The Cowboys’ 2019 regular season finale may feel anticlimactic, but chances are the potential sendoff to yet another disappointing season will have some fireworks. If this really is the end of the line in Dallas for Jason Garrett, expect the King of Moral Victories to go out on a high note.
In this most recent era of Cowboys football, optics are seemingly the most important thing. The perception and buzz surrounding this team often takes precedence over all else, leading to disappointing on-field results and many to wonder where it all went wrong. The tea leaves point to major upcoming changes in Dallas, but Garrett will be afforded at least one more opportunity to deliver one of his signature coaching performances.
Teams are often remembered for what they didn’t achieve rather than what they did. There are no awards given for regular season, but that doesn’t stop Garrett from often going for the gold. The quintessential example is Week 17 last year, when the Cowboys went all-out against New York with nothing to play for besides reaching 10 wins solely for posterity’s sake. The division was wrapped up, Dallas had an upcoming playoff game, and there was Dak Prescott, scrambling for his life and playing for all the Week 17 marbles.
Dak Prescott to Cole Beasley. 4th and 15. Cowboys at Giants Week 17
đź“ą: pic.twitter.com/TiM5EyKXsX
— Jori Epstein (@JoriEpstein) March 12, 2019
The highlight will live forever, but so will Garrett’s likely legacy of never advancing past the divisional round in the playoffs.
In the last of game of the 2017 season, a downtrodden Cowboys team defeated Philadelphia in a 6-0 snoozer. The win to move them to 9-7 and clinch back-to-back winning seasons for the first time (and likely only) time in Garrett’s Cowboys coaching tenure. Philadelphia would go on to win the Super Bowl.
Garrett and Kellen Moore also went down in a blaze of glory in the 2015 season finale, losing 34-24 to cap of a 4-12 season to the Redskins. Moore was starting the third and final game of his playing career, and threw the ball 48 times, good for 435 yards, three touchdowns and two interceptions. One team was certainly trying that day, at least.
So while nothing may technically be on the line besides Dallas’s slim playoff hopes, that won’t stop Garrett from putting his best foot forward. A Week 17 win will provide a nice bit of symmetry, fittingly locking the Cowboys into another 8-8 finish. The theme of a .500 record followed Garrett through his first five full seasons as coach, a stretch in which his Dallas teams went 40-40 and earned one playoff victory. If Garrett’s fight is finally finished, at least it’ll be remembered for its consistency.
[vertical-gallery id=637120][lawrence-newsletter]