Garrett Postmortem Thread...

[Simpleton]

Blaming Garrett for the drafts is a bit inane, especially since I think most of the onus falls on Marinelli for being ridiculously picky with the types of players he wanted and seemingly ignoring any type of prospect who doesn't physically look like Warren Sapp, Simeon Rice, Tommie Harris or Brian Urlacher. Garrett had his TE fetish that was a killer for 4-5 years but that was snuffed out thankfully after 2013 and generally we had a good amount of success drafting offensively.

Going down the rabbit hole and arguing that the ends justify the means because we ended up with McCarthy and some level of success with Garrett is disingenuous though. Nobody really knows what would've happened if he was fired earlier, maybe we end up with Bruce Arians or Mike Zimmer in 2013 or whatever and go to a Super Bowl. Maybe we end up with Mike Pettine, fire him after a few years and then hire Kyle Shannahan and win the Super Bowl in 2018.

Or maybe Dirk Koetter is still our HC right now and we suck.

The only thing we do know is that Garrett proved himself unworthy of a decade of employment as a HC, several years of prime contending opportunity went by the wayside with some short-lived, relatively forgettable successes mixed in, and we now have a HC who provides a good level of optimism moving forward.

 

[Chocolate Lab]

I don't think anybody legitimately thinks Garrett is the worst HC ever.

Ahem...

 

[Smitty]

Going down the rabbit hole and arguing that the ends justify the means because we ended up with McCarthy and some level of success with Garrett is disingenuous though. Nobody really knows what would've happened if he was fired earlier, maybe we end up with Bruce Arians or Mike Zimmer in 2013 or whatever and go to a Super Bowl. Maybe we end up with Mike Pettine, fire him after a few years and then hire Kyle Shannahan and win the Super Bowl in 2018.

Or maybe Dirk Koetter is still our HC right now and we suck.

Maybe those things happen, but I don't think it's "disingenuous," though. It's just that this was always the point I was making: Don't gamble on maybe better, maybe worse (or "maybe also not good enough," if that parlance satisfies people more) simply because YOU view him as easily upgradable. It doesn't mean that Jerry is capable of finding that upgrade if there's not a clear option.

I also wasn't saying "Wait till 2019 to find that targeted upgrade." I just wanted to wait until a sure thing like McCarthy or that caliber was available.

We did, so all in all I'm satisfied.

 

[data]

A round of applause to everybody to this needed nuanced discussion. It’s elevated the DCC for the uninformed.

Now, to continue this noble exercise, who would like to kick off the nuanced approach to Monte Kiffin? Or Linehan or Marinelli?

Surely that’s the inevitable next step, right?

 

[p1_]

Maybe those things happen, but I don't think it's "disingenuous," though. It's just that this was always the point I was making: Don't gamble on maybe better, maybe worse (or "maybe also not good enough," if that parlance satisfies people more) simply because YOU view him as easily upgradable. It doesn't mean that Jerry is capable of finding that upgrade if there's not a clear option.

I also wasn't saying "Wait till 2019 to find that targeted upgrade." I just wanted to wait until a sure thing like McCarthy or that caliber was available.

We did, so all in all I'm satisfied.

Better to lose with the devil you know than to attempt an upgrade, while talented rosters are being wasted? I'd rather take a chance, seeing that I don't think keeping a .500 coach and treading water is valuable when the Super Bowl is the goal. But that's me.

 

[Smitty]

Better to lose with the devil you know than to attempt an upgrade, while talented rosters are being wasted? I'd rather take a chance, seeing that I don't think keeping a .500 coach and treading water is valuable when the Super Bowl is the goal. But that's me.

Better to attempt at an upgrade when you know you can get a good one.

We don’t know how it would have turned out if we fired Garrett in, say, 2015, but we do know that the targeted upgrade approach basically netted us McCarthy in 2020, a very quality top-10-ish coach in his Green Bay heyday.

It’s possible that this is the best outcome.

 

[NoDak]

I never did buy the whole "Fire Garrett if we can get an obvious upgrade" bullshit. Giving examples like Payton and Reid is a copout. Those guys don't come around often. Hell, nobody knew Payton and Reid were going to be Payton and Reid when they were hired as young coaches.

The fact is, we KNEW that we were not winning shit with Garrett. At best, we were treading water. I would have preferred we got rid of Garrett and tanked with somebody else over a few years than to just do nothing. At least we would have been trying to improve. And who knows? Maybe we would have meshed with a new coach and did something.

 

[p1_]

I never did buy the whole "Fire Garrett if we can get an obvious upgrade" bullshit. Giving examples like Payton and Reid is a copout. Those guys don't come around often. Hell, nobody knew Payton and Reid were going to be Payton and Reid when they were hired as young coaches.

The fact is, we KNEW that we were not winning shit with Garrett. At best, we were treading water. I would have preferred we got rid of Garrett and tanked with somebody else over a few years than to just do nothing. At least we would have been trying to improve. And who knows? Maybe we would have meshed with a new coach and did something.

you could probably go year by year and find available coaches that would be considered an upgrade.

 

[NoDak]

you could probably go year by year and find available coaches that would be considered an upgrade.

Considering the level I believe Garrett's coaching to be at, I have zero doubt about that.

 

[Smitty]

Yeah, but again, now that we know the outcome of the wait for an upgrade approach (essentially), it’s not a question of whether so-and-so was technically “better” or “an upgrade” to Garrett, it’s whether if we had fired Garrett and gotten said replacement level coach, whether that is superior as an outcome then where we are sitting today. Scoff at “waiting for Andy Reid or Sean Payton” all you want but at the same time sitting here in 2020 with Mike McCarthy is almost certainly a better situation for us to be in than if we had hired, as I said, pretty much any of the names after 2015. Who knows what we would have ended up with, whether we would have won a Super Bowl, or where we’d be now?

I think the flexibility of being able to move on when a top tier coach comes along is something of value.

 

[Chocolate Lab]

Garrett is so spare that the odds of getting someone worse than him were infinitesimal. The fear that, "We could do worse" makes no sense at all.

 

[Cowboysrock55]

Garrett is so spare that the odds of getting someone worse than him were infinitesimal. The fear that, "We could do worse" makes no sense at all.

I also don't believe you should hold onto a shitty coach because it makes it easier to dump him when a special coach comes along. If a special coach comes along you should pursue him regardless unless you already have a special coach.

 

[ravidubey]

I’m just incredibly happy he’s finally gone.

Our football lives were essentially on hold while we watched Darren McFadden score a TD when he could have gotten a first down at the 1 that let us run out the clock or freezing our own kicker or yet another crappy game day mistake.

I wish frankly that he was gone, out of football. Instead we still have to see repeated shots of him in the Giants booth. Yes I should be glad he’s hurting the Giants and undermining their other coaches, but I’m not. Just the chance of seeing him is that mentally scarring.

 

[Texas Ace]

I still don't get why Schmitty feels so compelled to defend Garrett from these "clown takes".

Why do the negative opinions bother him to the point that he makes the same defenses of him for literally YEARS now.

He just can't help himself, I guess.

I'm genuinely curious here. Like when he reads another post that calls Garrett the awful HC that he is, what exactly triggers in his mind in that moment that results in him being unable to ignore it?

I cannot understand for the life of me why Schmitty feels such a desire to set everyone straight who thinks Garrett was an awful HC. He was, at best, an average coach. At worst, he was the 2nd worst HC in franchise history behind Campo, and Campo didn't have half that talent at his disposal so even that is up for debate.

But all this for fucking Jason Garrett? Really???

I think Jimmy Johnson was a genius. I hold him in the highest regard possible when it comes to football coaches. And if someone told me he was awful, I'd be puzzled and make a case against what I thought was an idiotic take.

But that discussion would go back and forth two, maybe three times at most before I just moved along.

Apparently, Schmitty's admiration for the ginger goes a hell of a lot further than just football.

Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if he pulled for the Giants to have a good offensive output vs Dallas just to be able to throw it in everyone's faces.

 

[data]

Schmitty...you like Garrett, fine. Wanna claim he didn't get bounces, fine. But the desperate lunacy you're posting today, this is embarassing for you.

...we do know that the targeted upgrade approach basically netted us McCarthy in 2020

No, netting McCarthy in 2020 was not a targeted upgrade approach. Targeted upgrade approach is your concoction that started with you and that's as far as it got. It was not Jerruh's strategy. Show me where Jerruh has said we're hanging onto Garrett until we can find a definitively better coach like Belichick, Reid, Payton or McCarthy.

It’s possible that this is the best outcome.

The best outcome? Hanging onto Jason Garrett for 5 years (2015-2020) until we can land a Mike McCarthy.

Right...the Eagles were fools to hire Doug Pederson and win a Super Bowl in the meantime. They coulda hired a Mike McCarthy, folks, but, nah, they fucked up by winning a Super Bowl with Pederson.

 

[Angrymesscan]

Garrett is so spare that the odds of getting someone worse than him were infinitesimal. The fear that, "We could do worse" makes no sense at all.

not only that, if we did worse we would have higher picks and have an even better cast for McCarthy now...

 

[Smitty]

Schmitty...you like Garrett, fine. Wanna claim he didn't get bounces, fine. But the desperate lunacy you're posting today, this is embarassing for you.



No, netting McCarthy in 2020 was not a targeted upgrade approach. Targeted upgrade approach is your concoction that started with you and that's as far as it got. It was not Jerruh's strategy. Show me where Jerruh has said we're hanging onto Garrett until we can find a definitively better coach like Belichick, Reid, Payton or McCarthy.



The best outcome? Hanging onto Jason Garrett for 5 years (2015-2020) until we can land a Mike McCarthy.

Right...the Eagles were fools to hire Doug Pederson and win a Super Bowl in the meantime. They coulda hired a Mike McCarthy, folks, but, nah, they fucked up by winning a Super Bowl with Pederson.

I think it’s likely that Jerry’s decision to ultimately fire Garrett.... as we were all speculating he might be looking for a way to keep him... was heavily dependent on McCarthy... a guy they simply knew was a great coach... being ready and willing to take the job.

This IS what I was saying to do. Not to have a firing and then not know who you’d end up with, which is what happened to them when Parcells walked away in 2006.

And yes this very well might have ended up the best outcome for us. We would never have hired a guy like Pederson, he was a Reid disciple and destined for Philly. As the example I have if we would have fired Garrett after 2015 the rest of the coaches hired that offseason were garbage. Whether they are “better,” than Garrett or not would have been irrelevant in the comparison of what we have now, cause they would not have been good either.

What if we had hired a guy like Koetter, still don’t win a Super Bowl or go to a championship game, and history is changed and now in 2020 we aren’t sitting here with McCarthy? I think it’s very possible we are in a better position right now than we otherwise would have been.

This isn’t an argument to say you have to stick with all shitty coaches 5 extra years, but it does suggest that firing punitively without knowing if the right guy is there, means you should maybe have a little patience. The 2015 argument could also be applied to say, yes, not firing him after 2015 was right because the 2017 year could have produced Jon Gruden, as an example, and he was a known quality that would have made sense. Though I’d argue that we are even better off now, coincidentally, with McCarthy.

 

[Genghis Khan]

I'd have fired Garrett in 2012 in favor of a random name out of a hat if I had to.

Not a random coaches name, a random name. Fireman, coach, accountant, homemaker, I'd take my chances.

 

[L.T. Fan]

I still don't get why Schmitty feels so compelled to defend Garrett from these "clown takes".

Why do the negative opinions bother him to the point that he makes the same defenses of him for literally YEARS now.

He just can't help himself, I guess.

I'm genuinely curious here. Like when he reads another post that calls Garrett the awful HC that he is, what exactly triggers in his mind in that moment that results in him being unable to ignore it?

I cannot understand for the life of me why Schmitty feels such a desire to set everyone straight who thinks Garrett was an awful HC. He was, at best, an average coach. At worst, he was the 2nd worst HC in franchise history behind Campo, and Campo didn't have half that talent at his disposal so even that is up for debate.

But all this for fucking Jason Garrett? Really???

I think Jimmy Johnson was a genius. I hold him in the highest regard possible when it comes to football coaches. And if someone told me he was awful, I'd be puzzled and make a case against what I thought was an idiotic take.

But that discussion would go back and forth two, maybe three times at most before I just moved along.

Apparently, Schmitty's admiration for the ginger goes a hell of a lot further than just football.

Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if he pulled for the Giants to have a good offensive output vs Dallas just to be able to throw it in everyone's faces.

Garrett wasn’t a good coach for reasons I have already stated but if you just go by wins and losses then he is in the middle of the pack with about .550. Shula is highest with with total wins but his percentage is about . 625 but the most wins was a fellow names Chamberlin which is highest and with percentage of about .734 and shares the top total wins with company such as Lombardi and Halas in the .700s as well. To call Garrett shitty would cover the majority of the coaches in the league. To me I see him as a coach with limitations of aggressiveness and systems that are maybe better than he chose to use. He is a rigid coach and those folks can’t advance to the top because they aren’t flexible when the situation call for it.

 

[NoDak]

Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if he pulled for the Giants to have a good offensive output vs Dallas just to be able to throw it in everyone's faces.

Oh, you know it's coming. The first time they have a good offensive showing, there will be something said. And especially if it's against Dallas.