Dooby Scoo and the Case of the Real Jason Garrett
I think the biggest atrocity of last year’s Cowboys success was Jason Garrett getting coach of the year. Jason Garrett sucks. Jason Garrett has always sucked. He lucked into a great draft pick thanks to Romo’s injury, and then lucked into a 4th round pick that also happened to solve a QB problem. Those two talents, working together with a stud of an O-line and an overachieving defense led the Cowboys to remarkable success, and Garrett deserved none of the credit. When Romo went down Dak wasn’t even going to start, Kellen Moore was. Kellen Moore getting hurt is the only reason Dak saw any real time, and this was after the Cowboys apparently tried to trade for Josh McCown. Garrett deserves none of the credit for getting Dak out there and making the team work without Romo. The Cowboys were atrocious without Romo the year prior. Dak and Zeke turned that team around and Garrett getting honored for that was a joke. Garrett sucks.
Actually, maybe that’s simultaneously too harsh and too soft. Garrett isn’t a bad coach. What he is might be even worse. Jason Garrett is mediocre. Bad coaches get exposed pretty fast and usually don’t last long unless they are named Gus Bradley. Mediocre coaches do just well enough to stick around making people think they’ll improve, and if they do, it’s usually because they managed to find a top talent to lift the team a bit. Like a Zeke.
The Cowboys have had a lot of great talent in Garrett’s tenure. Romo was a top 10 QB if not better most of his tenure. Jason Witten is a future hall of fame tight end. Sean Lee is fantastic. Dez Bryant was a top 5 WR talent for several years. Demarcus Ware was on the team for the first several years in Garrett’s tenure. The Cowboys have had a top o-line for years now. This is a team that should have been perpetually in the playoffs and yet kept going 8-8 and have a mere 1 playoff victory (wildcard round) in Garrett’s tenure. The talent on the Boys has always frightened me. The coaching staff has never frightened me. I watched Jason Garrett ice his own kicker once. It’s hard to fear a man after that.
Top coaches take top talent to high success, and get something manageable from mediocre to bad talent. EX- Belichick, Carroll, Zimmer, Reid
Mediocre coaches find success with talent, and struggle without it. Ex- Garrett, Jack Del Rio, Mike Mularkey, Mike McCarthy, Marvin Lewis
Bad coaches drag down even top talents into a pit of despair. Ex -Ben McAdoo, Chuck Pagano
The Cowboys aren’t necessarily stupid for keeping Garrett on this long. The problem with mediocre coaches is that most are mediocre, and you can never really tell if the coach will evolve into a good one (like Ron Rivera) or just waste away into a bad coach after being employed for far too long, like Garrett appears to be doing. I haven’t seen much improvement by Garrett over these past few seasons and the fact that the team is right back in the hole after losing Zeke for 3 games doesn’t speak well to him. I kind of like seeing him get exposed like this, even though I want him to stay employed for bias reasons. The Cowboys have some issues but they shouldn’t look this bad without one player, no matter the caliber of player. That’s on the coach.
I think Dak will be okay. He’s looked terrible for 3 weeks and generally worse this season, but I think last season was an over-achievement and he’s still good and will probably develop nicely. Dak was so difficult to discuss last year because it really was impossible to tell how much of it was him and how much of it was his extremely favorable situation. Zeke was far easier to see as a true star, Dak played very well but stayed a mystery. Now the team is a little bit worse, facing a tougher schedule, and is missing Zeke for a bit, which shines more light on Dak as a flawed but probably still capable QB.
In case anyone is interested, here are my opinions on current coaches:
Godly – Belichick
Good – Mike Zimmer, Andy Reid (despite the last month I think he’s still good), Pete Carroll, Ron Rivera, Mike Tomlin
Probably good – Doug Pederson, Jay Gruden, Sean Payton, Dan Quinn, Bill O’Brien, Bruce Arians, John Harbaugh
Mediocre – Jason Garrett, Jack Del Rio, Mike Mularkey, Doug Marrone, Marvin Lewis, Mike McCarthy, Jim Caldwell
Bad – Ben McAdoo, Chuck Pagano, John Fox, Todd Bowles, Dirk Koetter, probably Adam Gase
Too early to tell – Kyle Shanahan, Sean McVay, Sean McDermott, Vance Joseph (He’s probably bad tho), Anthony Lynn
Doomed to fail – *Insert Browns coach here*
I look forward to Jason Garrett staying employed.
I was expecting Jeff Fisher or Jim Tomsula
is “dooby scoo” a way to get around the copyright
No it’s an original character do not steal
Like Sherri Bobbins. Or Ricky Rouse. Or Monald Muck.
oh god the fanfic
BLONIC
I don’t think there’s any ‘probably’ about Gase. Last year was our usual New Coach Dead Cat Bounce. Same thing happened when Sparano took over from Cam Cameron.
Miami’s case this time isn’t helped by Gase having his tongue rammed squarely up the ass of the Don’t Care Bear. I mean, ten bloody million. He could have bought a tank for that OH WAIT HE DID.
To be fair to gase he lost his starting QB and while Tannehill isn’t exactly the best QB in the world he was a solid dude who proved he could work in Gase’s system then he tore his ACL and Gase threw 10 million at Cutler so the Dolphins wouldn’t suck all that much oh how gase was fooled…or did it anyway so he’d have an excuse. I don’t know how much of the offense is just terrible QB and o-line play vs. Gase not being able to fix it.
Trading away Jay Ajayi despite him easily being the teams best RB on a cheap contract for 1 more season was incredibly stupid though.
Gase is medicore as a coach, bad as a talent evaluator/player manager
I think Gase is a good coach, but he needs to remain the coach and not meddle with the personnel side.
You are way too kind, Dave. Jason Garrett is easily the WORST coach that any of us alive will ever see. I have never seen someone get handed some much talent and do nothing with it, despite being hyped up as an “offensive genius”.
This is a man who has or had Tony Romo, Jason Witten, Terrell Owens, Marion Barber, Roy Williams (WR), Felix Jones, Miles Austin, DeMarco Murray, Dez Bryant, Cole Beasley, Dak Prescott, Ezekiel Elliot, and arguably the best o-line in the past few years. Yet the Cowboys only have two playoff wins and continuous Divisional Round exits (0-4) to show for it. Two of the players I listed are bound to be put on the Cowboys Ring of Honor, three of them are potential hall of famers.
The Dallas Cowboys should be the New England Patriots of the NFC. Yet week after week, year after year, this team comes out flat showing no heart, no brains, no effort, and no discipline. What’s the problem? Who or what is the one constant through this decade of failure? It’s Jason Garrett. I have been screaming this from the rooftops for years, but no one listened. Everyone just mindlessly blamed Romo for everything. Well, Romo’s gone now and the crapshow continues uninterrupted. NOW WHAT?
P.S. The Associated Press should be shut down and everyone involved with naming Jason Garrett Coach of the Year should be put to death. They are clearly too stupid to live.
If we’re reorganizing the NFL and picking coaches, there at least 50 that have been around in my lifetime that are worse than Garrett. There are 5 right now in the NFL who are worse than Garrett *without question*.
I get it; you’re a passionate Cowboys fan and you’re upset. But if you’re telling me you’d rather have Pagano, Fox, Joseph, Bowles, or Koetter than Gase, then man… I need to get you into my fantasy league ’cause that kind of self-deception is just begging to get exploited. If we want to go further back, we can. But Dave’s absolutely right: Garret is an average head coach in the NFL.
He’s below avg
You’re goign to make the claim that there are 16 head coaches that are *DEFINITIVELY* better than Garret? Without any question?
One of the big tests you can put out there for the “Is it the players or the coach?” debates is look at the players who leave a team, and see how well they perform. Look at the free agents they bring in, and compare their befores and their afters. By the time the Cowboys let players go, how many of them (even in their prime) are doing better *after* Garret than with him? Maybe I’m myopic, but I see very few who go more than a couple years of actual contribution in the NFL.
I’m not saying Garret’s amazing. He’s got some glaring weaknesses. But he definitely makes his players look better than they actually are– and compare that to coaches like Fox who make great players look *worse* than they are. I think Dave’s got him about right: solidly in the middle. Top 10? Nah. But somewhere in that 12-20 mix? Sure. That’s pretty much “average”. It doesn’t feel like it, because we’ve been conditioned so hard to think “If you aren’t in the top 10 you’re just garbage”, but that’s not objectively true. Sure– a good-to-great coach would take those players, have them play beyond their ability *AND* successfully understand their opponents *AND* devise game plans to exploit those weaknesses. Garret’s good at playing to the Cowboy’s strengths, but he’s not good at playing to weaknesses. There are a *LOT* of coaches who can do neither.
I’m still angry about Ryan Grigson winning Executive of the Year in 2012 for making the pick that literally 100% of GMs in his position would have made by taking Andrew Luck with the first pick while meanwhile John Schneider snags Russell Wilson in the third round after getting Bruce Irvin and Bobby frickin’ Wagner already. What’s Grigson ever done before or since then?
“ROLY RUCK” That made me laugh harder than it should’ve….Damn you dave for being too funny.
I mean Zeke didn’t actually do anything though
We have video evidence of his sexual harassment during the parade so that’s not accurate.
As for the more serious charges, who actually knows? The victim being caught in a lie once doesn’t necessarily mean the other three incidents were false, even if they have a fair degree of doubt to them now. We don’t know if Zeke did it or not, and at this point it doesn’t even matter anymore because it’s just Jerry vs. The NFL in a power struggle.
Well I wouldn’t consider the parade incident harassment, if we’re going by the definition of unwanted sexual advance. The woman in the video publicly stated she had consented to the act, so to call that evidence of sexual harrasment is borderline willfully ignorant.
Zeke is not guilty of DV. Even the girl’s friends came out and said she was lying. There are text messages where the girl says she wants to ruin Zeke’s life because he dumped her. And to top it all off she lied to him during their relationship about being on birth control. This case revealed a lot more about her than about him
Zeke is no boy scout and acts kind of like a douchey frat boy but he is being wrongfully framed because Goodell is very incompetent and conducts witchhunts against top players to satisfy his ego.
PS: I really thought we’d get a comic about Chain Wars 2.0
Jay Gruden was medicore in the arena league and only stuck around for 11 seasons because the Predators consistently out spent everyone else and got lucky with an extremely leinent playoff system (8/12 out of 15-19) and getting hot late in a league where 1 big play can make a 21 point difference.
Also, the other guy who coached while he played qb after a 5 year hiatus died (btw, Jay Gruden was the best QB in league history; RIP Fran Papasedro).
There’s a good chance Jay Gruden turns out to be mediocre but so far he seems to have brought actual stability to that franchise and the Skins are performing with him there. They are still okay this year even with the massive injury issues. I’d like to see what happens if Cousins bails but so far I think he’s earned the benefit of the doubt for a bit.
I’ll give Gruden this, he works great in high pressure situations, like the playoffs, end of games, or with Dan Snyder. Honestly, Washington might have been the best place for him.
Of course, the king of mediocre coaches is no longer employed (at least, right now, until someone decides to dip into the “Good Old Boys” network) – Jeff “7-9” Fischer. With him gone, Garret has ascended to the throne.
Have you seen the Rams this year with largely the same talent?
Well, they did upgrade their receivers by bringing in Buffalo’s top two guys from last year
“Mediocre” is much nicer than how I have heard people on Detroit sports talk radio refer to Jim Caldwell.
He’ll respond with nonplussed stoicism.
Caldwell’s 2-4 in the playoffs, has taken the Lions in two out of three years, was 7-9 in the other year, and looks poised to at least push for the playoffs this year. I’ve found over time that most folks in the media are startlingly inept at accurately judging the causes of success or failure in sports teams, and are even more inept at restraining emotion. Caldwell isn’t OMGWTFBBQ great, and I’d probably put him at the low end of the 12-20 group, but the Lions show up to play, and usually show enough wrinkles to show they are playing their own game, and playing it against their opponent. Sometimes they get beat, but a guy who’s over .500 for the Lions without Calvin Johnson can’t just be dismissed. People have this toxic notion that if you aren’t great you’re awful… and while that certainly makes for fun water cooler talk, it’s horrible for making accurate assessment’s of a coach’s ability, talent, or worth. And it’s part of why it’s both so rare to find truly good judges of competency from GMs and owners, and why the few that have it are so perennially competitive and those without it are always scrambling.
You’ve outdone yourself Dave. This is a classic.
I appreciate that you give Tomlin credit. I am baffled by the hate directed at him.
I think it’s a little early to put bill O’Brien in the probably good category. I’m also uncertain about Arians. I loved him at first, but things have gone downhill fast.
You hit the nail right on the spot, Dave.
Jason Garrett isn’t necessarily a bad coach. He’s, as you said, mediocre.
Which means given his good little toady-master relationship with old Jerry, he’s likely not going anywhere for a loooooong time. Which would make Cowboys fans sad as well(but everyone else is probably happy so, all’s well, maybe?). We’re going back to the days of 8-8 Boys again, with last year being a weird anomaly. Just like Jeff ‘7-9’ Fisher, as someone above mentioned, only marginally better.
Anyway, Dave, I think Revis Island on the Chiefs might deserve some mention on your comic before it gets buried by other more recent, more interesting news.
No, wait, there’s bigger news considering Dave’s a Giants fan.
Geno Smith will be the starting QB against the Raiders on Sunday.
McAdoodoo finally did it; he killed Eli’s ironman streak 🙁
Yeah and I’m on Warner’s side on this as well.
They might as well lose anyway since the least they can do is get a good draft position. At least the Giants have a better front office than the Chicago Bulls.
HOW DARE YOU say anything good about Sean Payton. He’s just Jeff Fisher with his lips stuck in butthole kissy face. If Fisher wasn’t in the league for the last decade stinking up the joint, Payton would be the laughingstock of the league. Not sure how he’s managed to have a good defense this year, but I think this is all a mirage.
I think Dak is overrated and we’re seeing it play out right now. He had an amazing Kaepernick like season last year, but I think Romo would have won some of these games that they’ve lost this year.
I also think Romo always being injured is the reason Garrett has kept his job this long. They’ve always just been a couple wins away and you could always just say “Well if Romo was healthy they’d be really good”. Now he’s not there and they’re struggling and they’ll just say “If we just had Zeke we’d be better.”
Payton gets good talk because he won a Super Bowl with a team that had never won anything, pretty much literally ever, and they’ve been competitive for the better part of the last decade. They have an incredible offense that’s only partly thanks to Brees. When he was suspended, the Saints stunk up the joint; the two bookend years, they were okay. Seems like a case for at least better than mediocre.
I’d say that Todd Bowles is far better than bad. After all, he started by almost getting a Jets team to the playoffs, despite having Ryan Fitzpatrick as QB. This year, he got something out of Josh McCown, and has made the Jets shockingly watchable. I know as a Packer fan, I’d take him over Mike McCarthey at this point.
(Chiefs homer alert) I’d argue that the last month solidifies Andy Reid as a good coach. Alex Smith has something broken in his head, and Andy is paring down the playbook to compensate. Receivers are getting open and plays are *working*, but Alex is just not doing it anymore.
Yeah, I gotta be a homer too and say that McCarthy, while not a world beater, isn’t Marvin Lewis or Jason Garrett bad. While I’ll moan and bemoan McCarthy’s conservatism at times, he rarely makes outright stupid mistakes, and blaming him for this year when we’re down so many key players is just dumb. Fire capers tho.
I just want to point out that losing McCarthy would hurt the offense more than people realize. His scheme is actually perfect for Rodgers, and you never know how game planning and playcalling could effect the WR chemistry.
Dom Capers should be commended as an all time great defensive coordinator, and for pioneering the Zone Blitz in the NFL. To be fair to him, the Packers haven’t exactly showered him with elite denfensive talent (partially because they are always drafting 20-26), but his scheme is a little out dated and is starting to struggle against the new offenses in the NFL (Pats, Falcons, Rams).
Probably needs to be replaced.
“and an overachieving defense” no the defense still sucked but they were never on the field because the offense controlled the time of possession. Everything else you got down perfect.