Jean-Jacques Taylor of the DMN hits the nail on the head: Your Cowboys are a gutless crew. An excerpt:
It seems to me, the folks wearing white coats from Terrell State Hospital need to spend a few hours with Jerry today. See, either Jerry has lost his mind or he thinks the fans in Dallas are so dumb they will fill his new billion-dollar stadium regardless of the product on the field or the man running the team.That’s the only conclusion you can draw because if Phillips keeps his job after this season, Jerry should never, ever fire him. Phillips will never do a worse job than he did this season.
Ever.
[...]
it’s hard to talk tough about taking folks to the woodshed, when Phillips, who managed a 13-3 team with Super Bowl expectations so poorly that it didn’t even make the playoffs, remains the coach.
This group of arrogant faux stars played with a sense of entitlement, in part, because Phillips provided a plethora of ready-made excuses for their flaws, when he should’ve been challenging his underachieving players to perform better.
Indeed.
One thing has been clear in numerous games (today’s, last week’s against the Ravens, not to mention the first game against Washington, as well as those against the Bengals, Rams and Cardinals), this team has frequently been ill-prepared to play. The coaching staff hasn’t gotten them ready and Phillips frequently makes excuses, rather than taking players to task. He looks befuddled on the sidelines every week.
Another thing that is quite concerning: while everyone had Jason Garrett as an offensive genius last year, it would appear that Tony Sparano (now head coach of the AFC-East winning Miami Dolphins, after being 1-15 last year) may have been the real brains behind last year’s offense.
The question now is whether Jerry will do a 180 on Phillips and fire him–or if Wade will decide it is time to retire.
Regardless, things very much feel like the “bad old days” with this team after a couple of years of hope. That is to say starting with Switzer’s second year through the Gailey and Campo administrations: listless and under-achieving with Jerry acting like the next big deal (e.g., trading for Jerry Galloway, trading up to get Quincy Carter, signing Pacman Jones or trading for Toy Williams) will be The Piece that completes the SuperBowl puzzle. Jerry wasted Aikman’s remaining years by chasing off Jimmy Johnson and now he is poised to squander the pool of talent currently assembled. He came to his sense briefly with the Parcells hire, and Bill got the organization going in the right direction, but one Big Bill left, Jerry went back to his old ways and here we are: home for the playoffs.
Pathetic.
December 29th, 2024 at 12:23 am
One of the things that has absolutely baffled me this season is how Wade Philips looks perpetually confused while on the sidelines. Doesn’t matter if he’s winning, losing, whatever – he just looks like he has no clue what is going on.
I envision this internal conversation happening weekly (or more!)
Philips: “Ummm, what am I doing here anyway? Why are all these guys in white uniforms around me, running in and out onto a field and playing some sort of game with an oblong ball? What is the object of this game? How do I win? And why do they pay me if I don’t know the answers to these questions? Also, who is that TO guy, and should I do something with him?”
Seriously, Philips doesn’t inspire confidence at all. Even with the Cowboys up for most of the game against the Steelers, every time they cut to a shot of Philips, I knew Pittsburgh would win the game. And while I am one of those who can’t stand the Cowboys (I’ll never forgive you guys for beating the Steelers in 1995 and being so annoyingly cocky while doing so), I remain baffled that Philips remains employed, and say that the league would be better off with a competent Head Coach in Dallas.
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