By: Aiden Holczer

I’m not going to lie, I’m in shock right now. I knew this Cowboys vs Jets game was going to be closer than Vegas predicted, but this was an absolute embarrassment. I don’t care that the Cowboys had no offensive tackles, I don’t care that Amari Cooper went out of the game early with a thigh injury, I don’t care that Dak Prescott was getting hit late on every pass attempt. Why don’t I care? Because we played the New York Jets. The 0-4 New York Jets to be exact. A team whose QB was wearing pads fit for an offensive lineman, in an attempt to protect his spleen, which is still recovering from Mono. A team whose offense these past few weeks, makes the Dolphins look like the second coming of the “Greatest Show on Turf”. That is the team my Cowboys lost to. If there is one piece of evidence, one single statistic, that can express the absolute disgust I’m feeling right now, It would be this: since 1991 NFL teams are 90-1 when they win time of possession, total yards, turnovers, pick up 25 first downs, and convert at least 10 or more 3rd down attempts. That one loss is the Dallas Cowboys.

Now, let’s begin with the most interesting and entertaining part of a loss, the finger-pointing. Who’s to blame for this embarrassment of a game. Is it the quarterback that had a subpar game? Is it the defense that got shredded by a quarterback that’s still recovering from Mono? Is it the kicker that can make a 62-yard field goal with ease, but can’t put the ball through the uprights from 40 yards out? Nope, it’s the person that has consistently been the weakest link of this team for the last nine years. Yep, I’m talking about Jason Garrett, that pathetic excuse for a coach. I don’t want to hear anybody say “Oh your just hopping on the hate bandwagon” or “Cowboys fans like you only hate on Garrett when you lose, you don’t give him credit when you win”. First of all, I invented the Jason Garrett hate bandwagon. I have been saying for YEARS that Garrett should be fired and that the Cowboys have won in spite of him. The only thing that has kept Garrett’s career afloat is the Coach of the Year Award he won back in 2016 and the fact that he is practically Jerry Jones adopted son.

Let’s take a look at what Garrett’s done wrong in this game alone. Late in the second quarter of the Jets game, after the Cowboys failed to convert on third down, Garrett decided to go for it. The Cowboys were down 3-7 at that time and a field goal would have made it a one-point game. Usually, I am thrilled when Garrett goes for anything because it shows that he is still breathing and not dead yet—this was not one of those times. I wanted us to simply take the points to make the game close again and from getting out of hand. But still, the Cowboys had a fairly high chance to convert a 3rd and 1. I take that back, we had no chance to convert this because Garrett called a QB run to the LEFT side of the field, the side of the field with NO starting left tackle. You may be thinking “Garrett is the head coach, not the offensive coordinator, so he couldn’t have called that play”, and I don’t blame you, that’s what I thought until they showed Garrett more and more on the sideline as the game progressed. Every time they showed Garrett on the sideline while the play was being called, he was talking into the headset, not Kellen Moore our offensive coordinator. Now, I can’t say for certain that Jason Garrett is calling a large part of the plays again, but if he is, the Cowboys are screwed. Kellen Moore’s play-calling the first three games of the season, granted we were playing bottom-of-the-barrel teams, was creative and exciting to watch. 

Sticking with the theme of the play calling, what the hell has happened to Ezekiel Elliott. He’s gone from a yard rusher to a touchdown rusher. We are only 6 weeks into the NFL season, and yet he is only one touchdown short of his total amount last year, while he hasn’t even eclipsed 500 rushing yards. Keep in mind this dropoff is occurring right after the Cowboys made him the highest-paid running back in NFL history. The main reason for this, I believe is the unfathomable predictability of his run plays. EVERY SINGLE FIRST DOWN WITHOUT FAIL WE RUN ELLIOTT UP THE GUT. For christ’s sake, If I was a defensive coordinator I could make the Dolphins defense look like the 85’ Bears if they played the Cowboys, as long as Garrett is still employed.

One of the most frustrating things a team can do is draft a player and not give them an opportunity to perform.To quote one of my favorite movies A Bronx Tale, “The saddest thing in life is wasted talent”, and that’s what Garrett is doing with the Cowboys second-round pick, Trysten Hill. Hill is a defensive tackle out of the University of Central Florida and has the explosive first step on the defensive line the Cowboys so desperately need. I have watched nearly every snap of every Cowboys game so far, and I literally have seen Trysten Hill step onto the field once. Last week he was completely healthy, and yet Garrett ruled him out as inactive.

I have to face reality: the Cowboys haven’t won anything significant in a long time. The only thing that has remained constant during that time is the ginger on the sideline. The QB, the o-line, the running back, hell, even the kicker have changed. The only reasonable course of action is to remove Jason Garrett and replace him with Kris Rishard as interim head coach until Jerry Jones can throw 100 million dollars at Lincoln Riley, and hopefully then, the Cowboys can begin to return to their former glory.