According to a report on ESPN, the Baltimore Ravens have asked Dallas Cowboys offensive coordinator Jason Garrett to be their new head coach after they fired Brian Billick for being out of his league and living on undeserved accolades from years ago. Word on the street says that Garrett has yet to make a decision.
I have a feeling he won’t have to: Jerry Jones will offer him the head coaching job with the Cowboys if he will stay on, firing Wade Phillips in the process.
Now, this is all on gut feeling and I know there are others out there who feel the same way, especially after the Cowboys became the first top NFC team to lose in the Divisional round of the playoffs in modern-day NFL history. Someone has to pay for that, and the top man has proven himself to be, like Marty Schottenheimer, a postseason loser.
Phillips is now 0-4 in the playoffs. Marty has won five games in the postseason, but he has had 18 chances – and two of those wins came with Joe Montana and Marcus Allen playing together for the Chiefs. I have those games on tape and I am pretty sure they just stopped listening to Marty in order to win. If that was the case, Schottenheimer has not won a playoff game on his own merits since 1990. That’s only 18 years, right? Yeah, he’ll get another chance real soon. Madness.
Even Phillips has admitted that he was surprised to get another shot at being an NFL head coach after his sessions of futility while masquerading as the head coach of the Denver Broncos and Buffalo Bills made it abundantly clear – apparently to anyone not named Jerry Jones – that giving Wade Phillips command of an NFL team is simply to watch the Peter Principle play out before your eyes. It is a waste of the talents of people like Tony Romo and Terrell Owens, and no one wants to see Owens all teary-eyed. (By no one, I mean everyone except Cowboys fans; and I especially mean fans of the 49ers and Eagles.)
The article linked to in the previous paragraph talks about Norv Turner, the first-year head coach in San Diego, who is going to give an excellent example of an entire team displaying the meaning of the Peter Principle when the Chargers visit New England this weekend to play the undefeated Patriots on their home turf, Gillette Field.
Still, hats off to Turner for getting his team into the AFC Championship game. He has made some great calls in these playoffs and pretty much everything has panned out very well for him. Color me surprised, but happily so. I love being wrong about someone sucking. I want everyone in the NFL to be great. How could you not, as a fan?
Anyway, read what 41 Miles To Freedom says about the hiring of Wade Phillips in Dallas back in July of last year and you’ll get a glimpse into the thought processes that can sway an otherwise sound mind into the illogical notion that, “Hey, maybe Phillips will do just fine.”
So, now Jerry Jones has two choices, really. Both of which will cause him at least a measure of stress and losing face. He can keep Phillips and lose Garrett in the process; a decision that will bring the ire of intelligent football fans from throughout the Lone Star State. Or, he can cut Phillips and make Garrett his new head coach; in effect admitting that he should probably have hired Garrett instead of Phillips last year.
While the second option will placate the fans, at least for now – such a fickle bunch are they – perhaps Jones is smarter than we know. It is entirely possible that, like the four other head coaches mentioned in this piece, Garrett will not be a good head coach and Jones knows this. After all, not many people have been around football and management as long as Jones. (Don’t bring up the obviously insane Al Davis.)
Still, Garrett would only have to be better than Wade Phillips to be the better choice and that can’t be all that hard. Phillips seems to have brought the fun back to the Cowboys and Garrett is given tons of credit for bringing their level of play up a notch. Solution: Keep both, but have Phillips as a sort of team leader / cheerleader-type thing.
This story should be interesting however it plays out.
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