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.

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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?

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

                                                                                       -- Plainsman

Wade Termination Quick HIts

A few thoughts on The Ticket's performance during the Cowboys' dissolution:

(1)  Great Program Planning.  The Ticket went above and beyond by getting Bob and Craig, and then Norm and Bob, to join The Hardline in impromptu host roundtables to consider the events of the day.  Whatever one may think about sketchy show prep, individual hosts, excessive fart humor, or the Train Station Fitness Show, I think it's clear that The Ticket is dedicated to its listeners and to putting on the best possible programming.  Even Ticket-haters must acknowledge management's superior customer service in this market.

(2)  Hardline Sounded Real Darned Good.   Didn't The Hardline sound great with those additional adult voices?  Mike was a first-rate moderator, Corby's offerings were appropriate and a good change of pace -- this is what Corby brings to The Hardline when the show is at its best.  I've been mulling over The Hardline's sound the past several months, and yesterday's round-table has reinspired some thoughts on bringing in another host, as I urged some months ago in my multi-parter on The Hardline.

(3)  Craig Gets to the Point.  Craig Miller made all the points I've been waiting for a host to make, but somehow everyone has just been missing.  He places responsibility clearly on Jerry and Wade and successfully refutes (in my view) people who say that the talent must not have been what every single pundit on the planet judged it to be.   (Norm is still saying that.)   Craig hit on the explanation for Wade's perplexing positive won-loss record over his career.  His car analogy was perfect:  Wade is handed the keys to a thoroughbred sports car, but by neglect and failure to maintain it, it predictably breaks down.   And I don't know if it was Craig or someone else on the show, but finally someone stressed the lack of onfield leadership.  It only remains to draw the line between the skills of the head coach and the development of onfield leadership -- that is, management is accountable for everything that happens on the field, including the failure to cultivate commanders in the field of play.

(4)  Dan Shines Again.  Mrs. Plainsman arrived home just as Bob and Norm were supposed to come on.  I didn't hear any of Norm.  I did hear some of Dan, and, just like the Game 5 post-game, he was sharp and interesting.  My recent listenings of Dan suggests that he should shift away from Sports Humor and more into Sportsy Sports, with the humor flowing naturally from more substantive contributions.  Hmmm, need to think about that one.

(5)   Rowwwwwr!!  Loved the Craig/George spat this morning.  If you missed it, please go to The (Incomparable) UnTicket and check it out.  Here it is from memory:  Craig was making his case (a pretty good one) that Phillips is the worst Cowboys coach of all time.  George disagreed and defended Wade, or rather said that -- hell, I always get Campo and Gailey mixed up, before my Dallas days -- one of those guys was worse.  Junior pointed out that Campo/Gailey (whichever one it was) had an abysmal roster to work with but still went 5-11.  George ended up saying that he just thought Junior was too hard on Wade. 

This remark triggered something in Craig, who noted that George had done more to ridicule Phillips in this market than any other single human, with his Fake Wade reduction.  It is not overstating it to say that he accused George of hypocrisy (he didn't use that word), said he wished he could operate that way, slam the guy one minute with the cruel imitation, and then defend him the rest of the week.  George told him that maybe he (Craig) could operate that way, if he developed a Jason Garrett imitation. 

When stuff like this happens, you wonder What It All Means.  A checklist of possibilities.

     (a)   Behind the scenes tension? 

     (b)  The normal minor squabbles that attend any close friendship? 

     (c)  Junior a little disapproving of the weekly extreme Wade/Jerry bashing, making likable Wade seem like the simplest of morons? 

     (d)  Junior a little defensive about his theory of the worst all-time Cowboy coach?

     (e)  An eruption of the festering contradictions that accompany mixing comedy (which must always be negative) with observation and commentary (which should be even-handed and analytical).

I'm saying not (a), and some combination of (b), (c), (d), and (e). 

(6)   A Phony Is Ringing.   Deion Sanders was terrible on BaD.  Not BaD's fault.  Sanders was so wrapped up in being precious, and an insider, and controversial, and confrontational, and street, and cool, that after all the verbiage he communicated almost nothing of value.  I felt sorry for Bob and Dan, who were trying their best to be polite hosts.  Sanders was just an unlistenable schmuck.  I wonder if it was because BaD was the main popularizer of the "phong is ringing/Michael Trabtree" clip.

(7)   Craig Gets to Another Point  This is note from a couple of weeks ago:  Alone among pundits, Craig said something  that everyone who has ever run an organization thinks about the Cowboys:  I don't have any exact quotes, but Craig was commenting on some impossibly tangled Jerry remarks, and Craig said:  "That's what's wrong with the Cowboys."  From this statement and his follow-up, his point was (and I'm expanding way beyond anything Junior actually said, but this is what I took to be his meaning because it happens to be a point I want to make my ownself) that when you have management with the extremely primitive communications habits of Jones and Phillips it is completely unsurprising that the team appears unprepared.  There is no reason in the world to believe that either of them makes more sense or speaks more credibly to the organization than they do about the organization to the press and public. 

All in all, The Ticket has done itself proud on actual sports coverage on the Cowboys drama.

PS:  It's interesting that we call Jerry Jones "Jerry" and Wade Phillips "Wade."  But Bill Parcells was usually "Parcells" and Tom Landry is usually "Tom Landry" or "Landry."  "Jason Garrett" is almost always "Garrett."  I was going to make a point about how we use the last names of guys we respect more, until I realized that they usually refer to Jimmy Johnson as "Jimmy," so forget I said anything.

[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.

A Rare Sportsy Post

I was interested in the Musers' discussion this morning on whether, if the Cowboys win the Super Bowl this year, Bill Parcells or Jerry Jones will get the lion's share of "general manager" credit.

Craig and George reviewed the roster, noting who was a Parcells guy, and who was a Jerry guy, and coming around to the conclusion that the fact that there were more Parcells guys (including Tony Romo), meant that even if the Cowboys are successful this year, Parcells might well get more credit than Jerry.

Anyone find it odd that a huge Parcells/Jerry difference was completely ignored?

That being:   The Jerry/Stephen-engineered Parcells's departure and the subsequent Jerry selection of and loyalty to Wade Phillips.  You will recall that Parcells was angling to stick around in administration even when most, including Jerry/Stephen, wanted him to go as head coach. 

This suggests that the Musers don't think much of Wade -- or at least don't think he has much influence on whether the team wins or loses.  Junior tiptoed toward this point when he suggested that the team may have been said to have underachieved following Parcells' departure. 

Anyway, thought the switch from Parcells to Wade switch -- and sticking with Wade -- was a major Jerry GM initiative that got overlooked.  Like I know anything about sports.

PS:  Props to Junior for the "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" reference:  "Some men call me Tim."

PPS:  Interesting that we refer to Bill Parcells as "Parcells" and Jerry Jones as "Jerry."