Dallas Cowboys: Jason Garrett putting together his best season

The reigning NFL Coach of the Year, Jason Garrett has the Dallas Cowboys back on track, and that has been the most difficult accomplishment of his career

After an inconsistent and shaky start to the season, the Dallas Cowboys are starting to turn things around. They are fresh off their best victory of the season against the Kansas City Chiefs, and still control their destiny in the NFC East, with two games against the Philadelphia Eagles remaining.

The Cowboys are finally looking like the team that many expected them to be this season, and head coach Jason Garrett’s ability to get them to this point has been the most impressive part of his career with the team. The season is far from over, and this is the reigning Coach of the Year winner. That being said, the Cowboys have already overcome more in just this half-season than they did all of last year.

Before the season even started, the Cowboys knew that the Ezekiel Elliott suspension would be hanging over everyone’s head all season long. First of all, this puts strain on preparation. With how close Elliott has been to missing time, the coaches need some sort of preparation for if the suspension is served. Add on that Elliott himself has missed practices in between some of these appeals, and Garrett could have lost control of that environment.

The Cowboys organization has also been at the forefront of the national anthem saga. Jerry Jones made a statement when he took a knee for unity before the anthem, and brought down even more attention after threatening players who did not respect the flag and anthem.

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No team is dealing with more noise coming from the outside than the Cowboys, and they had none of those problems last year. Last season was the feel-good story. The rookie studs stepped into a ready made offense with an all generation offensive line, and everything came together in a magical way.

This season, the offensive line can’t even be taken for granted. They replaced two of their starters in Ronald Leary and Doug Free, and everyone saw the time it took for them to come to form. The offensive line was often a weakness to start the season, but Garrett stayed patient, and it is paying off now.

They still may not be quite as consistently dominant as last season, but this team has found the identity that served them so well last year. They are controlling the line of scrimmage, staying ahead of the chains and giving Elliott the opportunities he needs to take over the game. The problems have been that the Cowboys weren’t able to do that as consistently as last year, but they manage to fight though without letting the season slip through their fingers.

Dak Prescott has done a great job of masking some of the issues. He has been a phenomenal play maker in every game this season, and has made the Cowboys as dangerous as anyone in the red zone this season, while also avoiding the mistakes that would add on to the struggles.

They were dealing with top defensive lineman David Irving being suspended, and the core of the defense, Sean Lee, also missed time. With so many different things going wrong on the field, resulting in disastrous loses like the one against the Denver Broncos, the team has every single excuse to pack it in and fall into a shell, but they didn’t.

Garrett kept everyone focused on the kind of team they know they could be, and no players are showing any signs of being negatively impacted by the whirlwind that has been surrounding this team all season long. What the Cowboys have done so far this season is still a lot more difficult to maintain that the way things were going last season, and that is what makes it more impressive.

Garrett is not alone in deserving credit. The team has a core of players that have been together for the majority of their careers, one of the all time great leaders in Jason Witten, and two of the most composed young stars in the NFL right now.

There are a lot of different factors in getting the Cowboys to a point where they were one fluke play away from dominating one of the strongest teams in the league. The Cowboys have proven that they can still hold their own against any opponent this season, and the Eagles are still no guarantee.

The most impressive part is that the Cowboys still control their destiny in the division, despite the Eagles having one of the best starts in the history of their franchise. In an odd quirk in the schedule, the Cowboys still have two meetings against the Eagles, and they are only two loses behind right now.

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In the end, Garrett’s mark on this season is likely going to come down to those divisional matchups against the Eagles, and there is little doubt those will be the two most challenging games of the season. The Cowboys have a great opportunity with those two games left, but if they are not successful then the Eagles could bury them.

The first half of this season has been the most difficult and most impressive stretch of Garrett’s career, but nobody will care about anything that has happened this far if they do not go after that division title, and we still do not know if Elliott will be there the whole time.