IRVING, Texas – Executive vice president Stephen Jones described the idea that head coach Jason Garrett is coaching for his future as “ridiculous.”
Jones said the entire organization is responsible for the Cowboys’ 3-5 start, and he’s confident Garrett’s the coach to get them back on track based on his intelligence and football background.
“He leads our team in a great way,” Jones said. “As I said, I think he understands the game. He’s obviously been a very successful offensive coordinator, and he started having success immediately. It wasn’t like there was a huge learning curve for him as a play caller. We’ve had a lot of great offenses here under Jason.”
The Cowboys rank sixth in the league in total offense and third in passing offense, though he realizes that hasn’t translated to scoring points. He said the amount of turnovers committed and lack of turnovers created have been disappointing, but he can see the players respect Garrett as a coach and he likes the direction of the team with Garrett at the helm.
Jones said more people than the coach, the owner and the quarterback need to accept blame for the Cowboys’ record. As the director of player personnel, he knows he and the rest of the front office are also partially responsible.
“We’re all in this together,” Jones said. “We all deserve whatever criticism comes our way, we deserve it. We have to be better than that. We owe our fans more than this. We need to have a better football team out there.”
With four losses in their last five games, Jones said the Cowboys are an underachieving group. The expectations were obviously higher, but he doesn’t believe a lack of accountability is an issue. He knows staying close at the end of games isn’t good enough, but he likes the foundation in place.
“We not only have good football players, we have good people that are football players,” Jones said. “One thing about our team, you can look at it, and they are playing hard. They play hard until the end. They handle adversity well.”
Jones refused to comment on former coach Jimmy Johnson’s recent statements about the atmosphere of the Cowboys organization.
