Very rarely in sports do we see an owner of a sports franchise interviewed after a game or work his way into the pregame show on Sunday Night Football. But, in Dallas, there are no rules when it comes to Jerry Jones. When Jerry bought the team, he made an immediate impact in putting his name front and center when he fired Tom Landry, the longtime Cowboys head coach of 29 years. He brought in a hot-shot pistol firing college head coach named Jimmy Johnson. One disaster of a PR move, but as we all now know, it was the right football move.
Sometimes head coaches voices aren't simply heard anymore. Sometimes they over-evaluate players that they developed and feel a certain connection to. It happens. Coaches are human. Not everyone that is a great coach is cut out to be a head coach. The number one way to fail as a head coach is to lose respect from your players. There are so many ways this can happen, but the first way to lose that respect is to not have that ability to lead men in to battle. Wade Phillips does not have that personality to lead men. Especially young rich men.
This team has reverted back to the days of Dave Campo before Bill Parcells was hired to pull this franchise out of the stink. If Romo gets the snap down and Gramatica kicks the FG to win the game in Seattle, Parcells' tenure as Cowboys head coach would look very differently. But, it didn't happen that way and now I think that Bill Parcells doesn't get near enough credit for breathing life and then putting the Cowboys franchise on his back and standing it up just in time for Jerry to knock it back down. Everyone feared their job when Bill Parcells roamed Dallas.
Jerry Jones has had a formula that has worked very successfully twice in his 21 years as Owner, President, General Manager, Jocks & Socks Coordinator, etc. That model is a dogmatic head coach that players fear. Not fear as what that coach might to do them, but fear as to what that coach might take away from them. It is a model that sets the standard of accountability. As I heard Troy Aikman talk today about Jimmy Johnson, he said that every player gave or tried like crazy to give 100% because if he didn't, Jimmy Johnson would give you a price to pay. That is not happening at Valley Ranch in 2010. As a matter of fact, quite the opposite is happening out there when I hear him in a press conference two weeks ago after, yet, another loss and explain that his team gave great effort. I'm sorry, but the team quit and has quit on him.
I can't fault Wade Phillips at all. He's a great Defensive Coordinator and knows more about defense than I ever will. But that doesn't make you a leader of men. A head coach in the NFL has to be able to control the room of young millionaires. That's not happening. A report confirms that while Phillips was giving a speech about discipline, a player's cell phone went off in the meeting. Instead of seizing the opportunity to make such a disciplined statement, nothing was said. I'm sorry, but if there is no fear, or at least the fear of consequence of something meaningful...there is no respect. But again, I can't fault Wade Phillips. He's purposely put in that spot by a man that absolutely cannot give up control to a dogmatic individual. Well, he can....but it nearly kills him.
I had the luxury of having plenty of coaches while playing several sports in high school, middle school and summer leagues. I had two very different head football coaches on varsity. One was a "player's coach" and one instilled the fear of God in you by running 40's. The first coach, in my mind, coddled a few of his favorite players, while the second coach treated everyone equally. I had ultimate respect for both of them, but I respected the one more that made me work. Believe it or not, players WANT to be coached. They will say they don't. But they do. You only experience great things when you're forced to do things you don't want to do.
The ultimate grade for a head coach in my mind is ---- Did they get the ultimate maximum ability out of the team that they were given. How much was left on the table. When you grade your head coach like that, it doesn't matter how much or how little talent his team has. Some say that the Cowboys players just simply aren't that good. Well, it's true that some of the individuals may have been over-rated. But I've seen teams with not much talent play their tails off and beat teams with more talent. They are formed and united together.
I had a defensive coach in football that I didn't like very much at all. He caught everything I did wrong on film and pointed it out to me in front of everyone. He constantly rode me until I was frustrated enough to do something about it. He was NOT my favorite coach while I was playing, and I might have told you then that he ranked near the least favorite of any coach I'd ever had. However, there was one thing I knew. If I listened to him and did what he told me to do. We'd not only win on the defensive side of the ball...but we'd dominate. I believed in what he wanted us to do, because I respected him.
And if a coach loses his team, he loses his desire to coach that particular team. I also had a coach that told us every year that he didn't want to coach us in basketball but was being forced to so he'd make the best of it. That was the first team that I was ever on in any sport my life (starting at age 5) that didn't end with a winning record. That yearly speech wasn't quite the tone-setter for us kids wanting to and initially expecting to win basketball games.
You see, a head coach CAN make a difference in a team's performance on the field. It starts way off of the field. It starts with respect. Wade Phillips is hard not to like. The players all love him. He's a great guy. That's the number one problem. I would love for Wade Phillips to be my neighbor and someone who would take my son fishing and stuff like that. I'd even love for him to be my defensive coordinator on my football team. But I can't have a guy like that being the man in charge of a football team. It just doesn't fit the model.
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