If the speculation that Jason Garrett is interested in the Giants’ coaching job if Pat Shurmur gets fired is true, he didn’t help his case on Thursday.
The Dallas Cowboys’ ugly 26-15 Thanksgiving Day loss to the Buffalo Bills comes after a tumultuous four days for Garrett after owner Jerry Jones threw his job status in question three times following a 13-9 defeat to the Patriots on Sunday. Earlier in the week, NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reported the “Giants have emerged as a real and legitimate potential landing spot for Garrett.”
Still, it’s highly unlikely the Cowboys will jettison Garrett during this season.
Before the loss, ESPN reported Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones and executive vice president Stephen Jones will allow Jason Garrett to finish the season — no matter what. And after the game, Jones remained supportive of Garrett, who is in the final year of his contract in his ninth full season for a franchise that hasn’t been past the divisional round since the last of its five championships to finish the 1995 season.
“This is not the time for me,” said Jones, who made an in-season change when Garrett got the job in 2010. “I’m looking ahead at winning four or five straight. Every decision that I make over the next month will be with an eye in mind to get us in the Super Bowl now.”
On Wednesday, Jones seemed to intimate that Garrett is on the clock.
“We want the very same thing and that’s for our players to play at their very best, and we want his staff to coach at their very best,” Jones said Wednesday on “Good Morning Football.”
“The bottom line is, we get graded. I’m in business, I don’t have to win the Super Bowl in business every year, I can come in sixth and have a hell of a year. But in this business, you’ve gotta come in first. … So fundamentally, you’ve asked for something that’s a very narrow window to begin with. I want Jason to get it done.”
Garrett has won just two playoff games with the Cowboys and has yet to reach an NFC Championship. There have been times throughout his tenure when Cowboys fans and media have called for his job, but Jones has backed him up at every turn.
That patience, though, seemed to reach a breaking point this past week. Jones noted immediately after the New England defeat that he thought his team was outcoached. Garrett’s friend and former teammate Troy Aikman, who was in the Fox booth for the New England game, criticized him for “poor coaching” and being too cautious on a late-game field goal when a touchdown would have tied the game.
The hot seat just got hotter for the beleaguered coach after Thursday’s flop.