If last night’s game showed us anything in the NFL its that Jason Garrett’s time may be up. Let’s focus on what did happen the Cowboys played a hard-fought game. They battled and battled with the rival Texans. Forcing overtime Cowboys win the toss and elect to receive get a decent drive going then manage to sputter forcing a 4th and 1 from the Texans 42. Now in regulation, the right play would be to send the punting unit out and live to fight another day. But this is overtime and since they had the ball first if the Cowboys punt and Texans kick a FG its over. Jason Garrett with the NFL’s Leading rusher on his team decides to Punt in overtime instead of taking a chance and going for it. This has been Jason Garrett’s problem all along he is too safe he does not take risks. Jerry Jones even questioned his playcalling saying that was the time for a risk.
Underperforming for Years
Garrett has been underperforming for years and people say it is because he is Jerry’s Puppet. I do believe that he still has a job somewhat due to the fact that Jerry can control him and he is a Yes man. But at some point, this has got to stop. The man has multiple 8-8 seasons and his overall record since taking over in 2010 is 69-55 and is 1-2 in the playoffs. He has only been to the playoffs 2 times since he took over in 2010, even though he has had talented teams. His clock management when games are on the line has been bad as well. This was not the first nor will it be the last time he has made bad decisions regarding end of game situations. The one that stood out to me was the game against the Green Bay Packers in 2017. Garrett’s error came with just under a minute remaining when Dak Prescott completed a pass to Jason Witten for a first down at the Green Bay 40 with 57 seconds remaining. Dallas clocked the ball at 48 seconds, rather than running a play to try to advance the ball. At the time they did so, they were just outside of field goal range, trailing by 3, and with Green Bay sitting with two timeouts (Dallas had one). The worst case scenario (well, other than missing the kick) happened when Prescott threw incomplete on 3rd and 3. They could have really used that extra down, had plenty of time left and left Green Bay with enough time for a Rodgers miracle after Dan Bailey nailed the long field goal to tie. You don’t clock it in that situation. You still have time, need to score, and simply cannot leave Green Bay the opportunity that was left while conceding a down. Especially when it was Aaron Rodgers on the other side.
Final Thoughts
I am hoping that the Cowboys and Jerry Jones will wake up and realize that Jason Garrett is not the answer and will fire him give Dak a chance to prove it is the coaches and not him. Because if not the fan base will continue to blame Dak and say it is all on him.