12:24 am – Jones offered a few quotes that indicate a change is in the works, but stayed somewhat vague as to the exact future of Phillips through the remainder of the season. It will be interesting to see how this situation plays out, as Jones has made it clear that he prefers not to fire Phillips now, but it’s obvious that he recognizes the need to shake things up in a big way.
“There are a lot of people here who are certainly going to suffer and suffer consequences,” Jones said. “I’m talking about within the team — players, coaches who have got careers. This is certainly a setback. I know firsthand what it is to have high expectations. I think unquestionably that our expectations were thinking we’re something we were not, possibly looking at what might be relative to a Super Bowl. All of those things have certainly contributed early.
“But we have so many things that we need to correct and address, as this game so vividly exposed and previous games have. I’ve got a lot of work to do, got a lot of decisions to make. And it’s not just one, two, three or four. There are several decisions. I think everybody in this country would agree that there’s a lot wrong with this team that we’ve got to address, and I’m certainly the one to address it.”
10:46 pm – It’s been a constant theme for several weeks now, but there seems to be little doubt that Wade Phillips‘ time as the Cowboys head coach is coming to a close, even after he once again received the assurances of team owner Jerry Jones last week.
What started out as a few bad games has quickly snowballed into one of the most horrific seasons in Cowboys history, and despite the fact that Phillips has done everything possible to right the ship, his team has clearly decided to move on from him as their coach. That was made crystal clear a short while ago in the 45-7 shellacking they took at the hands of the Packers on Sunday Night Football, with Dallas doing everything they could to show they have no desire to save Phillips’ job now or in the future.
Multiple sources around the league believe the end will come tomorrow for Phillips with offensive coordinator Jason Garrett the likely successor. Garrett has been universally criticized in his game planning as of late, but once the burden of having Phillips’ continued existence on the Dallas sideline is removed, he and the team should be able to focus on winning a few games to salvage their season and potentially wreck those of their division rivals down the stretch.
Despite Jones’ continued stance against firing his coach midway through the season, something has to be done now with this team, and while it won’t solve their problems this year, firing Phillips is the only course of action that makes sense. Whether that happens tomorrow or some point down the road is irrelevant. The end game is not a mystery and delaying it will only further the misery for the Cowboys and their fans.
Other posts you may enjoy:
Written by Chris Kolb
Topics: Dallas Cowboys