Posted on January 3, 2020, by Travis Pulver
Fans of the Dallas Cowboys have been waiting for Jerry Jones to make the announcement since the end of Sunday’s regular-season finale against the Washington Redskins—Jason Garrett would no longer be the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys. o
But then nothing happened.
No big deal. So, maybe Jerry doesn’t want to make it look like a snap decision even though he has been critical of the team’s coaching for weeks. So, the assumption was that Jones would do it Monday after meeting with Garrett.
The two had a meeting scheduled for Monday. After it started, one reporter said he heard the whole staff had been fired, but he was wrong—and the wait continued.
Jones and Garrett scheduled another meeting, the meeting was held, and still—no decision. So, fans began to wonder if Jones was going to keep Garrett. Maybe he was trying to figure out some other capacity for him to work within the organization.
After all, Garrett has spent much of his football-related life with the Cowboys. He played with the team from 1993-99 and then became a coach (offensive coordinator) in 2007. After Jones let Wade Phillips go during the 2010 season, he became the interim head coach. The tag was then removed following the end of the season.
There is a lot of history there. So, when Ed Werder tweeted out that the team was moving on without Garrett following an emotional final meeting, the world believed it was finally true. But ESPN took the story and ran with it—but not everyone followed suit.
Typically, when a story like this breaks, everyone runs with it, and then it becomes everywhere. But maybe since some false hope surfaced earlier in the week, other reporters were being cautious. Another reporter, Yahoo! Sports Charles Robinson, said that players were saying they got the feeling from Garrett that he was coming back.
One media member found it strange that the ESPN alerts and Ed Werder’s tweet didn’t say the same thing, like maybe ESPN was reading into something.
Late Thursday night, Jane Slater sent out a tweet that made it sound like perhaps nothing was official yet. But she noted that players said it felt like Garrett was saying goodbye, but again—no official word on any final decision.
Some of her followers asked her why she thought Ed Werder would lie about the news. She responded by pointing out that was not what she was saying, just that the story could not be confirmed because Jones had yet to share anything.
So—what in the heck is going on? What is taking so long? But is there any doubt as to what needs to be done? If Jones didn’t want to sign Garrett to an extension before the season started, after the season the Cowboys had, there is no way he could be even considering it now.
Right?
Then again, Jones has always walked to the beat of his own drummer.