Cowboys Nation is all fired up, once again. After another sub-par performance last night in Chicago, where the Cowboys made the Bears once again look like the Monsters of the Midway, and Mitch Trubisky look like a future hall-of-fame QB, Cowboys fans want a pound of flesh and Jason Garrett’s head on a silver plate. Sitting on a three game losing streak, and with a record of 3-7 over their last ten games, the Cowboys are going backwards fast and look to be in complete disarray. But is canning the head coach the answer to the Cowboys woes? Yes and no.
If you look at statistics over the last 30 years in all four major sports, it’s very clear that if you have a head coach (or manager in baseball) that has never won a championship with another team, that after five years there is little or no chance he will bring home a title to the team he’s currently with. In fact, it’s only happened once in all that time – and that was the Steeler’s Bill Cowher, who after 14 years with Pittsburgh finally managed to grab a championship ring when his team beat the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XL. But, and it’s a big but, he had already brought his team to five AFC Championship games and one Super Bowl. Jason Garrett is in his 10th year as the Cowboys head man, and has had the ‘Boys in only five playoff games total, losing three of them – and hasn’t sniffed an NFC Championship game let alone a Super Bowl.
It’s obviously time to turn the page on the Garrett era, in fact it’s about five years overdue. But don’t expect it to happen now, for several reasons. First and foremost is because the bottom line is Jerry Jones does not want to fire his favorite ginger. He loves him some Jason Garrett. So he’ll wait until the off-season when a new contract simply won’t be offered to Garrett, at least not in his current position. And honestly, in my opinion it’s probably the right move. The Cowboys are still the odds on favorites to win the NFC East this year and make the playoffs, and if the Cowboys turned Garrett loose right now, who would take over the reigns?
It would have to be an internal promotion, just like how Garrett rose to the top spot when Wade Phillips took the Jones ax to his head in November of 2010. And if anyone thinks there’s a man on the current staff that deserves to be even an interim head coach (which is all they would be) please raise your hand. The offense, defense and special teams all look like they are horribly managed right now, and names that had luster attached to them just two months ago such as Kellen Moore and Kris Richard now look like they are way out of their league in each and every game they coach. Of course there’s 70-year-old Rod Marinelli, a good coach who’s defense has unfortunately turned a deaf ear to his message. Promoting him for the season’s final three games would just be more of the same. In fact any internal promotion would simply be seen as a lame duck hire by the players, and rightfully so. Marinelli would get the same respect from the players as Garrett is currently getting – which is zip.
So ride this season out Cowboys’ fans, and hope the off-season brings someone new and exciting to run your favorite team. But before you get your hopes too high, remember the man doing the hiring has a long track record of looking for a yes-man to run his multi-billion dollar toy – and coaches that demanded respect from players like Jimmy Johnson and Bill Parcells aren’t likely to be officing at The Star next year. It’s much more likely to be a repeat of Jason Garrett, Wade Phillips, Chan Gailey and Dave Campo.
