Dallas Cowboys: Unexpected win speaks volumes about Garrett

To the dismay of many, the Dallas Cowboys once again prove how hard they’ll play for their beleaguered and often-criticized head coach.

Admit it, you’re as surprised as anyone that the Dallas Cowboys traipsed into Philadelphia and stole a win on Sunday night. I’m still a bit stunned. After last week’s catastrophic loss at home to Tennessee, it was easy to get the impression that the Cowboys were dead men walking in the City of Brotherly Love.

But, just to highlight the week-to-week nature of today’s NFL, they surprised us all by pulling out a gutty 27-20 win on the road. Granted, all it did was pull Dallas to within one game of .500 in what’s been a mostly disappointing year. Yet the victory surely underscored another immutable truth of the Cowboys in the Jason Garrett era: his teams never give up on him. Sunday night’s dramatics were no exception.

Now we can speculate as to why this is. Given the current climate, it’s probably safe to say that the sports cognoscenti in this burg doesn’t attribute the team’s resilience to Garrett’s overall ability to coach. For every fourth-and-six in a home playoff game against Detroit, there have been countless other turning points in games where we’re all scratching our heads and second guessing his thought processes. No, the answer lies elsewhere.

For my money, it probably has something to do with the fact that Garrett actually played in the league. No, he wasn’t a starter with flashy numbers. But he made a solid path in the NFL as a career backup. He comes from family steeped in the ways and traditions of the game. He exudes the culture and understands the language, so there’s no doubt his charges respect him at the very least.

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Along the lines of language, I also think he really speaks their particular argot. And what I mean by this is the salty nature of locker room banter. Sure, the press and fans are exposed to the emotionless robot that drones on about that maddening “process”. But behind closed doors, and beyond the prying eyes and ears of us commoners, I envision a man that openly curses like a sailor and can relate to the spectrum of NFL personalities and ethnicities. In other words, I think he works pretty blue around his players. If you’ve ever spent any time in a locker room, you’ll understand. Players gravitate toward coaches that can easily relate to them.

Of course, none of this is particularly soothing to the faction of the fan base that wants him gone. I, for one, have been pretty lenient on Garrett. My argument has always been if not him, then who? Rumblings of Lincoln Riley notwithstanding, you can bet that anyone even remotely interested in the job is acutely aware that the title of “Head Coach of the Dallas Cowboys” is in name only. So why would any coach worth their salt choose to take on that sisyphean task? We’ve been down that road before. Ask Jimmy Johnson and Bill Parcells. Yeah, they’re all friendly now, but I’d bet both would be quite forthcoming after a few adult beverages of their choosing.

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The long and short of it is that nothing likely changes until Jerry’s good and ready. This would likely require a monumental collapse down the stretch where he feels a change is the only choice. Our sole hope at this point is that Sunday night’s performance was the Cowboys turning a corner. Otherwise, I think they might just be teasing us with a tantalizing peak only to drag every one into a depressing valley the following week.

Published on 11/13/2018 at 13:01 PM
Last updated at 11/13/2018 at 11:50 AM

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