It’s often said that a football team, over time, inevitably takes on the personality of its head coach. Save for a few notable exceptions, most members of the Dallas Cowboys sound in media interviews a lot like coach Jason Garrett. They’re measured in their responses. They don’t reveal a lot of meaty information. They don’t engage in speculation or hyperbole or a lot of self-congratulations. Win or lose, up or down, they sound pretty much the same. They’re often uninteresting, even flat-out boring.
So it went over like a miniature firestorm when it hit social media in the moments following the Cowboys’ limp performance against Buffalo- in their home stadium, in front of a nationwide audience, on their traditional holiday- that somebody behind the closed doors of the team’s locker room was going off. Very loudly and rather emphatically.
It was reported shortly thereafter that defensive end Michael Bennett, with the club for only a month, was the one who lit up his new teammates.
Afterward, many of them were asked about the moment, which had been audible throughout many of the tunnels underneath AT&T Stadium.
“That’s passion,” receiver Randall Cobb told media members. “That’s passion. We love this game; we want to win ball games. We’re not coming out here to lose ball games. Unfortunately, it goes that way sometimes. That’s just passion. I think it was a great message, and I think it was well-received.”
“Emotional locker room,” quarterback Dak Prescott said in his postgame press conference. “Just an exchange of words about us sticking together. Anything and everything outside of that locker room doesn’t matter. Simple as that.”
As for the specifics of what Bennett told the team, his fellow players felt it wasn’t for them to say.
“We’re not going to get into that,” Cobb stated. “What happens in this locker room stays in this locker room.”
But Bennett himself revealed some of the themes of his impassioned speech and why he felt it was necessary for him to speak up, even as a newcomer among a collection of high-profile superstars.
“Because it’s important that we understand that it’s a small window that we have,” Bennett said, as per Michael Gehlken of The Dallas Morning News. “We’ve got all the great players. The only thing we’ve got to do is execute in adversity. The enemy against greatness is the unwillingness to change. We’ve got to be able to change some of the things that we’ve been doing to demand more from ourselves and become the people we want to be.
“Every opportunity is in front of us, but it’s just on us to capitalize. To win, you’ve got to sacrifice a lot. It’s going to hurt. It’s painful. You play through injury, but you do it because you have to. To win that championship, to win that [Vince] Lombardi [Trophy], there’s no feeling like that. And that takes a lot.”
Bennett, an 11-year veteran who’s spent time on four different teams before being traded to Dallas from New England after just six games, won a Super Bowl ring with Seattle following the 2013 season. His perspective as a champion makes him the rarest of commodities on the current Cowboys roster.
“The champions are the people that get remembered,” Bennett said when asked about his speech, according to Gehlken. “They don’t remember who got the biggest contract. A whole bunch of great players got great contracts, but they don’t get remembered as champions. Champions are the ones who get the gold plates and the jackets and they understand what it takes to win. That’s just a certain mind-set. That’s just a certain ability to play tough in adverse moments.”
Bennett’s words seemed to hit home for his new teammates in Dallas after their Thursday night debacle.
“It’s all about the men in this room,” edge rusher DeMarcus Lawrence offered. “Looking each other in the eye, looking each other in the mirror and really making that turn about what they really want in this life and what they want out of this career and out of this game.”
Even immediately after a demoralizing loss that has fans calling for their coach’s head, Bennett’s address created a sense of optimism heading into the final quarter of the schedule.
“No one’s down on themselves,” defensive lineman Robert Quinn said in his postgame comments. “Guys know what’s at stake. But we’ve got to look ourselves in the mirror come tomorrow- or tonight, actually, I should say- and see what we can do better… We got four games left, we still got a shot. No need to hang your head. So let’s get it fixed.”
“No belief has been lost,” Prescott echoed. “No confidence has been lost. This is simply execution. This is on players. That’s kind of what that conversation was. Credit the leaders, credit Michael Bennett, those guys that started that. It was a great conversation, lot of great words passed. But it’s all about us executing and just getting the job done. Starts throughout the week about us just doing things better.”
Owner Jerry Jones had been the vocal one in the media all week, after calls for Garrett’s job increased to deafening levels following the squad’s Week 12 loss to the Patriots. But Jones, much like the head coach he’s defended for a decade, has opted for a calm and measured approach in dealing with both his coach and his players.
“If I had thought that calling somebody out or going in there and giving them a Knute Rockne talk would have made any difference as to how we execute or how we do,” Jones told reporters, “then I’d bottle that and sell it to a lot of different places. That’s not the way this thing works.”
Sometimes, though, it is the way this thing works. Sometimes a team needs a fiery Knute Rockne speech. Sometimes a dressing-down at maximum volume is exactly what the situation calls for. But Jones is right: coming from the billionaire owner, it falls flat. Coming from a head coach who is practically expected to lose his job, it feel’s disingenuous. Coming from a player who’s never held a Lombardi Trophy, it’s just talk. Maybe Michael Bennett was the only guy in that room who could provide that spark. Maybe that’s part of the reason the Cowboys went out and got him mid-season.
The last four games of 2019 will reveal whether Bennett’s spark actually lit a fire under this Cowboys team.
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