IRVING, Texas - Cowboys head coach Wade Phillips said there would be some changes this week.
While he hasn't been specific, only to say nothing will be too drastic, it does appear the head coach will be much more involved this week in the defensive calls, helping out defensive coordinator Brian Stewart.
Phillips wouldn't fully admit that he is taking over the calls, nor did he admit that Stewart has been making all of the in-game calls this season or last.
But he did admit to having an increased role this week.
"I'd say more active yes. I've been with the defense, but I'm going to concentrate more I guess you'd say," Phillips said. "I don't want to get into who does what, really. We have a game plan and we're going to try to execute that game plan defensively, offensively and special teams-wise."
Phillips said he has been involved in the meetings and does make in-game suggestions, but with his team 4-3 and the defense surrendering a few more big plays than desired, changes obviously are needed.
"I'm going to try to do more. I think I can do more. I think I can help more than I have. When I step back and look at it, I say, 'I'm losing some of my expertise' even though I'm in there on a lot of the meetings. I'm trying to do be more proactive."
So why now?
"I think we were doing things well and I thought things were running smooth," Phillips added. "I thought I was doing it. It was one of those things you think you're in there, but maybe I wasn't enough. That's what I'm going to do."
While changes are obviously needed, Phillips isn't ready to call this a crisis situation and said it shouldn't be a major reflection on Stewart's performance.
"I think that one game certainly was big, the key one for us," Phillips said of last week's loss to the Rams, who scored 34 points, their most in a game since last November. "We had a bad game. I think we're doing some things pretty well overall. We went back through every defense and every play we've had so far this season and tried to analyze things and tried to pick out what we need to do and that's what we're going to do."
Soon after joining the Cowboys as head coach in February of 2007, Phillips made strong efforts to hire Stewart away from the Chargers' staff, where they worked together in San Diego.
Stewart has been the defensive coordinator for the last year and a half and does make some of the defensive calls, although the overall structure of the defense comes from Phillips, who has run this 3-4 scheme for several years, dating back to the Houston Oilers days when he coached under his dad, Bum, in the 1970's.
Home | Email | Print | Register for New Alerts | RSS
Nick Eatman - 
