ARLINGTON, Texas — Jason Garrett never did turn out to be Tom Landry, but he did leave his office better than he found it.
That ultimately will be the legacy of JG's long tenure as a coach with the Dallas Cowboys.
Former President George W. Bush has said that you need about 10 years before history can properly evaluate a president. Since NFL coaches age in dog years we're going to do this in two.
The Cowboys never did reach an NFC title game under Coach Process, and ultimately he never met Jerry Jones' vision of creating his famous fedora'd head coach.
But without Jason Garrett this team is not 4-1, and actually contemplating a Super Bowl.
From several prominent players on the field to one particular coach on the sidelines, Garrett can look at the current state of the Cowboys and take some ownership of this success.
Some.
He won't get any credit, because that's not how pro sports works. Also, it is not as if Garrett's tenure was a total failure.
After the Cowboys defeated the New York Giants on Sunday, you may have missed the bear hug that Garrett exchanged with Dak Prescott at midfield.
That wasn't some staged theatrics to make Garrett look cool to the in crowd.
"He's more than an old coach to me," Prescott said after the game. "Obviously, he's the head coach that brought me into this league. There's a lot of the way I prepare, and a lot of the way that I play the game that I've taken from him.
"He's a great guy."
The current state of the roster has Garrett's fingerprints all over it.
Dak Prescott, Zeke Elliott, Leighton Vander Esch, Tony Pollard, Tank Lawrence, Dalton Schultz, Cedrick Wilson, Tyron Smith, Zack Martin, Jourdan Lewis, Anthony Brown were all players brought in and developed under the Garrett regime.
And the hottest assistant coach in the NFL right now was hired by Garrett.
If the Cowboys are able to maintain their current level of production, an NFL team will hire offensive coordinator Kellen Moore in the offseason to be its head coach in the hopes that he's the second coming of Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay.
Moore is an assistant with the Cowboys because of a pair of coaches fans could not stand by the end of their respective tenures.
Moore was hired by Garrett, on the advice of ... former Cowboys offensive coordinator Scott Linehan.
Outside of Boise, Idaho, no one loved Kellen Moore more than Scott Linehan.
It was Linehan who brought Moore to the Cowboys to be a backup quarterback in 2015. It was Linehan who convinced everyone that Moore should become Dak Prescott's quarterbacks coach in 2018.
Linehan wasn't a big fan of longtime Cowboys' QB coach Wade Wilson, and sold Garrett on the idea of moving Moore into that slot.
The irony is the man Linehan brought into the NFL coaching club effectively got him kicked out. Linehan was dumped by the Cowboys after the 2018 season, and Garrett promoted Moore to be his OC in 2019.
BTW: Linehan was the passing game coordinator for LSU in 2019 and 2020, and he is currently an offensive analyst for the University of Missouri.
Garrett's coaching ultimately left a lot to be desired, but the one element that he did as well as two of the better coaches under Jerry Jones — Jimmy Johnson and Bill Parcells — was his approach to personnel.
Unlike the drafts under Barry Switzer, Chan Gailey, Dave Campo and Wade Phillips, Garrett's professional businessman's approach to finding players was successful.
It is why Mike McCarthy inherited a decent roster, and he has added some good pieces, notably CeeDee Lamb, Trevon Diggs and Micah Parsons, in his first two draft classes.
Garrett was the head coach of the Cowboys for 152 regular-season games, and he was given more than enough time to reach an NFC title game, or a Super Bowl.
The fact that they did neither is the reason he was dumped.
This current team, however, is where it is in part because of Jason Garrett, who left his office in better shape than he found it.
