Change In The House Of Jerry

So, Wade Phillips is out as head coach of the Dallas Cowboys.  At the end of Week 9.  And Jason Garrett is promoted.

Now I am not the Cowboy fan I used to be.  Truth be told, I became a fan when they drafted Emmit Smith.  They never took the place of my beloved Dolphins or my beloved Bucs, but I still rooted for them.

When I moved to Dallas, I realized the concept of "the culture of winning".  It happens here, it happens in New York, it happens in Chicago, it happens in Detroit (different sports, all, BTW).  This is not the same concept as "fair-weather fans" to me, as this is more "we were used to winning at one point, and now we're not".  Even the Dallas Stars, who one ONE STANLEY CUP 12 SEASONS ago suffer from this, as the game I watched this past Friday night saw a TON of lower level empty seats.

Anyway, to make you, the non Metroplex reader truly understand, I will quote a promo cut by a local radio personality (Dan McDowell) for the Rangers a number of years ago before the opening day of Major League Baseball: "We'll talk Rangers, and if they win, we're World Series bound.  If they lose, we'll talk about rebuilding for next year."  As funny as that sounds, that's the way it is here.  VERY hot & cold.

Now that this is in it's proper framework, here is why this is a TERRIBLE idea.

This team is 1-7 at this point in the season.  Looking at the rest of their schedule (@NYG, DET, NO, @ IND, PHI, WAS, @ ARI, @ PHI), there are no more than three winable games by my estimation, which puts the team at 4-12 at best.  At this point, you are playing to finish.

I have asserted all season that Jerry Jones has NEVER fired a coach mid-season before, and didn't think he would this time.  Well, as 4:00 Central time approaches and this actually comes to pass, here is the question: Is this REALLY the right move?

People have said for years that Garrett is the heir apparent to this team, but the offense has not been exactly stellar this year.  With losing Romo to injury (and remember what I have said: never trust a quarterback named Gus, Elvis, or Kitna), Kitna being Kitna, and the team in just plain disaray, why fire a guy and replace him with another guy from the same group?  Does this really change the team dynamic, or is it six of one and half a dozen of the other?

Given that we are realistically looking at a lockout next year, you don't want to put another head coach from the outside under contract so you can pay him to sit at the house.  So why not just let Philips (whom you are going to pay anyway) to finish out the year and get this thing done.  You won't need him after January 2nd anyway, so pay him to do SOMETHING.

I honestly don't believe that the players have given up on Wade; I believe the players have given up on THEMSELVES and THE SITUATION THAT THEY ARE IN.  I don't believe that Jason Garrett (former QB of this team himself... kinda) can turn the ship around, and he has to realize that he is being set up to fail here.  Any further meltdown of this team is going to hurt his stock to any other team in the league that may want to consider him in the off-season.  The argument can be made that his stock is already hurt, but the other side of that coin is that you'd still have a bit of the unknown of him as a head coach.

To me, the only sense that can be made here is if there IS a season next year, you give Garrett a full season with the team to see what he can do.  However, I honestly feel that even IF there is a season next year, Garrett won't be here either way.

Comments?  Join myself and Cody tomorrow night, and EVERY Tuesday night at 8 Eastern/5 Pacific for The Clubhouse With Rob & Cody on Ustream!  Start at our website and click on the microphone to get to the show page.  Hope you can either join us live or listen to any of our past shows in the archive!

BB