The Draw Play

Well I WANTED to take the week off to chill but then the Giants had to go and actually do something about the mess they’ve made and I know some of you would be bummed if I didn’t touch on this so here are my thoughts.

I wish Jason Garrett the person all the best. By all accounts, Jason is an outstanding individual who cares about his players and is just an all-around great guy. You don’t keep the Cowboys job as long as he did without being a likeable person. I was really impressed how he ran out to help Dak after the ankle injury last year. I have nothing against Jason Garrett the man.

As a football offensive coordinator, I couldn’t be happier to see him out the door. He was a poor choice to begin with. I think the rationale was giving Joe Judge an experienced coach on the staff to help the newbie coach but as the man in charge of the offense, it was awful. His scheme was vanilla yet we hired him to use Daniel Jones and Saquon Barkley. Barkley’s entire thing is how he’s a special athlete and Jones’s best qualities come on deep passes and designed runs. Then we drafted Toney, a human joystick, and they don’t immediately dedicate wild plays for him. Just the same basic shit over and over. The occasional wild play would work! Do it more! We have, on paper, a good offense outside the line problems. Golladay is the big possession guy. Toney the wildcard. Slayton the deep threat. Engram the speedy TE option, Rudolph the veteran presence. Saquon the dynamic playmaker in space. Even John Ross is a speed option to open the backend for Jones, who is actually pretty good at deep throws. Jones himself isn’t the best dude but he has a skillset that could be utilized better. He was legitimately good at producing points under Shurmur. Now he can’t put up points but hasn’t grown that much away from his mistakes. The line is bad, but this offense should not be as terrible and uninspiring as they are. This feels like an offense that should be very boom or bust rather than boring as hell. Garrett was a huge reason why.

That said, it still kinda feels like he’s the scapegoat right now. The defense has regressed this year (but is still okay) and Judge himself seems pretty dumb, making frequent bad coaching errors even in year two. I saw someone call it shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic. I have to agree. This is a bad team that legitimately got rid of a problem but the problems run so deep it probably doesn’t matter. At least now the pressure is on Judge and Gettleman. I want Gettleman gone this year even if we win every game from here on out. Judge I’m more lenient on, but if we hire a new GM that new hire should be able to decide if Judge sticks around.

Freddy Kitchens is our new playcaller and the jokes will be fun but he’s still an improvement. At least Freddie is bad in an entertaining way, and he legitimately wasn’t that bad when he was the OC for the Browns. He was a terrible head coach, but as a playcaller he might be at least willing to try weird stuff.

Congrats to the Chicago Bears on hiring Jason Garrett after they finally punt Nagy to the curb.