You've heard it. Hopefully you haven't repeated it.
It goes like this:
(Spoken with a slow, twangy, red-necky, eternally frustrated drawwwwwl) "Jason Garrett sabotaged Wade Phillips. He didn't start coaching all good 'n stuff until he got Wade fired. On purpose!"
While we breathlessly await a Valley Ranch press conference to announce and anoint Garrett as the eighth head coach in the history of the Dallas Cowboys (potentially this afternoon), let me take a minute to address the lunacy of such thinking.
I've known Garrett for years professionally and a little personally, and there's nothing in his make-up to suggest anything clandestine or malicious or even the least bit unbecoming. More important, like the rest of us, isn't it the better he does his job, the better job he'll get?
Think about it. If Garrett called crappy plays on purpose, how would that help his stock? He might jeopardize getting himself fired along with his head coach.
Instead, let's give Garrett the credit he deserves. He picked up the pace at Valley Ranch. He got the players' attention. He coaxed the Cowboys to play harder and better.
And, sorry, he did it all without an ounce of undermining.
