Unfortunately for Cowboys fans, 2018 was a successful season.
Yes, the bar has drooped this low.
A franchise that once hung five Super Bowl banners and would be embarrassed by a season littered with only one playoff win now promises to build on the momentum of a 10-6 year that flat-lined with a prime-time bullying by the Rams.
Division banners? “We Run The East!” T-shirts? At least the Eagles didn’t win another Super Bowl?
With low expectations come irrational, lofty performance reviews.
“I know overall it was a good season,” says Cowboys’ vice president Stephen Jones in wake of the team’s ouster in LA, “but we also know that we’ve had some good teams around here that haven’t taken the next step. We’ve got to figure out what that is.”
Plan A: Organic improvement.
Better known as “status quo,” it’s a fatally flawed plan.
Other than missing Travis Frederick, David Irving and Tavon Austin, 2018 was a healthy season. After missing six games in 2017, Ezekiel Elliott played all 16. Top draft pick Leighton Vander Esch wildly exceeded expectations. A mid-season trade for Amari Cooper rejuvenated a stagnant offense.
The result? The Cowboys went 10-6, otherwise known as one game better than last season. To get to 10 wins, they needed a miracle comeback in a meaningless finale against the Giants.
The division championship is an accomplishment. A playoff win is a stepping stone. But those should be foreplay, not climaxes.
And all that they seemingly built this season crumbled against the Rams. LA should be charged with identity theft, because the Cowboys’ base beliefs were shattered in the 30-22 loss in the Coliseum.
Elite defense? Debunked, to the tune of 273 rushing yards allowed and one forced punt.
Ball-control offense? Stonewalled via Elliott gaining only 47 yards on 20 carries and getting stuffed on the game’s crucial fourth-and-1.
Maybe the Cowboys don’t have to swap souls, but they’ve got to do what they do much better. The hard part? They’re committed to trying it with the same leadership flow chart.
I wrote in October that Garrett should be fired, and I stand by it. He’s reached his ceiling – sporadic division titles and home playoff wins – and it’s astonishingly too low.
With Marvin Lewis out in Cincinnati, Garrett is now the longest-tenured coach (eight full seasons) to never reach a conference championship game, much less a Super Bowl. Two playoff wins in eight seasons is mediocre. By America’s Team standards, it should be unacceptable, even humiliating.
But owner Jerry Jones is giddy. The Cowboys are back to relevancy. Since moving to his new stadium in Arlington in 2009, the team has led the NFL in attendance every season. Garrett ain’t perfect but – more importantly – he allows Jones to command the spotlight.
Garrett is under contract for one more year in 2019. He’ll likely sign an extension this off-season, perhaps while aboard the owner’s new $250-million yacht.
“Look around at how positive things are,” Jones said before the Rams game about his coach and his culture. “What would you do if you were in my shoes?”
At the very least, I’d find a new offensive coordinator.
The Cowboys are committed to building a running team, based on the NFL’s leading rusher gaining yards and eating clock behind a line stuffed with Pro Bowl players. I get it. But unless you’re the ’85 Bears, defense doesn’t win championships. And unless you’re Barry Switzer’s OU Wishbone in the ’70s, you can no longer exclusively run your way to a title, either.
The NFL is unfairly, unapologetically geared toward offense. From defensive holding being an automatic first down to the minuscule strike zone on quarterbacks to runners allowed to stiff-arm defenders in the face mask, the name of the game is scoring. The trend is to take multiple shots downfield per game. Design plays for quick passes that will negate pass rushes. Be aggressive, even on fourth down.
Result: There are four teams left in the playoffs. They were the top four scoring teams in the regular season.
Under the Linehan/Garrett conservative think tank, the Cowboys were No. 22 in scoring. They consistently bogged down in the Red Zone, converting only 48 percent of their drives inside the 20 into touchdowns and 80 percent into points, 29th in the league. In nine road games – including last Saturday night in LA – the too-careful Cowboys scored more than seven points in the first half only twice.
“We don’t anticipate any significant changes to our staff,” Garrett said on local radio Monday morning.
Later in the afternoon at a press conference at The Star he added, “Scott did an excellent job for us this year. I feel very good about what he did for us.”
I guess we can hope that the head coach no longer considers his impotent offensive coordinator “significant,” but more likely Linehan will be back next season with merely subtle tweaks to the system.
Sure, the Cowboys were a fourth-down conversion or a third-down stop from having a chance to tie the Rams late. They say coming that close will be fuel for 2019. But we know all too well there are no guarantees. Just ask the Jaguars and Vikings, who said the same things about momentum and “next steps” and motivation after losing in last year’s conference championship games, and then both promptly missed the playoffs.
Next season the Cowboys won’t add a No. 1 draft pick. But they will face a first-place schedule, including trips to the Saints, Patriots and Bears and a home date with the Rams.
The last three times the Cowboys made the playoffs, the following season the building-block talk dissolved into records of 6-10, 4-12 and 9-7.
Garrett has taken this team as far as he can. It’s just not nearly far enough.
Bad news: The ultimate price for acquiring Cooper might be a first-round draft choice, a contract extension for the head coach and another year of the same offensive coordinator.
