Fire Wade Phillips

IRVING – Norv Turner, the coach Jerry Jones rejected to hire Wade Phillips, returns to Dallas on Sunday with an opportunity to send the Cowboys’ season into a free fall.

You must admit the irony is delicious. It gets even better.

Phillips’ team plays its best football before Thanksgiving Day, while Turner’s San Diego team plays its best football in the final month of the season.

Phillips’ team has had no postseason success, while Turner made it to the AFC Championship Game two seasons ago and has at least one playoff win each of the past two seasons.

Turner has done everything Jerry wishes Phillips had done.

Imagine that.

If he chooses, Phillips can continue to reside in a world of gumdrops and lollipops, but the reality is he’s about to coach the game that will tell us whether he’ll return next season.

Beat the Chargers, who are riding a seven-game winning streak, and the season remains salvageable. Lose, and this season is a wrap, because we know the beatdown that awaits in New Orleans the following week.

Turner understands December matters, while Phillips tries to act like it doesn’t.

We all know Turner is a flawed head coach after failed stints in Washington and Oakland, but he has unearthed the secret of getting his team to peak late.

Two years ago, the Chargers started 1-3 before winning their last six games to finish 11-5. Last year, they started 4-8 before winning their last four games and overcoming a three-game deficit in the AFC West to win the division.

Compare that with Phillips, whose face turns red every time you mention the Cowboys’ 18-32 record after Dec. 1 since 1996. Obviously, he’s not responsible for all of it – just the last nine games.

Think about it.

This is the same coach who can tell you he’s won more regular-season games than just about any other NFL coach the last three years. And that his team led the NFL with 59 sacks last year. And that his winning percentage as a head coach is nearly .600.

That’s because Phillips likes those numbers. He feigns ignorance on all others.

Frankly, it’s easy to see why he hasn’t earned the respect he covets so desperately. How can you respect the job someone does when they live in a fantasy world when it comes to the Cowboys’ struggles?

Reality says Phillips is 0-4 in the playoffs and has presided over the only No. 1 seed in the NFC to lose in the first round since the NFL developed the current format in 1990. He also failed to make the playoffs last year with a team Jerry believed had Super Bowl potential and oversaw the most gutless performance in franchise history, a 44-6 loss at Philadelphia, in the final game of last season with the playoffs on the line.

Phillips wants you to believe this team has nothing to do with the other Cowboys teams that have failed in December. He wants you to believe history doesn’t matter.

Poppycock.

History – you can call it tradition – is a huge part of sports. It’s the reason some pro franchises such as the Yankees, Lakers and Red Wings and some college programs such as Ohio State football, North Carolina and Duke basketball and Texas baseball always seem to find ways to win.

It’s the same reason why some franchises always find ways to lose. At times, winning and losing becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The prophecy can be broken – the Red Sox are a good example – but it’s difficult.

Failing to acknowledge the Cowboys’ failures after Thanksgiving Day won’t make the questions go away.

Jerry believes winning the division and winning a playoff game are tangible goals. He wants to see some tangible progress before committing another year to Phillips, which is why he hasn’t extended his contract.

If Phillips doesn’t find a way to match Turner’s success in December, he’ll spend the off-season looking for a new job.

Tags: Dallas Cowboys, Wade Phillips

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 10th, 2009 at 10:14 am and is filed under Dallas Cowboys, Wade Phillips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.