My Ticket-Related Criterion for the Next Cowboys Head Coach

He has to be someone that Gordon or George, or hey, maybe even Craig, can mimic.  I'm sure we'll continue to have visits from Garrett and Wade, but we need someone helming the Cowboys who possesses a distinctive timbre or manner of speaking or pet phrases. 

Whatever we may think of Wade Phillips and Jason Garrett, they blessed the P1 with a decade-and-a-half of comedy gold at the hands of Gordon and George.

*     *     *

Parting Garrett shot:  Everyone is careful to say what a nice guy he was before they dump on him.  Some are even saying that they now feel sorry for him for having coached under Jerry's stifling conditions. 

I'm not sure about that.  I'd feel a lot better about him if I ever heard him take any responsibility for poor game management, spotty preparation, failure to hold players to account, and all manner of other managerial weaknesses. 

As passive as the guy seems, my take is that he has an absolutely massive ego that demanded fealty to his primitive "processes" -- whatever they were -- despite the growing evidence that they were putting the Cowboys a decade behind the rest of the league.   Stubbornness can be a virtue, until it ossifies into not knowing what else to do.

Ahh, whaddya expect from a Princeton guy?

*     *     *

Wishing all Confessors a happy and safe New Year.  Thanks for coming along for the MTC ride in 2019.

                                                                                       -- Plainsman

On the Road Again

Confessors, I know I've been absent a bit, and that is going to continue.  I'm about to hit the road again tomorrow, so to get a fresh thread started I'll throw out two half-assed sportsy opinions, which faithful readers will know are never likely to become fully-assed.

(1)   Jason Garrett's job will be saved through at least the 2019 season by Guillain–Barré syndrome.

(2)   We're burying the lede here on Dez Bryant's failure to find a job to his liking.  Pundit after host after sportswriter has said "There are teams out there that Dez Bryant could help.  Wonder what's going on?"

And while most of them do acknowledge that he's a difficult handle, this aspect of his problem has been downplayed.

Men and women:  He was a real problem.  

We saw it on "Hard Knocks," where he seemed to not be with the program, a headache in team meetings.  

And what about those sideline rants?  It has been pointed out that audio proves that he was being rah-rah, being supportive, not being a bad guy.  

Well lemme axes you a question, as Craig "Junior" Miller would say.  Make it two questions:

(i)  If you were a seasoned pro like many of the Cowboys were in Dez's heyday, would you like a manchild screaming at you like a high school sophomore to get up, get up, get up, come on, we can do it, etc. etc.?

(ii)  And would you like it coming from the guy who sneers at game prep, never ever learned to run a crisp route, didn't even seem to learn plays for the longest time, increasingly dropped balls, whined about not getting enough balls thrown his way, and generally didn't seem to care all that much about winning until the Cowboys were losing on game day?

Nope, I don't think Dez Bryant was a good teammate at all, and I don't believe any Cowboy who says he was.  

And I think the league knows it and can't get very excited about giving much money to a guy who demonstrated during his entire career that he didn't get it -- receiving records notwithstanding.  When the headache overbalances the gift as the years go by, it's hard to find buyers for a hot potato.

Half-baked or half-assed.

Separated at Birth, Ginger Edition

Andrew Rose, CEO of CompareNow.com, whose TV are now running ubiquitously, and Jason Garrett:

Random Wednesday Quick Hits

(1)  Sometimes I think the world is divided into George people and Junior people.  Love George, no major issues, but where they differ I usually find myself on the Junior side.  This morning, for example, in the hugely underrated and sadly underheard 5:30 segment, we learned that Junior is an Amy Poehler person and George is a Tina Fey person.  QED.

(2)  The real story at KTVT is not the departure of Babe Laufenberg, but Karen Borta's departure from the 10 PM news to CBS mornings.  Very, very sad.

Quite sad indeed.

Yes, sad.

(3)  Junior made an OK case for the non-averageness of Jason Garrett today.  I dunno, man, I'm still not entirely buying it.  He didn't get the defense to behave itself.  He didn't finally get Romo to stop jumping around behind the O-line like Nureyev and option out of every play.  He didn't cut down on the penalties or finally get some of his players to learn the plays.  How do I know this?  I don't, but I surmise it because he hadn't done any of these things in his prior years here.  And I still think he's afraid of his players, lets them boss him around.   But Junior persuades me that he's OK at communicating a consistent message and walking around.

(4)  Now completely out on all "catch" talk.  Don't mind Cowboys talk generally.

(5)  Understand the "keep Dez, care less about Murray because hard to find stellar wide receivers and not so hard to find satisfactory running backs" argument.  Still  .  .  .  anyone else interested in taking a real, real hard look at giving Dez a galaxy-class contract?  Got a bad feeling about him, despite his growth on the field.   And, of course, the Cowboys' long-term maladroit cap management enters into the discussion here.

(6)  You think Cumulus would sell My Ticket Confession a booth at Ticketstock?  Anyone out there know how much a small booth in an undesirable corner of the Irving Convention Center would cost?  Any Ticket sales people reading this?  Drop me an email.

(7)  Favorite Kevin Costner movies:  "Silverado" and "Malibu Hot Summer," nka "Sizzle Beach, U.S.A."

(8)  Scattershooting, wondering why Ticketstock is returning to the Irving Convention Center.  

*     *     *

ThePlainsman1310@gmail.com

@Plainsman1310

Jason Garrett's Personality is 8-8

That phrase occurred to me the other day.  Just thought I would share it with you.

Other quick hits:

(1)  I said it about Wade Phillips;  I said it about Jerry Jones:  Why should we think that they talk to their underlings any differently than they talk to the public -- i.e., incoherently and ineffectually?

Same question about Garrett.  What evidence do we have that what he says to his players evidences any more creativity, emotion, accountability, or interest than what he says to us?

(2)  I try to keep ad hominem reasoning out of these pages.  However, I am going to grant myself a dispensation this occasion to say that from the moment of his hiring I have loathed Roger Goodell because I didn't like his smug, thuggish, privileged, self-regarding face.  I'd never heard of him and knew nothing about him, but I've disliked him ever since.

Everything I've heard about him since confirms my unfair first impression, even before the recent evidence of his unsuitability for running anything.  The Ticket guys have from time to time described encounters with him, to the extent one can have an encounter with someone as cocooned by his entourage as this grossly-overpaid monarch.

(3)  I have only spoken with one person about the Goodell interview with Norah O'Donnell, the one were he looked stupid, inarticulate, and truthless.   She said to me exactly what I was thinking myself:  This guy's a big, hard drinker.

Small-eyed, red-faced, blotchy, trouble forming sentences. However, I just googled "roger goodell alcohol" and the only thing I come up with is "drunk with power."

(4) I've been punching out on the Central Market "are you really into  .  .  .  ?" commercials for quite some time now.  They show no sign of abating.  I'm sure I've missed me some good Ticket lately.

I'm missing more.  I'm now punching out on the Evil Cat telling her owner about Dropcam.

The first reason I'm punching out on it is that the accent is stupid.  Can't decide whether to be British or East Coast Patrician, really inept.  There have to be better voice actresses around.  Maybe one of the no doubt thousands who really have an accent?

The second reason I'm punching out is that the narrative is stupid.  The end of the commercial forgets what's in the beginning of the commercial.

     --   The Evil Cat says "you're not here right now" -- meaning not present in the house, or else the whole Dropcam premise is nonsense -- at the beginning of the ad, and finishes by ordering the owner "now get in here and pet me."

     --   The Evil Cat says it "hates" Dropcam because it shows all of the naughty things she is doing, but then it says there's a "bright side" because the cat "can't wait" for the owner to view "what I'm doing to your sweaters."  The "bright side" is exactly what the Evil Cat claims to "hate" about Dropcam.  

Listening too hard again.

Apologies for all of today's negativity.

I do like The Ticket.  There.

ThePlainsman1310@gmail.com

@Plainsman1310

FROM THE ARCHIVES: A Gift for Some Lucky Host -- A Near-New Cowboys Theory

This article first appeared on February 11 of this year.  I thought it was an interesting theory -- within the well-known limitations of my sportsy knowledge -- but it didn't attract much interest among the Confessoriat and none elsewhere.  But as the season threatens to begin again, I trot it out one more time, fully prepared for another round of thunderous indifference:


This is a bit of a scam entry, because it's really just one of my tragically sportsy opinions disguised as something with an extremely attenuated Ticket connection. 

It is never a good thing when I dip my toe into sportness.

So you have been warned.

Yeah, so here is a sports opinion that I want to offer to any Ticket host who wants to adopt it.    No, really.  That fortunate host may have it free of charge, and the beauty part is that he, whoever he may turn out to be, may have it without giving this site any credit whatsoever.  No mention necessary.  Hey, what good would more readers do me?  I don't get a nickel from this if I have one hit a day or a million.

It's a Cowboys opinion.  I have not heard it previously opined.  If anyone has previously opined it, well, I thought of it first a long time ago, so that's my position on that there.

*     *     *

No one thinks that Jerry's management of the Cowboys is competent.  This evening, I'm thinking particularly of his game of musical coaches, the difference between what Jerry's doing and musical chairs being that no one gets eliminated -- you just get more and more coaches.

But I don't think this is just aimless, random meddling.

I think Jerry knows exactly what he's doing. 

Now, this is not to say that what he's doing is good for the Cowboys.  But I think that Jerry believes that what he's doing is good for Jerry.

So here is my theory:

Jerry keeps adding coaches and layers of football-team management because it is a way for him to increase his influence over the coaching function and, ultimately, the locker room.

We all know that if he thought he could get away with it, he'd name himself head coach.  Instead, as we also know, he inserts himself in coaching matters.

Adding more coaches and layers of management enables him to meddle more, and more effectively (by his lights), in several ways:

First, the addition of each new coach that Jason Garrett had no role in selecting further dilutes the influence of that poor man. 

Second, each new non-Garrett coach gives Jerry someone new to call, someone who hasn't completely tuned him out and who feels some gratitude to him in the short run for giving him a job with one of the most famous sports franchises in the world, and who will report his views to the group.

Third, the more coaches in the room who listen to Jerry when he calls, the more his ideas, advice, scolding, whatever, get repeated in the room.

And, finally, and most importantly for his purposes, if he can get coaches fighting with each other over the direction of the team, the weaker and less certain that direction is and the more influence he will be called upon (by himself, but now with justification he's created by his machinations) to exercise  to "resolve" these disagreements.

Take the Callahan business.  He won't let Callahan interview for a job?  Why not?  Because it serves his purpose to have a disaffected and even angry Callahan on the staff, because it gives management -- Jerry -- the chance to step into the coaches' conclave to resolve matters and, oh, by the way, long as I'm here, why don't y'all emphasize the tight ends this week?

Of course, this is a terrible way to manage almost anything.  But it is entirely consistent with what we know about Jerry's scorching ambition to be a respected "football man."  What better way, in his toupee-warmed brain, than to divide and conquer his own coaching staff?

Who will be the first host to discover this jewel of Cowboys analysis and make it his own? 

ThePlainsman1310@gmail.com

@Plainsman1310

A Gift for Some Lucky Host

This is a bit of a scam entry, because it's really just one of my tragically sportsy opinions disguised as something with an extremely attenuated Ticket connection.

It is never a good thing when I dip my toe into sportness.

So you have been warned.

Yeah, so here is a sports opinion that I want to offer to any Ticket host who wants to adopt it.    No, really.  That fortunate host may have it free of charge, and the beauty part is that he, whoever he may turn out to be, may have it without giving this site any credit whatsoever.  No mention necessary.  Hey, what good would more readers do me?  I don't get a nickel from this if I have one hit a day or a million.

It's a Cowboys opinion.  I have not heard it previously opined.  If anyone has previously opined it, well, I thought of it first a long time ago, so that's my position on that there.

*     *     *

No one thinks that Jerry's management of the Cowboys is competent.  This evening, I'm thinking particularly of his game of musical coaches, the difference between what Jerry's doing and musical chairs being that no one gets eliminated -- you just get more and more coaches.

But I don't think this is just aimless, random meddling.

I think Jerry knows exactly what he's doing.

Now, this is not to say that what he's doing is good for the Cowboys.  But I think that Jerry believes that what he's doing is good for Jerry.

So here is my theory:

Jerry keeps adding coaches and layers of football-team management because it is a way for him to increase his influence over the coaching function and, ultimately, the locker room.

We all know that if he thought he could get away with it, he'd name himself head coach.  Instead, as we also know, he inserts himself in coaching matters.

Adding more coaches and layers of management enables him to meddle more, and more effectively (by his lights), in several ways:

First, the addition of each new coach that Jason Garrett had no role in selecting further dilutes the influence of that poor man.

Second, each new non-Garrett coach gives Jerry someone new to call, someone who hasn't completely tuned him out and who feels some gratitude to him in the short run for giving him a job with one of the most famous sports franchises in the world, and who will report his views to the group.

Third, the more coaches in the room who listen to Jerry when he calls, the more his ideas, advice, scolding, whatever, get repeated in the room.

And, finally, and most importantly for his purposes, if he can get coaches fighting with each other over the direction of the team, the weaker and less certain that direction is and the more influence he will be called upon (by himself, but now with justification he's created by his machinations) to exercise  to "resolve" these disagreements.

Take the Callahan business.  He won't let Callahan interview for a job?  Why not?  Because it serves his purpose to have a disaffected and even angry Callahan on the staff, because it gives management -- Jerry -- the chance to step into the coaches' conclave to resolve matters and, oh, by the way, long as I'm here, why don't y'all emphasize the tight ends this week?

Of course, this is a terrible way to manage almost anything.  But it is entirely consistent with what we know about Jerry's scorching ambition to be a respected "football man."  What better way, in his toupee-warmed brain, than to divide and conquer his own coaching staff?

Who will be the first host to discover this jewel of Cowboys analysis and make it his own?

ThePlainsman1310@gmail.com

@Plainsman1310

October 30, 2012

1:10 pm (10-29-12):  Hey  .  .  .  did I miss something, or am I not listening enough?  I'm sitting here trying to avoid doing my job, and the only thought that pops into my head is:  I can't remember the last time I heard Casey Millen on the joint.  Is he still engaged in sportsy broadcasting on The Ticket?  Or, as Confessors never tire of reminding me, am I a bad P1 for (a) not listening enough, or (b) not knowing what news there is to know about Casey Millen?  Is he still up-and-coming?

5:45 am:   I don't care about seeing Obama's Columbia transcript.

I would, however, like to see Jason Garrett's Princeton transcript.

6:27 am:  I liked George's sports talk this morning about trading Romo.  Not because I think it's a good idea, but because it was at least creative and he had some sound reasoning behind it.  And it was not the same two or three points we've been hearing since the post-game show, and which we all knew in advance because we all saw the game and all the other games and we all think the same thing about this team.   I've got a Cowboys HSO that's been perking for awhile that is much less credible than George's.

And it was nice to hear George chip in with some independent sports thinking.

8:23 pm:  Got an odd question for you:  I was checking my referring sites, and one of them was a Yahoo search page where someone had searched for "Greg Williams absenteeism The Rage".  Has he been away lately?  I wasn't aware that there was any issue relating to his attendance in recent months, not since his battle with throat demons a year or so back.  Not that a Yahoo search is evidence of anything, but thought I'd ask.

[WARNING: SPORTSY POST] Several Unoriginal and One Original Observation about the Dallas Football Cowboys

One of my blessedly rare sports articles. Sorry. I will return to my acute analysis of all matters Ticket soon.

Unoriginal observations follow:

(1) The team is poorly prepared and undisciplined. This is on Phillips and Garrett.

(2) The game-day employment of offensive talent is inexplicable. This is on Garrett, and, if Phillips is the actual head coach, also on him.

(3) The team is psychologically fragile and doesn’t handle gameday adversity well. This is also on Phillips and Garrett.

(4) What’s the problem? Players don’t pay a price in practice or otherwise for mistakes, poor play, and failure of discipline.

(5) Why not? Neither coach is strong or authoritative.

(6) Isn’t it also on the players? Not much. The Cowboys are widely acknowledged to have excellent talent at most positions, including all the skill positions. I agree. It would be extraordinary, however, if even this excellent talent chose to play to expectations that their own coaches either don’t hold or don’t enforce. If that’s the way team sports worked, great coaching wouldn’t be a significant factor in success. But we know that it is, so we should not expect even great players to perform beyond their bosses’ requirements.

(7) Why don’t we have strong authoritative coaches? Jerry Jones doesn’t want a strong authoritative coach.

(8) You said coaches, then you said coach. That’s another thing. Jones’s strategy of putting Garrett in place before hiring a weak nominal head coach guarantees no single day-to-day boss of the team, internal second-guessing, and Jerry as the CEO of the play on the field.

(9) Why doesn’t Jones want strong authoritative coaches? Because Jerry Jones is in love with his picks and acquisitions, is in love with owning jocks, and wants to hobnob with them and be their benevolent pal. He wants them to love him, too, and thus does not want the Cowboy experience to be unpleasant for them.

(10) Is that all? No, he also fancies himself a football savant qualified to direct onfield operations.

(11) Sounds hopeless. Oh, quite. We’re talking Little Big Horn here. The Cowboys will not win another championship during Jerry Jones’s tenure as shot-caller.  Since Jones, Phillips, and Garrett aren’t going anywhere this year absent the return of Jeebus, there is only one other possibility, which leads to . . .

An original observation, to the best of my knowledge:

Since the Cowboys will not succeed with the Ghidorah-headed monster running the show, the only solution is for control of the team to be taken from them for the balance of the season.

Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster [Jones, Phillips, Garrett], battling Godzilla.  Ghidorah lost, too.

Romo and Gurode on offense, and Ware and Brooking on defense, should stage what would amount to a revolt, taking charge of all practices, if not the entire game preparation. Of course they would need the coaching staff’s intelligence on scouting the opposition for the week, but other than that, these guys should begin exerting much, much more onfield leadership on gameday and between. They would have to abandon any pretense at being nice guys and take charge of discipline, calling guys out, sitting guys down. I can’t imagine Romo could call a worse game on offense than Garrett. (I don’t know how he’d get the personnel he wanted on the field. Details, details.)  They would tell the press the truth.  They would risk fines. 

Would Phillips bench them?  Are you kidding?

No chance? Probably.  Do the players I've identified have the inner strength to revolt?  Dunno, probably not.  (Lack of fire is a separate problem.)   But if the players with some kind of credibility with their teammates – and I still count Romo among those who do, although not everyone would agree – push back against the listless and feckless coaching staff, then maybe, at a minimum, this thing could get all blowed up and exposed sooner rather than later.