Edgy Jason Garrett Fueling the Cowboys Run with Aggressive Approach: IRVING, Texas — Don’t let Jason Garrett’s backup quarterback history fool you. Don’t mistake his Princeton background for softness. The seemingly loveable red head coach of the Dallas Cowboys has been nothing short of a steely-eyed assassin in leading his team to Sunday’s NFC divisional playoff game at the Green Bay Packers. Garrett took a page out of former coach Jimmy Johnson’s book on being aggressive and manufacturing momentum with two fourth-down calls in last Sunday’s 24-20 NFC wild-card victory against the Detroit Lions Sunday. Gregg Rosenthal of NFL certainly approved. Jason Garrett went for it on two huge fourth downs. The Football Gods smiled. — gregg rosenthal (@greggrosenthal) January 5, 2015 Remember this quote from Johnson following the Cowboys’ shocking NFC Championship Game victory against the San Francisco 49ers following the 1992 season: When you go up against a 600-pound gorilla, you dont hit him lightly…you hit him with all you got. That was certainly Garrett’s mentality in the fourth quarter against the Lions, who were not so much Johnsons gorilla as the Cowboys’ bleak playoff history of one win since 2006 Trailing the Lions 20-17 with six minutes left to play and facing a 4th-and-6 at the Detroit 42-yard line, Garrett didn’t blink. He had gone for it on 4th-and-goal from the 1 in the third quarter to get the Cowboys back in the game at 20-14. Garrett called time out this time to discuss strategy but there was no backing down in this moment of truth. “You can punt and then try to get a stop to get the ball back or you can say, ‘let’s go get the job done right’,” Garrett said. “What kept going through my mind was when you get a chance to go play The Masters, you don’t lay up. You go after it a little bit. They play football better than I swing a golf club.” Quarterback Tony Romo connected with tight end Jason Witten for a 21-yard gain to continue a drive that ended with the game-winning touchdown pass to receiver Terrance Williams. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones was in full agreement with Garrett’s aggressiveness in getting the team’s first playoff win since 2009, the second one since the aforementioned 2006. Jones hasn’t seen his team advance past the divisional round since 1995 when the Cowboys won the last of their three Super Bowl titles of the 1990s. He has green-lighted Garrett to keep the same mentality all the way through the playoffs. “I sure agreed with going for it on fourth down at the end of the game,” Jones said. That was a winning call. You do that to win. That was the game-changing call in my opinion. As we look ahead to situations where if you lose you go home, I never want there to be a doubt in his mind that he should be aggressive in terms of going for it. We have to beat these guys. These guys did not let you do the things that allow you to win a ball game. You have to beat them.” That has been Garrett’s seize-the-day mentality for much of the last month of the season as he has nurtured this Cowboys team into winners. Before the season, no one expected them to win the NFC East with a 12-4 record and make a run to the playoffs, not after three straight 8-8 seasons and a roster young roster with seemingly less talent than a year ago. But as the Cowboys continued to get better and stronger throughout the season, Garrett also began working with their mentality on seizing the moment, playing with an edge and developing a killer’s instinct. He also has provided an impetus with his aggressive attitude since a devastating 33-10 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles on Thanksgiving Day. A must-win matchup against the Chicago Bears on Dec. 4 was jump started by Garrett going for it twice on fourth down on the third series of the game. He went for the kill in the season finale against the Washington Redskins by calling an onside kick in the second quarter. The Cowboys were leading 20-7 at the time and soon made it 27-7 after recovering the ball. “I believe in our guys, our ability to control the line of scrimmage in some 4th-and-short situations, to win the line of scrimmage and to make those first downs,” Garrett said. “We were able to do it a couple of times in Chicago, we were able to do it a couple of times yesterday, and the 4th-and-6 really as much as anything else was just a matter of saying, ‘Hey, who knows what happens if we punt this ball away.’ Ideally you say let’s play field position there, let’s get the ball back, let’s kind of do it the more traditional way, but at that moment we had a chance to grab it. In critical moments, sometimes you’ve just got to do it.” Again, it was another page from Johnson’s book of winning and success as the Cowboys are riding a five-game winning streak since Thanksgiving Day. It’s no secret that Garrett was on Johnsons 1993 Super Bowl title team in Dallas. Garrett’s growth as a coach and his increasingly aggressive mindset is not lost on former Cowboys teammate Michael Irvin, who now works for the NFL Network. “It was Jimmy Johnson-type stuff,” Irvin said. “And he’s been real true to form. The guys on our network I say, ‘Listen man, he’s true to form to Jimmy Johnson-type stuff right now.’ These are the things that he experienced as a player and he knows how to press and keep it pressed…and it’s smart to do it. It’s smart to do it.” Do you want to be safe and good, or do you want to take a chance and be great? - Jimmy Johnson — NFL on ESPN (@ESPNNFL) December 6, 2014 Garrett is taking chances and trying to make the Cowboys great in 2014 with his aggressive and edgy mindset. Not only does it give the Cowboys a shot of momentum, but it shows that the coach has confidence in them. It all goes a long way in helping ordinary men do extraordinary things and team’s go from good to great. A Cowboys team and quarterback in Romo who formerly couldn’t win in December and January is now one win away from the NFC Championship Game and two wins away from the Super Bowl. “It shows that he believes in us,” Romo said. “I think when you get in the playoffs, to have that mentality; it shows your football team that you trust them. I think it shows who you want to ride with.” Clarence Hill covers the Cowboys for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. All quotations obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. Read more NFL news on BleacherReport #Football #NFL #NFCEast #DallasCowboys
Posted on: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 11:47:22 +0000
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