You're killing me, Cowboys
Rob Ryan's firing leaves everyone wondering: Has Jerry Jones officially lost it?
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Odds are it won't be long until Rob Ryan is scooped up by a team with a realhead on its shoulders. -
DeMarcus Ware wasn't at full-strength for most of the season, which isapparently Rob Ryan's fault.
Rob Ryan is out as the Cowboys defensive coordinator, leaving all of America with the same collective reaction: What?!
Yes, the circus continues for America's Team, as America's least favorite owner/GM/malevolent dictator Jerry Jones manages to grab headlines from the postseason golf course. Jones promised changes, but firing the generally agree most productive member of your organization is not the change anyone had in mind.
Desperate times call for foolish measures, according to Jerry Jones.
Consider this: Ryan's defense — a unit so decimated by injuries that there were more starters on the sidelines than the field by season's end — still finished as the 19th ranked defense in the NFL.
This unit was 31st when Ryan took the post two years ago. So it's essentially an understatement when the loud-mouthed coach, in response to his firing, declared that he "(expletive) made them a hell of a lot better."
Anyone who watched the Cowboys this season knows it's true. Anyone, of course, except Jerry Jones, who will be having a serious case of Joni Mitchell remorse next season when the Cowboys D is getting torn to shreds.
It's in Jones' DNA
Desperate times call for foolish measures, according to Jones. After all, this is the GM who fired T.O. after a 2008 campaign in which the diva receiver gained 1,000-plus yards and 10 TDs (in addition to the 1,350 yards and 15 TDs he put up in 2007).
Why? Because T.O. was a distraction. Or, perhaps, because Jones needs a fall man, and T.O. was as big as they get.
Fast forward to 2012, and Ryan is the most recent victim of Jones' fall-man fantasies. (Granted, Ryan is actually as big as they get.)
Was it Ryan's overly expressive personality? Was Jones afraid of getting additional unsportsmanlike conduct penalties on his coaching staff in 2013? Or did he just think the defense needed an upgrade?
For taking an underperforming defense and turning them into a fighting force, Ryan deserved a pay raise, not a pink slip.
There is no good way to analyze the Cowboys defense in 2012 except for this: With the defense stuck in injury purgatory, the Cowboys were just one Tony Romo interception away from making the playoffs.
Yes, the Cowboys were 24th in points allowed per game, but they were also fielding players named Brady Poppinga, Sterling Moore, Michael Coe, Brian Schaefering, and Charlie Peprah. The team's best defensive player, DeMarcus Ware, hobbled for half the season and required elbow and shoulder surgery as soon as it ended.
No good deed goes unpunished
For taking a unit that was poised to throw in the towel (as they did in 2010 under Wade Phillips) and turning them into a fighting force, Ryan deserved a pay raise, not a pink slip.
But such are the torments of a Jerry Jones ownership. Even if Ryan had led the Cowboys to two Super Bowls, Jerry would have just fired him anyway.
To say that the Cowboys defense was out-coached is a flat-out fallacy. To say that they were out-managed is like shooting fish in a barrel. When the already dubious starting safety Barry Church was injured in the third game of season, who did the Cowboys have to replace him? Only Danny McCray, a former undrafted player so inept that Jason Garrett was forced to replace him with an off-the-street free agent.
Jones had a respectable starting lineup on defense, but the Cowboys' lack of depth was exposed as soon as the first injuries started rolling in.
Jones blaming Ryan is no surprise to any Cowboys fan, as is Jones' decision to keep an ineffective yes man in Garrett, even though Garrett's offense was the clear reason the Cowboys are watching the playoffs from home.
In the end, the rest of the NFL saw Ryan's ability to keep a peg-legged Dallas D intact, and so it won't be long until Ryan is scooped up by a team with a real head on its shoulders. There's even a fighting chance that Ryan ends up with a head coaching gig.
Until then, Cowboys fans would do themselves well to buy into Jones' fantasy that the real reason the 2012 Cowboys ended up at 8-8 for the second year in a row wasn't because of Romo's 19 INTs or the offense's 3.6 yards per run attempt. No, it was because Rob Ryan didn't turn a scrum of scrubs into a Super Bowl-bound unit.
As Jerry Jones goes, so do the Cowboys. That's quite an unfortunate thought.
