Jason and the search for the Golden Fleece Nevermind that they have crummy, underappreciated journalism degrees like a lot of other people.
Yesterday, the Dallas Cowboys officially removed the "interim" tag from Jason Garrett and made him the eighth head coach of this storied franchise.
And guess what, morons: The Dallas Morning News knew it was the right choice all along. Forget the last two months of hemming and hawing about who the Cowboys should and could interview and about whether Garrett's the right man.
Shit. These dudes are smart.
Bill Nichols (who I shouldn't pick on) states that hiring Garrett allows the Cowboys the quickest rebound from 2010 in order to capitalize on the prime years of certain players, like Tony Romo, Jason Witten and DeMarcus. With Garrett, the Cowboys can role with the offense (which we can only assume is any good) and just remake the defense and make a run.
The problem here is that it's just a story filled with quotes from players. The same players that had the same glowing quotes about Wade Phillips.
Then there's Tim Cowlishaw, whose story is accompanied by this headline:
"Garrett a better fit for Cowboys job over Super Bowl-winning coaches"
I'm intrigued. Cowlishaw is on TV, so he must have a 5,000-word column substantiating this very bold headline. Surely. Right?
Eh:
"Simply put, Garrett seems the right man for the job. But it's not the sexiest hire to Cowboys fans who have been drooling over the image of a Bill Cowher or Jon Gruden walking the Dallas sideline. Garrett is the better fit than those Super Bowl-winning coaches, and all you really need to do to understand that is look around the NFL playoff scene this weekend. Seattle's Pete Carroll, returning to the NFL after a successful (if we can still call it that) run at Southern Cal, is the exception. The other seven head coaches were NFL assistants and coordinators and are head coaches for the first time."
So, there are thousands currently out of work in Dallas-Fort Worth and Cowlishaw is somehow picking up a paycheck for this?
He points to Pete Carroll, who was AWFUL at New England his first go round, is the head coach of the most embarrassing development in the NFL of the past decade by bringing a 7-9 Seattle team to the playoffs.
Cowlishaw somehow correlates Carroll's ability to take a losing team to the playoffs to that of winning a Super Bowl like Jon Gruden or Bill Cowher -- both of whom apparently have a 100 times more integrity than Carroll, who oversaw a long line of cheating at USC and jumped ship. What a turd. Cowlishaw undermines two Super Bowl-winning coaches and props up a losing NFL coach in about 100 words. Nice!
Here's the rub with the hire: Jerry Jones has flubbed just about every non-Johnson and non-Parcells decision as general manager, to the point that trust with the fans is at an all-time low.
So we expect him to make the right decision with Garrett?
He screw up the Jimmy Johnson era. He fired Chan Gailey too soon. He hired Dave Campo. He ran Bill Parcells crazy. And he took a lazy and uninspired approach in hiring Wade Phillips.
Next: He took less than a week to determine that, yes, Jason Garrett is the answer. Maybe he is and maybe he isn't. But Jones did not take any real time to make a good decision. For all we know, he did not even seriously talk with Cowher, Gruden or any other assistant, college coach or former head coach.
Garrett was hired because:
1. Nichols is right, Garrett's familiarity with the team.
2. Garrett is cheaper than Cowher or Gruden heading into a possible lost season.
3. Garrett knows the score. He knows who signs the paychecks, has final say on players and makes the decisions. A convenient truth that our local media would soon pass over.
Jones put no thought into this decision, like he does a lot of decisions, and it might bite him in the ass and we'll go through all of this again in four years.
In my heart of hearts, I hope Garrett has a better fate than his predecessors. I think he's operates above the fray in terms of pandering to the spoiled fanbase and the testicle-less media. He's a different animal and I can appreciate that.
