Tim McMahon has some quotes from Patrick Crayton's visit Friday with Ben & Skin.
"What words am I allowed to say on the radio? Karma is a ..." Crayton said when asked what could prevent Garrett from succeeding as the Cowboys' head coach. "That would be one side of it. The other would be players not responding to him in a positive way.
"They responded, I believe, this past season because of the guy who signs the checks, Jerry Jones. He's a true players' owner. But when he comes in in an authoritative way, you tend to listen."
McMahon says it's Crayton's mouth that sent him packing last summer and that it was for the best.
First of all, these are the words of someone you don't want around during tough times, and that was born out in the 2008 Terrell Owens incident, for which Garrett seems to be still seems to be playing Michael Corleone (and rightly so). Second, while Crayton is dead wrong - the players ignored Jerry's anger and pleas for focus until he promoted Garrett, when they immediately started listening to Jones, riiiight, Patrick - he was gone during that awful first half. Owens was gone, too. The softy coach who let Dez Bryant show up late and sleep in meetings and who defended his team after pitiful performances is gone, but most of the players who turned in those sorry performances are still here. I'm sure that Garrett had one eye out for these types in the second half and was taking names, but he and Jerry had better be sure to rid themselves of anyone who is going to roll his eyes when Garrett speaks.
This is precisely the cancer that has infested the Cowboys locker room ever since Jimmy Johnson left. Players have to be accountable to their coach, not their owner, but, at least to this point, this owner hasn't wanted it that way. There might be a tiny hope, at least for the moment. Thinking back to the Owens episode, it was reportedly Stephen Jones who finally convinced Jerry to rid himself of Owens. It was Stephen who reportedly convinced Jerry to change his mind and go ahead and let Phillips go the morning he was fired. My hope, and it's probably the last hope I'll ever hold out for Jerry, is that two of the people on that campus who have some sense - Stephen and Jason Garrett - may agree on the right things and seem to be the two people in the world who might be able to convince Jerry to do the right thing and let Garrett run this team.
If they can, I just hope for Garrett's sake that he's able to spot the Patrick Craytons and get rid of them now.
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