Jerry Jones Fired the Wrong Man: Jason Garrett Shouldn't Coach Dallas Cowboys

Jason Garrett would like you and Jerry Jones to believe that he is the reason the Dallas Cowboys have won four of the six games they've played since he was named interim head coach.  

Nothing could be further from the truth. As a matter of fact, they are winning in spite of Jason Garrett's inexperience. It was the offense that failed the Cowboys and cost this team the entire 2010 season.

If the offense had played as well the first eight games of the season as they have the last six, we would probably be looking at the No. 1 seed in the playoffs. Though it is the defense that has struggled since Wade Phillips was fired, Garrett steps to the podium nowadays at the Cowboys press conferences as if the way he ran the offense had nothing to do with what happened.

This drama began in preseason, when the offense couldn't score. "Just wait until the season starts," and "We don't want to show too much" were the responses that were generally given when the questions began to pop up.

When the season began, Jason Garrett's immaturity was on display for all to see. After three years of excuses and offensive collapses that led to humiliation after humiliation for Jerry Jones and the Cowboys fan base, we were about to see on this national stage on a Sunday night in September that Jason Garrett still hasn't matured enough to handle the offense of the Dallas Cowboys.

And, it was about to cost us the entire 2010 season. And he was about to humiliate Jerry, the team, and Cowboys fans one more time.

After abandoning the run early in the season opener versus the Redskins on Sunday Night Football, Jason still wasn't done. Back-to-back screens to Dez Bryant to end the opening drive weren't enough to show that Garrett still hadn't matured.

Down by a score of 3-0 with four seconds left in the first half and the ball on our own 37, Jason Garrett was about to make one of the dumbest calls in NFL history. While coaches from Jr. Pro all the way to the NFL know that you kneel down on the ball in that situation rather than risk a turnover, Jason Garrett called a pass.

And, one of the most overrated players in the NFL, DeAngelo Hall, ended up strutting into the end zone with the Cowboys football, making a diving "splash" as he lands.

You remember DeAngelo Hall? He was the guy that went crying like a 6-year-old to the NFL that Terrell Owens had spit in his face to defer questioning from reporters about how badly T.O. had torched him after the Cowboys beat the Atlanta Falcons. Never mind that he was in T.O.'s face talking trash all night and likely provoked whatever he got.

This play alone should have been enough to tell Jerry Jones that he had made a terrible mistake entrusting his team's offense to this man.

What has followed has been a despicable display of offensive coaching that has cost the Cowboys the entire 2010 season, the chance to play a Super Bowl in their home stadium, Jerry's $160 million in player salaries and any pride that we as fans had left.

What it amounts to is that Jason Garrett lacks the maturity to understand why you call certain plays, why you call running plays and why you have to have balance in your offense.

And Jason has gotten so used to blaming others that he really believes that nothing that goes wrong is his fault. Wade Phillips' biggest mistake was to take the blame for what everyone knew that Garrett did. Phillips should have gone over to Garrett after that play and fired him on the spot.

If I had been on the sidelines, the cameras would have had a field day while I fired him myself—although I don't have the authority.

Garrett's stubborn refusal to run a balanced attack this season allowed defenses to sit back and play tough against the pass. It also allowed them to stay deeper behind the line of scrimmage and create confusion in the secondary, which leads to interceptions for the opposing teams.

The part of offensive coordination Garrett fails to understand is that you have to use your offensive linemen to take over the line of scrimmage. It is only then that you can depend on the run game to help you score in the red zone.

Garrett also seems to not understand basic laws of physics—that pass blocking keeps your offensive line working backwards, but run blocking allows them to use their strength and weight while moving forwards to wear down the opposing defense.

He seems to ignore the requirement of the offensive coordinator to formulate a game plan that will keep the defense from being able to play the game they want to. You cannot allow opposing defenses to stack up against your running in the center, so you spread your formations and force them to spread out to cover your players.

You cannot allow the secondary to sit back and make confusion in the passing lanes, so you run the ball in order to keep their linebackers closer to the line of scrimmage, and this will keep them off balance.

You slow the pass rush by running the ball to different places; this forces the defensive players to first diagnose the play, then react to it. This keeps the quarterback happy, because he has more time to throw.

And you do not run the same play two or three times in a row—especially at the goal line. When they all know you are going to run a straight-ahead slice through the line, and you see that they have bunched their defenders to the middle, allow your quarterback to audible to a pitch to the outside. Choice is actually fast enough to get around the end.

The Cowboys have watched four promising seasons come to a disappointing end since Jason Garrett has been the offensive coordinator for the Dallas Cowboys. All four endings were the result of Garrett's offense failing to show up.

In 2007, an apathetic, undisciplined offense that no longer had the heart for 60 minutes of offense fell short in a 21-17 loss to the Giants at home, with no run game to speak of in the last quarter-and-a-half of that game. With Garrett's pass-happy coordination leading the way, the Cowboys blew a No. 1 seed with home-field advantage throughout the playoffs.

In 2008, with the playoffs on the line, the offense was a no-show in a 44-6 debacle in Philadelphia, another humiliation for the fans and the team by the Cowboys' bitter rivals.

In 2009, the offense was a no-show in Minnesota in a 34-3 debacle in which the offense completely gave up by the middle of the third quarter. Another embarrassment.

In 2010, the debacle was in the first game of the season, but his pass-happy offense turning the ball over and not taking control of the line of scrimmage is the reason we were 1-7 after eight games—and that is why this season ended, at Garrett's hands.

Suddenly the Cowboys produced a balanced offense when Wade Phillips got fired, with Garrett taking his job.

But now he wants Jerry to believe that he is ready to handle the whole team?

The Cowboys have won four of six games because Jason Garrett felt the need to run a balanced offense and cut down on turnovers after he became head coach, so the offense has improved.

But his immaturity remains.

Who can forget that, when the Cowboys had the ball at the Saints 41 with just under a minute left in regulation, needing only a field goal to tie and with timeouts left, and Jason Garrett calls three consecutive passes to Dez Bryant to end that  drive and force David Beuhler to attempt a kick to tie the game from 59 yards? What kind of offensive coordinator does that?

That loss officially knocked the Cowboys out of the playoff race.

But the defense has gotten worse, and judging from the way Garrett has handled the offense since he's been with the Cowboys, he still has a way to go before he can have it producing consistently. How can Jerry now assume that Garrett can handle the defense, too?

If getting the job is based on past performance, Garrett's resume will show that he isn't ready for it.

And that's the bottom line.