Tag: Jason Garrett

Report: Former Cowboys HC Jason Garrett could replace Drew Brees on NBC’s Sunday nights

Garrett has been teamed with Jac Collinsworth on USFL coverage since April; he may stay with the network for college and pro work this fall. | From @ToddBrock24f7

Just a few months into his TV broadcasting career, Jason Garrett could already be in line for a promotion.

The former Cowboys coach has been working with NBC on USFL coverage, which began in April. Now it appears he may be taking over for Drew Brees in the booth for Notre Dame football games this fall and possibly in the studio for Football Night in America, the network’s Sunday night NFL pre-game show.

The report comes from the New York Post. NBC declined to comment, according to the paper.

Garrett, 56, has been teamed with Jac Collinsworth (son of Cris Collinsworth) for the relaunched USFL’s first season and done well, by all accounts. Collinsworth- a Notre Dame grad- is apparently being eyed to take over the Fighting Irish play-by-play duties on Saturdays from Mike Tirico, who is replacing Al Michaels on Sunday Night Football.

That shuffle suggests that Garrett could stay partnered with Collinsworth and replace Brees after just one year on the job. The former Saints quarterback was said to be out at NBC back in May. Fox is rumored to be interested in bringing Brees aboard as their No. 2 analyst.

If Garrett takes Brees’s seat on Saturdays, it stands to reason the network could also have him assume Brees’s studio duties on Sunday nights.

NBC has already revealed that Cris Collinsworth and Melissa Stark will join Tirico for Sunday night game coverage.

It should be noted, however, that neither Brees nor NBC have said whether the 13-time Pro Bowler would return to the network in some other capacity for the 2022 season.

But social media posts from Brees confirmed that some sort of change was in the offing for him, as he toyed with the notion of everything from an NFL comeback or the senior golf tour to coaching kids or concentrating on business and philanthropic work.

After 17 seasons on coaching staffs in Miami, Dallas, and New York, Garrett admitted to a similar level of uncertainty as he took a noncommitted approach into his first TV gig just a few months ago.

“I love coaching. I love players, I love building teams, all of that. This was just an opportunity that came up this offseason,” Garrett said at the time. “It just sounded like something that was going to be interesting and fun to do. So I’m diving in right now, but all doors are open in the future.”

With the USFL season scheduled to culminate as a champion is crowned on July 3, that next door may be opening for Garrett. And it may be just down the hall from his current post.

The Cowboys are currently slated to be featured in NBC’s Sunday night coverage in their season opener hosting Tampa Bay on Sept. 11, in Week 6 at Philadelphia, and in Week 13 versus Indianapolis.

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Report: Ex-Giant Jason Garrett could replace Drew Brees at NBC

Former New York Giants offensive coordinator Jason Garrett may replace Drew Brees at NBC in 2022.

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The NFL broadcasting landscape has changed significantly in recent months and will look very different in 2022. It may also feature the addition of a former New York Giants player and assistant coach.

Andrew Marchand of the New York Post reports that NBC is considering Jason Garrett as a replacement for Drew Brees during Notre Dame football games this coming season. And possibly more.

NBC is eyeing Jason Garrett, the former Cowboys head coach and Giants offensive coordinator, to replace Drew Brees as the game analyst on Notre Dame football and possibly on its prime time NFL pregame studio show, “Football Night in America,” The Post has learned.

Brees is expected to part ways with NBC after just a single season. He has confirmed there is some uncertainty about his future, even hinting that he could return to the field. There are also reports that FOX Sports may make a run at him.

Garrett, meanwhile, is currently serving as an on-air analyst for NBC covering USFL games. He has teamed with Jac Collinsworth, who could also be brought over to cover Notre Dame games, The Post added.

The 56-year-old Garrett was fired by the Giants mid-season after a disastrous year and a half as their offensive coordinator. His unit was among the league’s worst and barely resembled anything else at the NFL level. Remarkably, things actually got worse once he was terminated.

Whether or not Garrett’s time in the NFL is over is unclear, but he’ll obviously have some fallback options in the event another coaching job does not materialize.

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Jason Garrett a candidate to replace Drew Brees on NBC

Former Dallas Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett is a candidate to replace Drew Brees on NBC.

Last month, Andrew Marchand of the New York Post reported that retired quarterback Drew Brees was parting ways with NBC after just one year as an analyst with the network. On Thursday evening, Marchand filed a new report regarding his potential replacement: former Dallas Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett:

Following his own career as a quarterback in the NFL, Garrett moved quickly through the league’s coaching ranks. After starting out as the quarterbacks coach with the Miami Dolphins, Garrett was quickly named the offensive coordinator with the Cowboys back in 2007. He added the title of assistant head coach the following season, and took over as the team’s head coach on a permanent basis in 2011.

After nearly a decade in Dallas as their head coach, he spent just over a season in New York as the offensive coordinator with the Giants. He was let go midway through the 2021 campaign. He has been working with NBC this season on their coverage of the USFL.

Garrett is known for his offensive prowess as a play-caller, and his experience as a quarterback and coach have already made for an easy transition to the booth as part of NBC’s USFL coverage. The report was quickly endorsed by Ian Rapoport of the NFL Network:

 

Jason Garrett reflects on Cowboys past, broadcasting present, coaching future

The former Cowboys coach had fun in his first week on the job with NBC, but made it clear “all doors are open” on a return to the sidelines. | From @ToddBrock24f7

Jason Garrett is the kind of guy who always comes across as calm, cool, and collected. Maybe even to a fault. During nearly a decade as head coach of the Cowboys, that unflappable demeanor didn’t always sit well with fans who might have liked a bit more fire from time to time. But things very rarely seemed to truly rattle the man they called Red Ball.

Still, he admits that during his first weekend in the broadcast booth for NBC’s coverage of the USFL, there was a steep learning curve.

“I don’t know if the word is nervous,” he explained, “but there’s a lot of stuff that goes into being an announcer. And obviously, I don’t have a ton of experience with that, but I was just trying to have some fun up there.”

Garrett did a Friday morning phone-in with the crew at 105.3 The Fan, and it was just like the old days, with the ex-coach soft-selling what went right from the previous game, putting a positive spin on lessons that could be learned, and looking ahead to the next time out.

The 56-year-old said getting into a rhythm with booth partner Jac Collinsworth, figuring out which monitor to be watching when, taking a producer’s cues in his headset, and enhancing the on-field action for the viewers with engaging patter between plays all took some getting used to.

While he did do a few NFL Europe games for Fox Sports toward the end of his playing career, Garrett hinted that he tried to draw largely on advice he had learned first-hand from one of the true legends.

“John Madden’s the one that everybody points to,” Garrett offered. “I was fortunate; in the ’90s, John Madden and Pat Summerall did almost every one of our games, so we developed great relationships- personal relationships- with those guys. Just to hear John Madden do a game, obviously, he’s the best of the best.”

But Garrett may not necessarily be ready to follow in Madden’s footsteps by abandoning coaching forever for a permanent broadcast gig. When asked about a return to the sidelines, he reverted right back to coachspeak by giving a non-answer of an answer that’s wide open for interpretation.

“I love coaching. I love players, I love building teams, all of that. This was just an opportunity that came up this offseason,” Garrett said. “It just sounded like something that was going to be interesting and fun to do. So I’m diving in right now, but all doors are open in the future.”

For a time, it looked as if the next door to open for Garrett would be in the college ranks. Shortly after being dismissed as the Giants offensive coordinator in November 2021, he was rumored to be the frontrunner for the head coaching job at Duke University.

The Blue Devils ultimately went a different direction, but Garrett says the notion of one day taking over a collegiate program has a lot of upside.

“You get these kids coming in- 17, 18 years old- and you have an opportunity to be around them and create an environment for them where they can be their best, on and off the field, at a very formative time in their life,” he said. “That’s always something that’s intrigued me. I’ve been in pro football my whole life: the last 31 years as a player and a coach, so I’m not going to say college football is foreign to me, but I just haven’t done it. I haven’t been a college coach. But those opportunities are always intriguing.”

No matter Garrett’s next stop, it will always be his time with the Cowboys that makes up the bulk of his resumé. And even though his tenure in Dallas ended sooner than he might have liked- and with far less hardware than anyone associated with the team would have wanted- it doesn’t change how he looks back now on his many years with America’s Team.

“I loved every minute of every day that I was playing and coaching for the Dallas Cowboys,” Garrett said. “What a unique experience, to be a part of some of the teams that I was around, to get a chance to work with some of the coaches and the players, the organization. It’s an incredible place. Literally, I never worked a day I was there; I’d get there early, and I’d stay late. We’d go to work every day, but it was never working.”

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Cameron Jordan hired as an analyst for upstart USFL

Cameron Jordan to work as an analyst for upstart USFL alongside Jason Garrett and Michael Robinson:

This flew under the radar when the United States Football League announced it on Tuesday, April 12, but New Orleans Saints defensive end Cameron Jordan has another big gig coming up soon: working as an analyst for the upstart USFL. This spring league will kick off on Saturday, April 16 at 6:30 p.m. CT with a contest between the New Jersey Generals and Birmingham Stallions from Protective Stadium in Birmingham, Ala.

The game will be broadcast on both NBC and FOX, with Jordan joining a panel of analysts including former NFL head coach Jason Garrett and longtime NFL Network analyst Michael Robinson to share their insight on the game. Play-by-play duties will be managed by NBC Sports’ Jac Collinsworth and Paul Burmeister.

Jordan has worked extensively in sports media over the years — often making studio appearances on ESPN and NFL Network, but most interestingly working as a sideline reporter for the XFL during its short-lived 2020 season. He’s got a clear future in front of cameras whenever he’s finished playing football, and this is another great opportunity for the seven-time Pro Bowler to pad his resume.

He’s certainly playing for the right team to parlay his pro experience into a turn to media. Many of Jordan’s former Saints teammates have since gone on to work for ESPN (Reggie Bush, Benjamin Watson, and Roman Harper), FOX (Jonathan Vilma), NBC (Drew Brees), and other platforms after hanging up their cleats. Longtime Saints head coach Sean Payton is also still weighing offers from interested networks after stepping down from his post earlier this offseason. Jordan is putting himself on the right path to joining them.

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Ex-Giants coordinator Jason Garrett now a USFL analyst

Former New York Giants offensive coordinator Jason Garrett is now part of the NBC analyst team covering the USFL.

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Shortly after being fired by the New York Giants, Jason Garrett drew interest from Duke University. However, he was ultimately passed over for their head coaching job and failed to land back in the NFL.

So, what will Garrett be doing in 2022? Serving as an analyst for the USFL.

Garrett was fired by the Giants after just a season and a half. He never appeared like a fit in East Rutherford and his offense couldn’t even manage to leave the starting gate.

“Today is certainly disappointing, but I want to say how truly grateful I am to the Mara and the Tisch families for giving me the opportunity to coach for their New York Giants,” Garrett said at the time of his firing. “They represent all that is good about the NFL,” Garrett said in a statement. “I also want to thank the Giants’ coaches and staff for their hard work and their unwavering kindness to my wife Brill and me. This building is filled with great people who made our time here special. Most of all, I want to express my gratitude to the players that I’ve had the privilege to coach here. While the bottom-line results weren’t what we wanted, I’ll be forever inspired by their approach, their professionalism and the fight they demonstrated regardless of the circumstance.

“One of the things that motivated me to accept this position was the opportunity to help rebuild the Giants into a contending team. We knew there would be many challenges. My expectations for our offense were much greater than what our results have been, and I accept full responsibility for that.

“Know that I wish everyone with the Giants nothing but the best going forward.”

As an analyst for the USFL, Garrett will team with New Orleans Saints defensive end Cameron Jordan and former Seattle Seahawks fullback Michael Robinson for NBC. They will handle the pregame, halftime and postgame coverage for the league, while FOX will produce the game coverage.

The USFL will open their season on Saturday night at 7:30 p.m. ET with a game between the New Jersey Generals at Birmingham Stallions.

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Former Cowboys HC Jason Garrett gets booth job for USFL games

Garrett will join NBC’s crew as an analyst for the first season of the newly-relaunched USFL; the regular season starts Saturday. | From @ToddBrock24f7

To use a phrase from his own parlance, Jason Garrett loves ball. The former Cowboys backup quarterback, offensive coordinator, and head coach enjoys nothing more than to talk Xs and Os, drawing from a lifetime of learning about the game at every level to dissect what’s happening- and what should happen- on the field.

And now he’ll be paid to do it in the broadcast booth.

Garrett will serve as an analyst for NBC’s coverage of the USFL season, it was announced Tuesday. Jac Collinsworth and Paul Burmeister will lead the crew, with Garrett joined by Michael Robinson and Cameron Jordan in analyst roles. Zora Stephenson and Corey Robinson will act as sideline reporters, while Sara Perlman will host halftime and postgame coverage.

Fox will simulcast the league’s games and have its own crew: Curt Menefee and Joel Klatt as the voices of the game with Kevin Kugler handling play-by-play calls, and Brock Huard and onetime Cowboys quarterback Mark Sanchez doing analysis.

Garrett spent two decades in the Cowboys organization, the first seven as player. He earned two Super Bowl rings with the dynasty teams of the 1990s behind Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman. As a third-string option, Garrett memorably got the start for 1994’s Thanksgiving Day game, leading Dallas to a dramatic comeback win over the Packers.

He returned to Dallas in 2007 as the team’s new offensive coordinator after having spent two seasons as quarterbacks coach in Miami. On the Cowboys sidelines, he moved up the ranks to gain an assistant head coach title in 2008. In 2011, he took over when head coach Wade Phillips was fired after eight games and guided the Cowboys to a 5-3 record to close out the season.

The Princeton grad was named the eighth head coach in Cowboys history for the team’s 2021 season. His contract was not renewed following the 2019 season; Garrett had compiled an 85-67 record as Cowboys head coach, 2-3 in the playoffs.

Garrett was then hired as offensive coordinator for the Giants, but was dismissed before the 2021 season was over. He was rumored to be the front-runner for the head job at Duke University; the school ultimately went a different direction.

The newly-relaunched USFL will kick off its season on Saturday. All eight teams will play their entire schedule of regular-season games in one of two stadiums in Birmingham, Alabama. Postseason contests will be played in Canton, Ohio, with the championship game slated for July 3.

The Cowboys have several former players on USFL rosters. Former Dallas assistant Todd Haley will coach the Tampa Bay Bandits. Longtime Cowboys fullback Daryl Johnston is the league’s executive vice president of football operations.

And Garrett, Johnston’s former Cowboys teammate, will be giving his thoughts on all of it with a bird’s-eye view, a headset, and a live television audience.

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Michael Irvin warned Jason Garrett he couldn’t fix the Giants

Michael Irvin says he warned Jason Garrett to stay away from the New York Giants because he couldn’t fix their mess.

Two weeks after the Dallas Cowboys allowed the contract of head coach Jason Garrett to expire back in January of 2020, he was hired by the New York Giants as their offensive coordinator.

Garrett was excited and grateful for the opportunity, but several in his circle didn’t share in that optimism. One such Negative Nancy came by way of retired Cowboys legend and current NFL analyst, Michael Irvin.

Irvin believed the Giants were a lost cause — something beyond Garrett’s scope of repair — and that the coach would merely be spinning his wheels in East Rutherford.

“I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t know about that one, man,'” Irvin recalled to Newsday. “He’s such a fighter. He’s a winner. He wanted to go and do it. He said ‘I’m a coach, it’s what I do. I can fix it. I can fix it.’ I said to him then, ‘I don’t know if you can fix it.’

“And I’m saying this to you now: ‘I don’t know if I can fix it.'”

Irvin certainly couldn’t fix the team but that’s a different sidebar. Garrett, of course, would have had much better odds at fixing the Giants given his extensive experience as a coach, but that’s not how things panned out.

Garrett was let go midway through his second season as Giants’ offensive coordinator, and justifiably so. The offense took a major step back from Pat Shurmur’s bunch and were barely functioning on an NFL level. But even following his departure, things only got worse.

In the end, not only was Garrett fired, but head coach Joe Judge and much of his staff were sent packing, too.

So, how can the Giants be fixed? That’s a question Irvin still can’t answer even after Garrett’s attempt.

“Dude,” Irvin said, “we don’t have the time to go through all of that.”

Irvin may not, but general manager Joe Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll do. They’re now tasked with doing what Dave Gettleman, Judge and Garrett could not.

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Report: Ex-Giants OC Jason Garrett a candidate for Duke’s head coaching job

Former New York Giants offensive coordinator Jason Garrett has emerged as a candidate to fill Duke’s current head coaching vacancy.

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Former New York Giants offensive coordinator Jason Garrett has never coached at the college level, but that could change in the near future.

Garrett has emerged as a candidate for Duke’s vacant head coaching position, reports Steve Wiseman of the Raleigh News and Observer.

While Elliott and Elko remain in Duke’s sights, former Dallas Cowboys coach Jason Garrett remains on the school’s radar as well. Though he’s never coached college football, Garrett played quarterback at Princeton before embarking on an NFL playing and coaching career.

Since retiring from on-field play, Garrett has spent his entire career coaching in the NFL, dating back to when he was the quarterbacks coach of the Miami Dolphins.

Garrett spent almost 10 years as the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys — three additional years as their offensive coordinator — before he was dismissed after the 2019 season.

Garrett was hired as the Giants’ offensive coordinator under Joe Judge, but was terminated in November and replaced by Freddie Kitchens.

Duke is looking for a new coach after relieving David Cutcliffe, who was their head coach since 2008, of duties.

Aside from Garrett, Duke is also looking at Clemson offensive coordinator Tony Elliott and Texas A&M defensive coordinator Mike Elko.

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Giants’ Kenny Golladay: Freddie Kitchens more open to input from players

Unlike Jason Garrett, New York Giants WR Kenny Golladay says Freddie Kitchens is more open to input from players.

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Shortly before Jason Garrett was fired as the New York Giants’ offensive coordinator, quarterback Daniel Jones made a curious comment about coach-player communication.

During the team’s bye week, Jones indicated that Garrett was in complete control of the offensive game plan. And while some level of input was welcomed, all decisions were ultimately Garrett’s to make.

“I think I’m a player in my third year versus coaches who have been around the game a lot longer than me and seen a lot. I feel like there are times I can give my input and kind of what I think,” Jones said at the time. “Most of the game plan comes from the coaches and what they see.”

It was a throwaway comment, but one that seems much more significant now.

On Thursday, wide receiver Kenny Golladay — who was careful to sidestep direct criticism of Garrett — raved about the change at play-caller. He indicated that Freddie Kitchen, the team’s senior offensive assistant, is much more receptive to input from players throughout the week and during a game.

“It’s huge. You can come over to the sideline and actually, since you’re the one out there running, you can actually tell them what you’re seeing,” Golladay said. “It’s one thing running it on the field and a coach standing on the sideline trying to get all the way on the other side of the field. Just going in there and giving them good information, and not giving them selfish information.”

It seems obvious to want input from players, but apparently that’s only a recent trend in East Rutherford. And it would help explain why Golladay had blown up on Garrett earlier this season and been more critical of him just prior to the very public firing.

For Kitchens, listening to player input is second nature. It’s more a natural reaction than a conscious decision.

“You need to get a sense and feel for what they’re comfortable with. To me, why would you call something, and this is the way our staff believes, why would you call something if a player’s not comfortable running it? It’s your job to get them comfortable running it,” Kitchen said. “If you think it’s a good scheme or a good play or whatever the case may be, it’s your job to get them comfortable doing it. But if you can’t get them to that point, it’s kind of diminishing returns.

“I think this is a never-ending process. It’s constant communication. That’s what we try to stress is it’s communication between coach and coach, coach and player, player to coach. It’s always constant communication, so I wouldn’t put a number on it. So I think it’s always a continual process.”

The fact that this level of communication did not exist under Garrett is jarring. It also explains why the offense was drastically under-performing and why the play-calling seemed so stagnant.

Results weren’t significantly better under Kitchens in Week 12, but some new wrinkles were obvious. The coach-player communication improvement was also obvious.

“We need input from everybody. I think we do a good job of communicating, working through things,” Kitchens added. “What do we want to do here? Who are we trying to attack? What personnel do we want to use? Everybody has different suggestions and that’s how we roll, but that’s not unique to any other situation I think you find across the league.”

Kitchens went on to say this level of communication is the norm around the NFL and that every staff does it. Every staff except for the Giants’ previous one, apparently. But at least they’ve gone from living in the 1980s to the 2020s. One small step at a time.

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