Posted on December 25, 2017, by Bryan Zarpentine
Image via espn.com
A week from now, several NFL teams are likely to fire their head coach. But the Dallas Cowboys won’t be one of them. After the Cowboys lost to the Seahawks on Sunday, eliminating Dallas from playoff contention, owner Jerry Jones said says he’s pleased with the job head coach Jason Garrett has done, indicating that a head coaching change will not be forthcoming.
“Just so we’re clear about it, I do understand frustration right after you lose a game that has as much meaningfulness as this ballgame,” Jones said after Sunday’s game. “But I get to look at a lot of different things and have been around a lot of head coaches and coordinators. I feel good about our head coach.”
The Cowboys will enter Week 17 with an 8-7 record. That’s a notable step back from last year’s 13-3 season that ended with a home playoff loss in the division round. However, coming into the season, Garrett had led the Cowboys to the playoffs in two of the last three years. That was after Dallas failed to reach the playoffs in Garrett’s first three full seasons as head coach. But playoff appearances in 2014 and 2016 have been enough to convince Jones that Garrett is fit to continue as the team’s head coach.
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“We’ll just look at everything. We certainly will look at this game,” Jones said. “We played a team that’s got a good chance to be in the playoffs out there, and we will have a lot of time to think about it when that’s not us in there. Believe you me, we’ll be second-guessing some play calls for sure, but that’s not really what happened out there today. We played a good team. We let them hang in there way too long, and then as good teams do, they got inspired by some turnovers, and there you go.”
Garrett was unwilling to talk about his future with the team after Sunday’s game. Much of the speculation about his job security has come from fans. However, Jones appears to have his back, which is all that matters. For what it’s worth, Garrett also appears to have the support of his players.
“I love coach Garrett,” said Cowboys defensive tackle Tyrone Crawford. “I’m not commenting on anything like that because it’s way above me. … I love this team, I love everything that we’ve got going and I just think we just didn’t get the job done a couple times this year.”
With high expectations coming into the season, the Cowboys began the season 2-3. They started to get it going despite uncertainty regarding Ezekiel Elliott’s suspension. However, the Cowboys lost three games in a row right when Elliott’s suspension started. His return Sunday against the Seahawks was not enough to carry the Cowboys to victory in a must-win game.
Despite the uneven season, the Cowboys still have one of the best young quarterback-running back tandems in the NFL with Elliott and Dak Prescott. With a powerful offensive line and a defense that’s quite formidable when healthy, the Cowboys should enter 2018 with plenty of optimism. Even Jones, who has been known to act rashly, believes that better days are ahead with Garrett as coach of the Cowboys.
“I’m excited about our future with Dak at quarterback, extremely excited about our future,” Jones said. “There’s no qualms, no issues if you’re talking about anyplace else relative to anything to do with the coaching, within certain boundaries, but specifically at the top. We’ve just got to get it done better.”