Tom Landry reached the championship game in his eighth season. Jimmy Johnson did it in his fourth.
Jason Garrett enters his eighth full season seeking his first NFC Championship Game as a coach.
While Terrell Owens questioned why the Cowboys coach still has a job, Daryl Johnston preaches patience.
“I think you’ve got to be able to give a head coach time,” Johnston said on DFW’s Fox4, via the Dallas Morning News. “It’s one of the great things John Madden said, and this was about the San Francisco 49ers when they moved away from Steve Mariucci, but they had no plan after that. Sometimes you do that and all of a sudden you find yourself in a decade of mediocrity, and in San Francisco’s case, not even mediocrity. That was a tough decade. They made a change for change’s sake and nobody was there.
“Jason Garrett, in my opinion, moving forward gives Dallas the best opportunity. They’ve got that window right now with a quarterback and a very talented running back on rookie contracts. To make a change right now, that would be sabotage to that organization. Keep everything in place, take a run with this window that’s there.”
The Cowboys have made the playoffs twice since Garrett replaced Wade Phillips during the 2010 season. They went 1-1 in 2014, losing at Green Bay in the divisional round in the controversial Dez Bryant catch/no-catch game, and lost to the Packers at home in the divisional round in 2016 when they were the top seed.
Dallas is 67-53 in the regular season with Garrett, who would appear to be on the hot seat with the Cowboys failing to reach the postseason last year.
“There’s an ebb and flow,” Johnston said. “I think everybody has to take a step back when you have a tough season. When Dallas has struggled and they haven’t been able to follow up a good season with another good season, there’s been a pretty glaring reason why that hasn’t happened.”
Johnston expects the Cowboys to “surprise” a lot of people this season.