Category: Jason Garrett

Jerry Jones says Cowboys haven’t talked to Urban Meyer but hints interest

The owner/GM refuted reports that a conversation has already taken place with former Ohio State coach Urban Meyer about coming to Dallas.

The Dallas Cowboys’ current head coach is working to win the NFC East division crown, secure the team’s spot in the playoffs, and maybe even make an improbable run at the Super Bowl appearance that’s eluded him in his 10 seasons on the sidelines. But much of the Cowboys’ fanbase is ready for a new coach, seeing the rest of the schedule as a mere formality that’s keeping the front office from making that eagerly-anticipated hire sooner rather than later.

After reports surfaced last week the organization has a legitimate interest in former Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer and executive vice president and chief operating officer Stephen Jones had even had a conversation with Meyer, Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones took to the Dallas airwaves on Tuesday morning with his side of the story. To put it bluntly, the big boss says the reports are wrong.

“That’s not correct,” Jones told 105.3 The Fan’s Shan and RJ.

“I can confirm that it is absolutely not correct. We have not met with any coach, not met with any.”

But Jones didn’t exactly bolt the door closed behind him, either, on the subject of possibly pursuing Meyer or Oklahoma head coach Lincoln Riley or any other possible candidate should Garrett’s job become open.

“Specifically, in answering that question, I don’t want to imply we wouldn’t, in a way that would diminish the credibility of the coach or a player or somebody you’re asking about. Normally when somebody says, ‘Have you met with such-and-such?’ or ‘Are you interested in such-and-such?’ and you say, ‘I have not,’ the implication is you’re not interested. That shouldn’t be brought forward, either. The facts are that we just have not talked to any coach- potential coach- in the NFL.”

And while Jones didn’t verbally say the word yet, it sure seemed to hang there in the space between the words he did use. The feeling has been for some time that if Garrett doesn’t lead the Cowboys to the Super Bowl- or at least a very competitive showing in the NFC conference championship game- there will soon be a head coach’s job opening in Dallas. Based on the team’s performance over the last three games (and really, over the last ten), that kind of turnaround seems exceedingly unlikely.

The front office hasn’t started talking to its next coach yet, according to the man who runs the team. But he also says very plainly that he’s not not interested in those conversations possibly happening in the near future.

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Cowboys ‘can’t put a finger on’ reason for losses, while all fingers point to Garrett

Players in Dallas claim they can’t explain why they’ve lost 7 of their last 10 games, but others have already laid the blame on the coach.

The result was the same for the third week in a row, but the tone was noticeably different. Cowboys fans have gotten used to the bewildering losses; there have been seven of them in the past ten games. But in the wake of the team’s latest collapse, a 31-24 road loss to the Bears, the players, coaches, and ownership of this outfit are suddenly unrecognizable.

Gone is the optimism. Gone is the quiet confidence. Those qualities that have defined this organization all year long have now been replaced by something else. Something harder. Something with an edge. Despite their losing record, the Cowboys still sit atop their division. They still have the inside track to the fourth seed in the NFC playoffs. They still have their sights set on hosting a home game on Wild Card Weekend. But what they don’t have is answers to what has happened over the course of this disastrous season.

“Can’t put a finger on it,” said quarterback Dak Prescott in his postgame address. “I wish I could right now. If I could, obviously we wouldn’t be in this situation; we’d be getting over this and out of this slump. That’s the most frustrating part. We have the skill level, we have the players, we have the chemistry at times. But we’re not playing together as a team complementary enough when we need to, and we’ve got to figure out what it is.”

“It’s just frustrating,” running back Ezekiel Elliott echoed to reporters after the loss. “It’s not clicking. We’re not playing well. And you can’t really put your finger on it. That’s the tough part.”

NFL Network analyst and ex-Cowboy Michael Irvin took issue with that assessment.

“No, you can’t put a finger on it,” Irvin said on the air, “because it requires both hands. That’s how many issues they have had. It’s not a one-finger thing.”

Ultimately, Irvin is correct: it’s not just one thing. Baffling playcalling in key situations, a terrible kicking game, slow starts, atrocious tackling, lack of takeaways, bad special teams, poor clock management, injuries, stupid penalties, and a stubborn insistence on sticking with underachieving players have all contributed to 2019’s overall disappointment. That’s ten.

But to include within that tally the most glaring failure of a team that would seem- on paper- to be far better than their record indicates, Cowboys fans need exactly one finger more. And most of them are aiming it squarely in the direction of coach Jason Garrett.

Some expected owner Jerry Jones to fire Garrett on the spot Thursday night, maybe even leaving him behind in Chicago after the embarrassing defeat. And it’s grown from just a contingent of angry fans; scores of broadcasters- including some within the Cowboys family who have known Garrett for decades- are all but openly giving Jones their blessing to let the axe fall.

“I absolutely think the world of Coach Garrett personally,” Irvin said of his former teammate, “but I don’t know how you continue down this road with what you’ve seen on this field the last two weeks.”

If Jones has lost Michael Irvin as the Cowboys’ head cheerleader, things are catastrophically bad.

Jones has been vocal, too, albeit with what some have perceived as mixed messages. His offseason refusal to extend Garrett’s contract very plainly set the bar for the season at a place Garrett has never taken the team during his tenure. Recent quotes have made it crystal-clear that Jones expects a Super Bowl.

Dallas hasn’t been just losing games. They’ve been taken behind the woodshed and humiliated, even if the final scores never look that bad. Worse than just coming up short, the Cowboys have looked unprepared. Uninterested, even. Many during the Thursday night telecast and postgame interviews were using the word “quit” to describe what they saw most prevalently from the current Dallas roster.

Even through this brutally bad stretch of games, though, Jones has continued to stand by his embattled coach and his roster of underperforming players. Jones has preached unwavering belief and tough love every time he’s been at a microphone throughout this 2019 campaign that once held so much promise.

But like everyone else affiliated with the Dallas Cowboys these days, the man at the very top had a very different tone when he spoke after Thursday’s sobering loss.

“So much for words,” Jones said afterward. “Seriously. So much for words.”

Maybe it’s only the fact that the aforementioned goal of a championship ring is still mathematically possible that’s preventing Jones from using his one finger to show Garrett the door.

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Report: Joneses have been in contact with Urban Meyer recently

The Dallas Cowboys are going to ride out the season with their current cadre of calamitous coaches; that much was made clear following their unenthusiastic, malaise-ridden defeat at the hands of the Chicago Bears on Thursday Night Football. After a …

The Dallas Cowboys are going to ride out the season with their current cadre of calamitous coaches; that much was made clear following their unenthusiastic, malaise-ridden defeat at the hands of the Chicago Bears on Thursday Night Football. After a second consecutive, nationally-televised disaster, rabble rousers have reached a deafening tone, begging owner Jerry Jones to make a move that would likely be spinning wheels, but would at least offer a different voice of leadership as it appears clear to most observers the club has stopped responding to the words from head coach Jason Garrett.

Half of the issue is that no one on the coaching staff seems a right fit, at least from the outside looking in, to take over the reigns. Many feel even with no worthy successor, change for changes sake while the team still has the inside track on a playoff berth would be worth it. There doesn’t seem to be anything to lose outside of the ownership groups very personal relationship with Garrett. It seems that level loyalty means more to the Jones family than the outcome of the season. It makes sense, as Garrett seems to be considered family to Jerry and his son Stephen. The pending dismissal everyone sees coming is likely to take place in person, and the immediacy of having his successor seems something they aren’t willing to do.

That changes after the Cowboys are all at home, after Garrett has a chance to say goodbye to the men he’s led for almost a full decade. The Jones’ want to give him that farewell opportunity before he looks for new work in the league. Garrett will land somewhere, eventually, and the Cowboys will replace him, likely with a big name. One such candidate has been revealed, according to Jane Slater of the NFL Network. The club has already been in contact with former Ohio State head coach and national champion Urban Meyer.

Meyer ranked 2nd in this week’s Garrett Replacement Coach Power Rankings, with current Oklahoma Sooners coach Lincoln Riley ranking 4th. Tony Elliott was not on the radar previously, but will be added to next week’s rankings.

Meyer took over for in Columbus in 2012 and went 54-4 with four bowl victories in six seasons, including the 2014 national championship earned in the Sugar Bowl. He was the coach who recruited Ezekiel Elliott to the Buckeyes and saw his and several other future NFL top picks and standouts careers flourish. He has spent his entire career in the collegiate ranks, but he has expanded his resume by spending the last season off the sidelines and in the office as Ohio State’s assistant athletic director this season.

This past October, Meyer voiced his interest in becoming the next head coach of the Cowboys if the opportunity presented itself, following being asked if Riley would leave the great gig with the Sooners for such a shot.

“That’s New York Yankees, that’s the Dallas Cowboys,” Meyer said. “That’s the one. Great city. They got Dak Prescott, Zeke Elliott. You got a loaded team. And I can’t speak for him obviously, I hate to even speculate because I don’t know him, that’s really not fair, but to me, that’s the one job in professional football that you say, ‘I got to go do that.’”

The follow-up question of his interest was answered succinctly.

“Sure,” Meyer said. “Absolutely. Absolutely. That one? Yes.”

Etiquette be damned, coaches publicly speaking on coaching opportunities when the job isn’t vacant is frowned upon, Meyer took his shot and it appears the Cowboys’ front office is intrigued by the possibility.

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Garrett Survives: Jerry Jones says every Cowboys coach returns for Week 15

For those who thought the Dallas Cowboys had no choice but to fire their coaching staff after giving up 23 straight points to the Chicago Bears and embarrassingly falling behind yet again, think again. Following the 31-24 loss, which couldn’t be a …

For those who thought the Dallas Cowboys had no choice but to fire their coaching staff after giving up 23 straight points to the Chicago Bears and embarrassingly falling behind yet again, think again. Following the 31-24 loss, which couldn’t be a more misleading margin of defeat, Jerry Jones reaffirmed the same thing he’s been saying the last couple of weeks.

He just found a new way to say Jason Garrett is going to coach the rest of the season until the Cowboys are out of the playoff hunt, which they won’t be.

With Thursday’s loss, the Cowboys have lost 7 of their last 10 contests, a feat they haven’t done since the 2015 season when they played eight of 12 games without starting quarterback Tony Romo.

Fox analyst and Hall of Fame Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman echoed our sentiment from last week’s Twitter on tonight’s broadcast, there really isn’t anyone on the staff to turn to as an interim coach.

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Jones waxes poetic on Jason Garrett with empty rhetoric yet again

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones believes Jason Garrett will have a coaching job in the NFL in 2020, it just may not be in Dallas.

There’s no coach in the NFL who’s more familiar with the hot seat than Jason Garrett. He’s been predicted to be fired over the last decade so frequently that it’s nearly impossible to keep count. So when Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys, talks about his head coach on 105.3 the Fan, ears perk up to take a listen.

Jones spat out platitudes about his faith in Garrett and his ability and experience, all of the things that Cowboys fans have come to expect from the man who has more belief in his 2011 hire than anyone else on the planet. He did let one thing slip though, saying “In my opinion, Jason Garrett will be coaching in the NFL next year.”

The question isn’t whether or not Garrett will be a head coach next year. The question is whether or not Garrett will be the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys in 2020. He’s on thin ice and has no contract to back him up, by Jones’ design. Before the season, most observers felt as if only a trip to the NFC Championship could save Garrett’s job, and with his team sitting atop the dregs of their own division, well, that seems a tall task.

Here’s Jones’ full answer to the question posed by 105.3 The Fan’s Shan Sharif of whether or not Garrett could earn an extension, as transcribed by WFAA’s Mark Lane.

Will Garrett be in coaching circles in the NFL next year? Probably.

He’s already been linked to the New York Giants job, as there have been anonymous reports of interest by both sides.

Garrett wouldn’t be the first coach to ever get a second chance at running a team, and his work in guiding Dallas to a 13-3 record with a rookie quarterback in 2016 would be intriguing to team’s with young starters, such as the Giants with Daniel Jones, or possible the Washington Redskins with Dwayne Haskins.

There’s also a possibility that a year off to recharge before assuming the mantle in another city would be a route. Still, despite Jones’ words this week, his previous words in post-game speeches about the role coaching played in his frustrations should be seen as more indicative of how he feels. Planned appearances in the media allow him to try and present an aura of calm as Dallas desperately tries to salvage their season over the final four games and possibly a playoff appearance.

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Jerry Jones: ‘Zero chance’ at storybook ending to 2019 if Garrett fired

There’s an old trick that authors use when writing a work of fiction. At any given moment, in almost any situation, the idea is to make things as difficult as possible. Make the challenges bigger. Make the outlook bleaker. Make the circumstances …

There’s an old trick that authors use when writing a work of fiction. At any given moment, in almost any situation, the idea is to make things as difficult as possible. Make the challenges bigger. Make the outlook bleaker. Make the circumstances more dire. Give the hero more to overcome along the way than seems even possible, and it makes the victory that much sweeter and more satisfying in the end.

The Dallas Cowboys are still working on the story of their 2019 season. Their Thanksgiving Day meltdown at the hands of the Bills will certainly go down as one of its darkest chapters. But owner Jerry Jones is optimistic that there could be a plot twist coming on the very next page, and that this team has a surprise ending waiting in the wings.

“Adversity gives you an opportunity to really write a hell of a story about how to come back,” Jones said after the 26-15 loss.

But judging by Jones’s postgame comments, he is not willing to go so far as to kill off one of his major characters. Despite a tenure defined by mediocrity and punctuated by countless head-scratching decisions, coach Jason Garrett, who has led a seemingly-talent-laden team to six losses in their last nine games, will remain in place.

“This is not the time,” Jones said of a possible coaching change with four games left in the regular season. “For me, I’m looking ahead at another ballgame, and I’m looking ahead at winning four or five straight and helping write a story that they’ll talk about, how it looked like you were down and out and got it done. And I mean that. I mean that. That’s the way that I’m operating. Every decision that I make over the next month will be with an eye and mind to get us in the Super Bowl now.”

Cowboys players echoed that optimism, even if a story that ends in this roster and coaching staff ripping off a four-game win streak feels like pure science fiction.

“We know what we need to do,” linebacker Jaylon Smith told reporters after the loss. “Four games left, and winning is the name of the game.”

“We feel real good about our chances,” running back Ezekiel Elliott told the media afterward. “We feel really good about what we have in store for the rest of the season.”

As bad as the Cowboys looked hosting their traditional holiday contest, the team didn’t lose any ground in their chase of a divisional crown. Still clinging to a better record than the Eagles but with a more difficult slate of opponents ahead, Dallas players feel they need to win out in order to claim the NFC East and make the postseason.

“We can still win our division and go to the playoffs,” cornerback Jourdan Lewis said after the game. “That’s what it is. Of course, we wanted to win this one, but at the same time, we’ve got to look forward and do our best to get to the playoffs.”

“We know we can do that because we control our destiny,” quarterback Dak Prescott said from the podium in his postgame press conference. “We control the work that we put in, we control how we approach each and every day, we control the way that we prepare to get ready for these games. I have so much confidence in the men in that locker room, the character that they have, and I wouldn’t want to be, honestly, in this position with anybody else except those men. so confident in what we’re going to do.”

Prescott has spent months praising the character of the men in the locker room and expressing confidence in what they’re going to do. Problem is, they’ve only done it against bad teams. Thursday’s beatdown by Buffalo was just the latest dismal showing against the exact kind of quality opponent that Dallas would see should they qualify for postseason play.

The result was an embarrassing loss that left recently-added defensive end Michael Bennett screaming at his new teammates in the locker room.

“It was very disappointing,” wideout Amari Cooper told the press, “just with everything that’s at stake, where we are in the season. A loss in general is just very disappointing, but to lose in this fashion with where we are is just devastating.”

“We’re definitely in the low of this season,” receiver Randall Cobb said in postgame interviews, “but the bright side is we’ve got four games to go. And anything can happen in those four weeks, and we kind of control our own destiny at this point.”

“We’re just pissed,” Elliott summed up. “We’re pissed at how we’ve let this season go. But the good thing about it is we control our own future. We’ve just got to find a way to go out there and win the rest of these games.”

“All it takes is winning one game and getting the thing rolling,” Cobb offered hopefully.

What it won’t take to get things rolling, according to the man who writes the checks? A Week 14 firing of his head coach.

“I wouldn’t make a change and give us a chance to do what I want to dream about doing,” Jones said. “I wouldn’t do that for love nor money. I’d give us zero chance if we did that.”

“He understands it,” Prescott said of the club’s impassioned owner. “He understands that we need everybody in that locker room- players, coaches, everybody that’s a part of it- to get to where we want to be.”

Fans may have soured long ago on Garrett’s maddeningly-even-keeled style and are understandably frustrated by the the lackluster results he’s getting from his players. But Jones isn’t ready to give up on Garrett, with whom he’s had a relationship since even before he joined the Cowboys as a practice squad player in 1992.

“I know Jason very well,” Jones said. “I’ve had a wonderful opportunity to spend a football life with him, so I know him very well.”

But sometimes an author can get too attached to his longstanding hero. And no conflict is too great that there isn’t hope that the hero can rise to the challenge and overcome the odds, no matter how improbable.

After a thoroughly gutting Thanksgiving Day plot twist, Jones is still thinking about how the 2019 disaster epic currently being penned in Dallas can get its storybook ending:

“The way that I’m going to handle this is encourage everybody to basically look to the possibility of winning out and end up doing something that people will write about 30 years from now and being a part of that. I like that story tonight as I eat my turkey.”

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Garrett job security only discussion after Cowboys embarrassed by Bills

The Dallas Cowboys finally started off hot. For the first time all season, the club marched downfield on the game’s opening possession and punched it into the end zone. Ezekiel Elliott was rolling, Amari Cooper was heavily involved and Dak Prescott …

The Dallas Cowboys finally started off hot. For the first time all season, the club marched downfield on the game’s opening possession and punched it into the end zone. Ezekiel Elliott was rolling, Amari Cooper was heavily involved and Dak Prescott ended a 75-yard drive with a nice slip-out by a faux-blocking Jason Witten to take an early 7-0 lead over the Buffalo Bills.

And then the rest of the game happened.

What transpired after that was a miserable excuse for execution, coaching and a fortitude as the Bills rolled off the next 26 points en route to a 26-15 victory. The Cowboys got fooled on trick plays, turned the ball over more than they had in any game this year – including a couple that didn’t happen due to penalty or self-recovery – and generally looked disinterested in finishing the fight.  The result may be the finish of the tenure of head coach Jason Garrett.

Dak Prescott played his worst game of the season, Brett Maher missed multiple field goal attempts and the defense allowed Cole Beasley to live his best life, with a

ESPN’s Ed Werder reported prior to the game that the front office had decided to let Garrett finish the season. This performance is going to test the patience of owner Jerry Jones. It has to be a total sense of frustration for the team to fix one of it’s biggest ailments, starting out slow, and then not do any of the other things that had let them stay afloat.

So yes, the Cowboys are still in prime position to make the playoffs, unbelievably based on their performances since starting 3-0.

Normally, Dallas would have 10 days before their next contest; a fair amount of time to consider an interim situation, but Dallas has to play next Thursday night when they travel to Chicago to take on the Bears. The club will still be in first place, no matter what the Philadelphia Eagles (5-6) do on Sunday, when that game kicks off.

The Cowboys (6-6) have not won a game against a team with a winning record this season, but only have one more of such games on their remaining schedule.

Outsiders will likely find out sooner rather than later on if the Garrett will be the man charged with fixing that record.

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Garrett on analytical decisions: ‘We don’t use those stats within the game’

In an era when teams are using advanced math to help call plays, Jason Garrett shows no interest in overriding his gut in key situations.

The Cowboys’ decision to kick a field goal from the New England 11-yard line with 6:04 left in regulation seemed wrong to an awful lot of fans watching the game. It was only the second time Dallas had been that close to the end zone all day. They were down by seven; punching it in would have given the team the chance to tie with a point-after kick.

They had just tried, with a Dak Prescott pass to tight end Blake Jarwin in the back of the end zone. Prescott seemingly had room to run before firing the ball on that third down; even if he had not scored or picked up the first down, he likely would have, at the very least, lessened the fourth-down distance. Despite needing seven yards to move the chains, it was arguably a go-for-it moment.

Jason Garrett disagreed, math and analytics and the way some successful NFL teams are now employing hard and fast statistics to make real-time game decisions be damned.

The coach explained his thought process to 105.3 The Fan on Monday morning:

“Just over six minutes to go in the ball game. We obviously hadn’t done real well on third downs throughout the game, so 4th-and-7 was going to be a challenging situation, particularly down there where you don’t have as much space. So we just felt like, in that situation, with that much time left in the ball game, just go ahead and make it a 4-point game. Let’s see if we can play defense, give our offense an opportunity to come back and win it. The other factor in a situation like that if they do move the ball and they kick a field goal, and you’ve gone for the touchdown and you haven’t made it, now it’s a 10-point game and a two-score game. So this keeps you in a more manageable situation if they do kick a field goal, it still would only be a 7-point game. Biggest thing you try to do there is make sure you give yourself an opportunity to come back the other way. Just under three minutes to go, three timeouts and a two-minute warning, we felt like that gave us a pretty decent chance coming back to win the ball game.”

In Garrett’s answer, some variation of the word feel shows up a lot. Lots of if. Ambiguous, open-ended phrases like let’s see. His usual emphasis on opportunity.

But there’s a big difference between opportunity and probability. And that’s where hosts Shan and RJ went with their follow-up question:

“Coach, there’s a stat called win probability. Basically, it tells you before each play, your chances of winning the game- whether they increase or decrease- based on the play you’re going to run. Do you have that information available to you during the game based on each play? Like, ‘Hey, if we kick the field goal here, our chance of winning the game goes up or down?'”

Garrett paused for a moment before replying, simply, “Yeah, we don’t use those stats within the game.”

One of the best teams in the league, however, does. As mentioned for the radio audience after Garrett’s phone interview, the Baltimore Ravens are taking some of the guesswork out of their playcalling. Sitting up in the coaching booth during every game, right next to offensive coordinator Greg Roman, is a 25-year-old behavioral economics major from Yale who runs the numbers when there’s a decision to be made on the sideline.

Sheil Kapadia of The Athletic has a fascinating profile on Daniel Stern, whose official title with the team is that of football analyst. Now in his fourth season with the Ravens, Stern assists the coaching staff during the week as they create an overall strategy for each opponent. And on gameday, Stern is on the headset, directly talking coach John Harbaugh through things like whether the math says to go for it or not in a key 4th-down situation.

It’s still ultimately up to Harbaugh and his gut, but the analytics give the coach the most data possible to help make the decision. Perhaps not coincidentally, Baltimore (through Week 11) had converted 10 of 14 fourth-down plays attempted in 2019, tied for most in the league. “And on the 10 drives where they’ve converted,” Kapadia writes, “eight have resulted in touchdowns. They’re averaging 10.5 yards per play on fourth down, which is tops in the NFL.”

The Ravens lead the NFL in 4th-down aggressiveness, with a “go rate” over 60 percent (in situations where the win probability is 1-in-5 or better). The Cowboys are between 20 and 25 percent, ranking among the bottom ten teams leaguewide in the above graph, which charts through Week 11.

Sure, it helps the Ravens that they have a weapon like quarterback Lamar Jackson. That obviously lets them be more aggressive in trying to keep opposing defenses on their heels on a do-or-die fourth down play. But Harbaugh has openly embraced concepts like win probability and expected points added and wants to be fed that information during the game.

“We talk about all the different scenarios, and [Stern] basically gives me a percentage,” Harbaugh is quoted in the Athletic piece. “So what’s the added win percentage of going for it? He’ll give it to me like one, two, three, four, five, six, up to whatever. Then you just decide if you want to do it. It’s not strictly based [on the numbers]. I listen to it. If he starts telling me 3 and 4 percent, I get really interested. If it’s 1 or 2 percent, I’m still interested — especially if it’s short, if I think we can get it.”

According to ESPN Stats & Info via Todd Archer, the win probability of the Cowboys going for it on that fourth down with 6:04 to play eleven yards from the goal line? 18.8 percent. “By kicking the field goal,” Archer notes, “the win probability fell to 16.7 percent.”

All of Garrett’s rhetoric about how it felt like cutting the lead kept things more manageable? How the field goal gave the offense a “pretty decent chance” to come back and score again? That decision actually decreased the team’s chances of sneaking a win out of Gillette Stadium. The numbers say so.

Garrett’s dismissal on The Fan?

“Yeah, we don’t use those stats within the game.”

Harbaugh says, “We’re chasing everything that’s gonna give us an edge.”

That sort of philosophy sounds like it would be a breath of fresh air to Cowboys fans, many of whom have tired of Garrett’s old-school insistence on doing things the way he’s always done them just because that’s the way it’s always been done. The 53-year-old Princeton grad may have a lot of football knowledge, but adding a little bit of math to the curriculum sure feels like it might present quite an opportunity.

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Report: Cowboys will not be firing ST coach Keith O’Quinn

The Dallas Cowboys had some egregious errors on Sunday afternoon when it came to their special teams. It wasn’t anything new, the club has been abysmal in that department over the last two seasons, but Sunday had no less than eight different errors …

The Dallas Cowboys had some egregious errors on Sunday afternoon when it came to their special teams. It wasn’t anything new, the club has been abysmal in that department over the last two seasons, but Sunday had no less than eight different errors that fell on the staff of the third phase of the game.

Following the 13-9 loss to the Patriots, owner Jerry Jones ripped into his coaching staff, making several statements how he believed the miscues on the field were the direct result of the position the coaching put them in. Some wondered if that would lead to a changing of the guard and a firing of ST coach Keith O’Quinn come the return to Dallas, but according to ESPN’s Ed Werder, no such move will be made.

This, of course, is a problem. Cowboys Wire wrote extensively about O’Quinn’s failures last month as the special team’s mistakes piled up.

Marcus Mosher has an updated list of Dallas’ ranks in certain areas.

Special Teams Blunders in Week 12

  • Blocked punt resulted in Patriots taking over at Dallas’ 12, scored game’s only touchdown
  • Missed 46-yard field goal into the wind
  • Pollard muffed kickoff return on pop-up kick to Dallas 12
  • Schultz muffed kickoff return on pop-up kick to Dallas 24
  • Delay of Game because of indecisiveness over Patriots only having 10 men on the field
  • Illegal motion on subsequent punt attempt
  • 32-yard punt fair caught on subsequent punt attempt, losing 20 yards of field position
  • Pollard muffed kickoff return on pop-up kick to Dallas 11

The Cowboys have a short week to prepare for their Thanksgiving Day game against the Buffalo Bills, so perhaps there isn’t much time to make a change before the next game. On the staff they have Carlos Polk and Phillip Tanner as assistants to O’Quinn.

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Jerry Jones extremely heated at Cowboys performance, season

The Cowboys were outcoached by the NFL’s greatest coach, but it still shouldn’t have looked like it did.

The Dallas Cowboys  were six-point underdogs on Sunday, and ended up covering the spread. So why does it feel like they soiled the good linen following their 13-9 defeat at the hands of the now 10-1 New England Patriots?

Fans are beside themselves, and it only is partially because of the referees’ abhorrent performance in another nationally-televised debacle. No, the Cowboys, facing off against the NFL’s best team, had so many miscues and poor decisions on the afternoon that  it’s difficult – near impossible – to point blaming fingers anywhere but in the mirror. The Cowboys had more talent than the best team in the league on Sunday, but were so overmatched even owner Jerry Jones couldn’t hide his frustration with the way his club performed.

Jones made sure to let the media know his anger wasn’t only pointed at the Week 12 performance, but was rather a cumulation of a season full of misssed opportunities where the Cowboys have been flat-out, out-coached.

Team reporter David Helman captured an extensive quote from Jones emblematic of the fury raging inside most everyone invested in the team’s performance. He felt heated the Cowboys wasted early-season opportunities to make a game like irrelevant to their pursuit of bigger goals, a game in which he clearly thought his coaching staff was outwitted from the outset.

“The Jets set it up. Losing those games against New Orleans or Minnesota, they set this up. You shouldn’t ever come into a situation like this and have as narrow a window…

… It’s frustrating just to be reminded that some of the fundamentals of football and coaching were what beat us…

… There’s no question that (Bill Belichick) sw the ball was going to be hard to handle. There’s no question he put pressure on the people returning the kicks and the people handling the ball on special teams. There’s no question that he usedthat to really put some special emphasis on it. So yeah, I’m frustrated.”

The contract Jones was setting up was obvious. The other side was prepared for such things, the Cowboys were clearly not.

The Cowboys weren’t prepared on special teams and muted their own field position as well as gifted the Patriots the game’s only touchdown when they didn’t have max protect on during a torrential downpour. So concerned about their lack of ability to cover a punt correctly, they allowed perennial Pro Bowler Matthew Slater to sneak in and block a Chris Jones’ punt, setting New England up deep in Cowboys territory on a day when the offenses had to do the proverbial uphill march in both directions to school.

The Patriots knew the ball would be tough to field on kickoffs, and knew to pop the ball up in the air and force the Cowboys to try and field a soaked ball while on the run. Three occasions and Dallas never adjusted, fumbling the ball when returner Tony Pollard had to race out from his deep positioning in the end zone instead of ever being coached to move up to give himself a better shot to field the water balloons.

Things actually got worse.

“I think that every aspect of special teams, when you really look at it, have been problematic for us. There’s no question about that,” Jones saidm via team reporter David Helman.

“To me, special teams is 100% coaching. It’s 100% coaching. It’s strategy, it’s having players ready,” Jones said. “That’s why, today, Belichick — give him credit. They did a great job on special teams, and that was really, probably the determining difference. But special teams is nothing but coaching.”

In the fourth quarter, trailing 10-6 and after another failed drive, the Cowboys had a chance to catch the Patriots in their own special team’s miscue. New England only had 10 men on the field as they were planning an all-out assault to get another block. With no return man set up and no one covering gunner Ventrell Bryant, Dallas wasn’t equipped to run a fake and get the easy first down. Heck, they weren’t even equipped to punt it away quickly and down the ball to setup a long field.

Instead, they froze, Keith O’Quinn’s unit eating a delay of game penalty.

On the next, longer-field kick, Chris Jones still booted a decent one, only Bryant was called for illegal formation negating the Patriots starting at their 18.

Five penalty yards turned into 20 of field position as the subsequent, subsequent kick set up New England at their 38. The Patriots used the short field to march for their final points of the game and take a touchdown lead, 13-6, in the fourth quarter.

The point margin was clearly an issue for head coach Jason Garrett, who repeatedly made decisions to keep the game close.

Facing the NFL’s top defense the Cowboiys should have known that points would be at a premium. Instead of absorbing the situation and being aggressive on the handful of opportunities when in close proximity to the end zone, Garrett repeated made decisions to settle for three points instead of shooting for touchdowns. It absolutely burned the Cowboys in the end.

On Dallas’ second possession in a tie game, on 4th-and-3 from the Patriots’ 28, the club trotted out woefully inconsistent Brett Maher to attempt a 46-yard field goal into a heavy wind, when pre-game warmups proved the kick to be difficult. Instead of attacking, they played timid, kicking the field goal only to listen to a thud as it clanged off the left upright.

In the second quarter, down 10-0, they faced the similar down and distance and settled for three points.

Later in the quarter, they made it inside the Patriot’s 10-yard line, and kicked another field goal on 4th-and-5 to cut the lead to 10-6.

They routinely left four points on the board in a game they lost by four points. The three decisions on their own are defensible. As a whole though, never taking a shot seems cowardice, especially in the context of the Cowboys’ worst decision of the fourth quarter.

After the Patriots extended the lead to 13-6, Dallas marched down the field following their biggest play of the afternoon, by far, a beautiful touch pass from Dak Prescott into the arms of a sprinting Randall Cobb that went for 52 yards. Eventually at the New England 11, the club faced 4th-and-5 with just six minutes remaining in the contest.

The club had to know this was likely one of the last chances to punch the ball in, in a score situation where they had no choice but to eventually get a field goal.

A failed conversion would have pinned New England deep in their territority in a game where their only scoring drives were of lengths of 12 (touchdown), 3 (field goal)  and 38 (field goal) yards, and they would be driving into the wind where Nick Folk had missed two field goals of his own already.

Instead, Garrett played it safe and took the three points, having Maher kick a third field goal.

Dallas would never threaten again. After the game, Garrett spoke of the decision, again through the team’s website via Rob Phillips.

“Just to give us a chance coming back the other way, fourth-and-7, you know, make it a four-point game,” Garrett said. “They go ahead and kick a field goal coming back, you still have a chance to be in the game. We would get it back with just under three, with a chance to go win it. So just felt good about that decision, at that time.”

The Cowboys had 2nd-and-7, but they didn’t call plays as if they had any intention of going for it on fourth down following Ezekiel Elliott’s three-yard gain on first down. They made two consecutive “last shot” attempts, instead of chipping away to get closer, including third down where Prescott could’ve scrambled to either move the chains or get so close a fourth-down try was obvious.

Dallas wasn’t supposed to win this game, but as Jones pointed out, they have missed several opportunities this season in games they were supposed to win. They needed a statement game that would have erased the club’s failure to defeat a winning team at any point in 2019. The game was right in front of them, and coaching miscues and timidity failed them once again, dropping the Cowboys to 6-5 on the season with just a one-game lead on Philadelphia, who has the NFL’s easiest schedule over the final five games.

Jones summed it up, this time via Jon Machota of The Athletic.

“It’s frustrating just to be reminded that some of the fundamentals of football and coaching were what beat us out there today.”

Amen.

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