As I've said before, I like Jason Garrett. Really do. Got to know him a little bit personally when he was a backup and I was beat writer out at Valley Ranch in the '90s. I've long pushed for him to be Dallas' head coach in place of Stumbledoofus.
What's going on is a good thing, and hopefully a permanent one.
But he's learning quickly - the hard way - about what it means to coach America's Team.
With a franchise that couldn't hide a "white house," there will be no confidential "in house." Remember, Cowboys' fans frothed at something frivolous like a pre-season meal paid for by Dez Bryant. With the Cowboys, there is no such thing as too much.
Good for Jason instituting discipline via harder rules and policies. It paid off immediately in a win last Sunday in New York. But when a team captain such as Marion Barber defies those rules and doesn't wear a tie on the trip, it's news. Legit news.
I know some of you'll say it's only the whiny media and it's none of our business and you only care about the team winning. To you I say two things:
1. You're in the minuscule minority.
2. You're just plain wrong.
Like it or not, the media is the conduit of information between the Cowboys and their millions of fans. Tex Schramm got it. Jerry Jones gets it. Eventually, Jason will too.
Yesterday at Valley Ranch, Garrett was as condescending as he was comical in trying to put the media in an invisible corner of his imaginary glass "in house."
"We're going to spend a lot of time on this, aren't we?" Garrett said sternly when pushed on the Barber topic. "This is how we're going to handle these situations: We're going to handle them in-house going forward. Does everybody kind of understand that? What we're going to do for our players is we're going to lay out the expectations, and if they don't meet those expectations, we're going to handle them in-house. We're not going to talk about them publicly. OK, does everybody got that going forward?"
Sure thang. And if Dez breaks a team rule and sits out the first half a game in a crucial loss, the media isn't supposed to ask questions because the fans don't deserve an answer.
Buy season tickets. Pay for parking. Watch on TV. But when it comes to the intricate details of the product you're supporting, it's nunya bidness. Yeah, right.
Barber was fined. The truth will always come out. Welcome to the Cowboys.
