Terrell Owens had enough problems with enough coaches during his time in the NFL that it would be easy to dismiss his criticisms of Jason Garrett as being more about Owens’ prickly personality than about Garrett’s coaching ability.
But the reality is, Owens has a point.
“When you really look at it, it doesn’t make sense for Jason Garrett to continue to have his job. [The organization is] not really expanding or progressing,” Owens said on 105.3 The Fan.
Truth be told, it is fairly rare for a coach to have the kind of job security Garrett has without more success than Garrett has had. It’s been well-documented that Marvin Lewis has had an extraordinarily long tenure in Cincinnati without winning a playoff game, but aside from Lewis, no coach in the NFL has been around in his current job as long, while accomplishing as little, as Garrett in Dallas.
Among the 10 active head coaches who have been in their jobs at least five seasons, Garrett’s regular-season winning percentage of .559 is the worst of any other than Lewis. And Garrett, whose Cowboys have never advanced past the divisional round of the playoffs, has also been in his job the longest of any coach other than Lewis who hasn’t won a Super Bowl. Garrett was hired during the 2010 season and since then the Cowboys have made the playoffs twice, winning just one postseason game, a nail-biter against the Lions that the NFL later admitted was aided by a bad call.
Owens is wondering why Jerry Jones hasn’t fired Garrett, and if Garrett doesn’t win big this year, Jones may not have a good answer.