Alan Truex: Jerry’s slap at Jason sent Cowboys into a tailspin
Updated, Friday, December 6, 2019
LLANO, Texas – Living south of Dallas, northwest of Houston, I feel I’m positioned for a balanced perspective on the Lone Star’s two pro football teams. I see the Houston Texans on an uptrend and the Dallas Cowboys continuing their tailspin, perhaps irreversible.
As I watched the Texans fly by the flu-ridden New England Patriots on Sunday night I wondered if the Cowboys are as talented as Jerry Jones thinks they are. From where I sit, the best football team in Texas is not the Cowboys. Or the Baylor Bears. It’s Deshaun, DeAndre and the Texans.
All you had to do was compare and contrast the Cowboys and Texans in their games, one week apart, against New England.
And if that wasn’t enough, there was the Cowboys’ second straight Thursday debacle.
The Cowboys did what only the Detroit Lions could do: make Mitch Trubisky look like a competent quarterback. It took a gentle pass rush combined with pass coverage by a none too fast middle linebacker, Jaylon Smith.
And as Troy Aikman, the former Dallas quarterback who is now a TV critic, observed, “The Cowboys do not disguise what they’re doing on defense.”
Trubisky is a quarterback who’s proved he can be fooled by a clever defensive schemer like Wade Phillips. Or Mike Pettine. Or Vic Fangio. Or Jim Schwartz.
Trubisky is in his third season in the NFL, trying to figure it out. He’s like Jared Goff, Carson Wentz, Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota, first-round draft picks unable after 3-5 years of NFL experience to lead a team to sustained success.
They stay in the league if they often enough face a team that doesn’t try to fool them into goofy turnovers and delays of game. Or doesn’t try to tackle more than the Cowboys did in a 31-24 surrender at Soldier Field.
After the game, the FOX commentator Aikman said, “I don’t know how you come back from this, I really don’t.”
Jerry Jones is the only NFL owner who feels compelled to deliver a State of the Team address after every game, which is something Lincoln Riley or Urban Meyer or any other Jason successor should consider.
For what it’s worth – not a lot, I say – Jones continued to back off his rebuke of Garrett following the 13-9 loss in Foxborough. Jones publicly blamed that defeat on Garrett’s coaching.
This time he promised only to “try to win a football game.” Boy have expectations ebbed.
He said “everybody who is in here coaching will be coaching” at the next game. They host the Rams on Dec. 15.
What’s keeping Jason Garrett off the plank is the fact that he hasn’t hired any assistants capable of head coaching at this time. As Aikman put it: “Who on that staff has earned the right to be an interim coach?”
And then I see the Texans, presenting their coach, Bill O’Brien, the game ball and frolicking around him after their 28-22 upset of the Super Bowl champions.
Much different scene from Jason Witten ranting and cursing on the visitors’ sideline at Soldier Field and being seemingly ignored by Garrett.
Houston’s head coach of six years is finally acting like a head coach – delegating instead of doing everything himself. He generously credited his staff for a red-zone play that had Watson gathering a triple-option pitch and running for a touchdown.
O’Brien’s players gave him much more postgame love than his former boss, Bill Belichick, who offered a dead-fish handshake. The Patriarch resents Obie’s tampering in the offseason with his draft wizard Nick Caserio. The Texans have since abandoned that costly pursuit, and O’Brien was hoping he’s good again with his former boss. Didn’t look like it. Perhaps Belichick sees the Texans as a threat to his empire.
Not to make too much of the 10-2 Patriots falling apart like a stale taco. They were so sapped by a flu epidemic that they flew south in two planes, one for the nine who had been too ill to practice.
But I can’t help thinking Belichick is shaken by the athleticism and speed of the Texans. Jerry Jones should be worried about losing his state.
Who do you want as franchise quarterback, Prescott or Watson?
And for all the accolades won by the Dallas line, do you want blind-side protection from Tyron Smith, who’s already broken down at 28? Or would you rather trust Laremy Tunsil? He’s 25 and showing no ill effects from anything inhaled three years ago from a suspicious pipe.
Smith on Thursday Night provided little resistance to Khalil Mack, who sacked Prescott and hit him three times.
Barring calamitous injury, Houston seems certain of a top-3 pass offense for the next three years at least. I can see why Jones is holding off on Dak’s contract extension. Dak is declining as the season wears on, and we can wonder if he’s afflicted by Jerry Jones Distraction.
We can also wonder if Dak will be as bad as Carson Wentz when the Cowboys have their NFC East showdown at Philadelphia in Week 16? And oh by the way, who cares?
Dallas at 6-7 tenuously holds a half-game edge on the Eagles, who have the softer close – two dates with the Giants, one with the Redskins, wrapped around the Cowboys on Dec. 22 at Lincoln Financial.
Cowboys fans may dream of a 7-9 division winner and a magic-carpet ride through the playoffs, starting with home-field against a much better team. I think we’re seeing the end of something that was never going to be.
When you seriously ponder the Texans, 8-4 even with J.J. Watt and Lamar Miller out for the season, their future looks more promising than Jerry’s Cowboys. What used to be America’s Team is struggling to hold onto the heart of Texas.
