-4 season where he won the division. Saved his job. Then he did so again in 2016 with his best coaching performance by getting a rookie QB and rookie RB to take the league by storm. Then he did so again by rallying the players down the back half of 2018. Each time he was at the very end of the road and managed to stave off a firing by getting to the divisional round of the playoffs.

only to disappoint the season immediately thereafter

Sturm hasn't addressed this yet but I'm sure the loss of a starting QB will be mentioned. I do not think the reasonable expectation that year should have been playoffs or Super Bowl. I'm not fretting that he went 4-12 instead of 6-10 or 7-9. BFD. Do not forget that they also did not adequately have any replacement at RB, and Dez Bryant missed half the year as well and was hobbled the rest. So they were down basically the starting QB, RB, and WR.

generally squandered top tier talent over the years, and at times actively weakened our chances of either making the playoffs or advancing further in the playoffs

At times.

ultimately grading out as an average at absolute best HC (but some or most would likely say below average or worse), you'd agree?

I mean, yeah, I've said he's an average HC many times.

I know you have to throw the virtue signal qualifier of "at absolute best," in there to show the rest of the clique that you really don't like him, grrrr, and you don't want to seem like you are agreeing with me, but yeah, that's more or less been my take for eons now. Average HC. Good at some things, bad at others, has cost the team but has done well at other times or in other situations, and my personal opinion was given that a lot of the struggles early seemed to be learning-on-the-job related and many of the struggles later seemed to be related to non being able to adjust to talent losses (star QB, star RB, not having a competent lead WR), I was willing to wait until either we had an elite HC lined up to replace him, or to wait and see what it looked like when he had all those things and still failed. 2019 was the year both of those things happened at once.

Because as far as I can tell that's Sturm's take on him in a nutshell.

Yeah, and I MOSTLY agree with Sturm. Him and I could have a reasonable discussion on the subject that didn't dissolve into 20 pages of back and forth while he accused me of being a "defender," because he'd see what I'm saying, as he says a lot of it himself.

The bickering occurs with the silly hyperbole where we get into attacking literally everything.

 

[Smitty]

An article that claims the Giants offensive talent is on par with the Cowboys? What was that written by a Giants fan or something...

Yeah, that's exactly the point. I'm saying "OMG this is insane." The last line was something like "The Cowboys loss will be the Giants gain."

Um... no. We have Mike McCarthy now. Not our loss.

 

[Smitty]

The theme of all this is that Garrett was never some sort of offensive mastermind, he was just a guy who lucked into a good bit of talent, rode Romo for several years because he didn't know any better and then was seemingly guilted into going with a run-heavy offense because of how the bumbling failures had mounted over time.

Yeah, uh, if anything, THIS paragraph is what doesn't agree with Sturm. He even says Garrett was a "bright offensive mind," or something along those lines. I wouldn't get carried away with giving him too much credit, but this is where the undersell gets push back from me.

What, he gets no credit for helping guys like Romo, Austin, Barber, Dez, Murray, guys who he started coaching very early in their careers?

This is where we go off the rails. "It was ALL the talent. Garrett did nothing. He held them back."

No, of course, their high flying numbers had nothing to do with his coaching -- either his development from teaching skills at practice or his game-plans and playcalls for Sunday.

Come on. This is where it gets ridiculous. You have people trying to sell that he had nothing to do with a fourth round QB coming in here and putting together a Pro Bowl season and career to date. Trying to sell that he had nothing to do with relatively high-ranking offenses over the years.

He absolutely had a hand in all this.

And we can agree that he deserved to be fired without going crazy trying to deny any positive he had here. You can maintain that he should have been fired in 2012 and say that the negatives outweighed the positives every year, but still acknowledge there were some positives.

That's where this debate becomes a problem so consistently from my perspective.

He clearly has nowhere near that talent on the Giants.

I'm sure he'll ride Barkley like a rented mule, run heavy play-action off of it and maybe cobble together an average offense if Barkley goes off for one of his peak seasons, but ultimately we all know damn good and well that Garrett isn't going to have some sort of McVay-type influence on the Giants because quite frankly he's incapable of that.

It wouldn't surprise me to see Jones perform over his head in this year or coming years. Yeah I do suspect they will ride Barkley but the OL is being reinforced and perhaps some of the simplicity which doomed Garrett from advancing may help Jones develop a bit.

Of course he's not gonna have a McVay type influence, McVay had a great coaching performance for a couple years there, he was a very hot coaching prospect and everyone agrees Garrett is not that. It's just that we also can't sit here and deny credit for what positives do occur, even if they aren't enough.

 

[Cotton]

Good lord, Smitty. He is gone. Just fucking let him go.

 

[Smitty]

Good lord, Smitty. He is gone. Just fucking let him go.

I think some people need to look in the mirror. I wasn't the one engaging in pages of diatribing. All I started this off with was "I think I would agree with much of Sturm's take... which is much more reasonable than the hot takes in the last few pages of this thread."

And then the ideology police had to come stamp that out. Of course I'm gonna argue back.

 

[NoDak]

Did anybody read all that? Could you just give me the cliff notes? Thanks.

 

[Cowboysrock55]

Yeah, that's exactly the point. I'm saying "OMG this is insane." The last line was something like "The Cowboys loss will be the Giants gain."

Um... no. We have Mike McCarthy now. Not our loss.

Ok that makes more sense. I thought you were posting it for other reasons. It's just a pathetic article all around.