Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones yesterday finally fired head coach Wade Phillips. All it took was a 45-7 thrashing at the hands of the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field.
My personal favorite part of the beatdown: After letting the Packers march down the field and score late in the first half, the Cowboys proceeded to seemingly fumble the ensuing kickoff. Packers safety Nick Collins snagged the ball and easily returned it for a touchdown, making the game 28-0. Except Cowboys kick returner Bryan McCann clearly didn't fumble the ball — his knee was easily down, and the call would have been overturned on a replay challenge.
But the Cowboys couldn't challenge the ruling. Why not? Well, Phillips had previously decided to challenge a clear touchdown by Brandon Jackson from the 1-yard line — on first down! Even if you really, truly believe that the ball never crossed the plane, you have to just accept that the Packers would score anyway, be it on second, third or fourth down.
Instead, Phillips decided to challenge the ruling, lost and burned a timeout that would have come in handy later on in the half. It was a boneheaded move and one that surely angered Cowboys fans, many of whom had been itching for Phillips' ouster since the end of September, at least.
And Jones, despite proclaiming less than a week earlier that he would not fire Phillips midseason, finally gave the Cowboy faithful what they wanted. Now, I'm not normally a fan of midseason coaching changes, especially for a team like the Cowboys, who at 1-7 are clearly out of the playoff race. However, the move appears to make sense.
A few years ago, Jones essentially named offensive coordinator Jason Garrett head-coach-in-waiting, and, despite some lackluster results this year, Jones is apparently still willing to give Garrett a shot at the head coaching job. Jones named Garrett the interim head coach and said that Garrett has an actual chance to keep the job.
The Minnesota Vikings, who have also disappointed this year and who have their own hotshot assistant in defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier, were supposedly on the verge of doing the same. But they won — narrowly — this week, so Brad Childress survives for now.
As for the Cowboys, I'm not sold that Jones will actually give Garrett an honest chance at the real head job barring a massive — I'm talking 6-2 — turnaround. Jerry's angr,y and what is he going to do to solve his problems? Throw some — i.e., a whole boatload of — money at them. Jerry Jones wants a name in charge of his team, a Jon Gruden or a Bill Cowher or at least a John Fox.
The problem with going after a big name is that this particular strategy hasn't been all that successful in recent years. Take Joe Gibbs' second go-around with the Redskins as an example. Or even better, one from Jones' own relatively recent past: the Tuna himself, Bill Parcells. For whatever reason — maybe they lack the same hunger the second time around, maybe they're too rich, or maybe the game has just passed them by — bringing back coaches who were once successful but have since retired just doesn't seem to work all that well.
Until I see otherwise, though, I'll remain convinced that that's what Jones has his rich little heart set on. In the meantime, it might serve him well to actually give Garrett a real shot at holding on to the head coaching job.
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Ethan Frigon is a senior majoring in economics. He can be reached at Ethan.Frigon@tufts.edu.
