IRVING, Texas – On more than a few occasions, Jason Garrett has referred to building a program with the Dallas Cowboys. It sounds more collegiate than NFL, but it’s what Garrett believes.
Garrett comes, in part, from the Nick Saban school, who came from the Bill Belichick school.
As the Dallas Cowboys and New England Patriots prepare to meet Sunday at AT&T Stadium, Belichick has built what Garrett hopes he is building.
It’s not just with the four Super Bowl wins. It’s how the Patriots operate. It’s the Patriots Way. By no means is it perfect, and many feel the Patriots’ championships are tainted and question Belichick’s tactics. Some of the hatred might be jealousy, but there is no doubting what Belichick has built.
“I think we all aspire to that,” Garrett said. “It’s obviously the best program in football. They’ve been successful for so many years, and I think it probably has everything to do with him, because they’ve had a number of different players and coaches come through there and they continue to have success. They do things the right way, they play at a high level, they always give themselves a chance to win.”
Cowboys defensive end Jeremy Mincey was a sixth-round pick in New England in 2006. The Patriots wanted him to be an outside linebacker in their 3-4 scheme, but he was among the team’s cuts at the end of training camp.
“It’s a little different,” Mincey said of playing in New England. “Secret sauce, I mean shoot, they just do everything high in details pretty much like what we’ve been doing. Got a lot of great leadership. Then on top of that, secret sauce is Tom Brady. You take him off it’s like taking cheese off a cheeseburger. You see what I’m saying? So he is the secret sauce.”
Brady arrived as a sixth-round pick in Belichick’s first year. He became the starter in 2001 when Drew Bledsoe was hurt and won a Super Bowl. He has won three more and played in two other championships. He has become a Hall of Fame quarterback, the face of the NFL.
Brady is the constant, but Belichick has consistently made tough decisions with players that won big for him. There is no place for sentiment. Players like Lawyer Milloy, Willie McGinest, Ty Law and Richard Seymour were all allowed to leave or told to leave despite their contributions.
Since Garrett took over as the full-time coach, the Cowboys have made difficult decisions. They cut the franchise’s all-time leader in sacks, DeMarcus Ware. They cut Miles Austin, a personal Garrett favorite. They chose not to get into the bidding for DeMarco Murray last offseason.
Belichick has seen coaches come and go and return, like Josh McDaniels. He has lost personnel people, like Scott Pioli and Thomas Dimitroff. Garrett has had three different defensive coordinators and two different play-callers. He is on his second special teams coordinator too.
The Patriots have won with an every-down back, like Corey Dillon, and won with a committee, like last season. Last season, the Cowboys rode Murray. This year they are going with a committee that so far has not taken off.
“Certainly it helps when you have continuity, particularly for your scouts that are trying to find players and compare them to other players that you have in a similar system,” Belichick said. “There’s some benefits to it, but on the other hand, every situation is different. Every years is a new year. We have a lot of turnover on our team, just like every team in the NFL does. There’s nothing new about that ... There’s always constant adjusting and modifying, trying to stay on top of it. That’s just the way it is.”
At 3-0, Belichick is well on his way to a 15th straight season with a winning record. Only Cowboys Hall of Fame coach Tom Landry has more consecutive winning seasons in NFL history, with 20 from 1966-85.
Garrett has just one winning record as a head coach -- 12-4 last year. He went 8-8 in his first three seasons and is 2-2 this season. Where this season goes will be dependent on how the Cowboys handle injuries that have taken away key pieces such as Tony Romo, Dez Bryant, Orlando Scandrick, Lance Dunbar and Randy Gregory for significant stretches.
But he hopes the program sustains, like it has in New England.
“He does everything as well as any coach probably has ever done in this league,” Garrett said. “That’s one of the main strengths that he has. They do a great job game planning in all three phases. They do a great job putting their team together to play the way they want to play. They have been really, really good for about 15 years now. They’ve had a lot of different faces, and a lot of different coaches and players come through there, but he is the constant. And, again, in really every aspect of coaching he does at the highest level.”