IRVING, Texas – Cowboys coach Jason Garrett was emphatic Tuesday morning when asked if he could return to calling the team's offense if he so chose.
"Absolutely," he responded.
Despite that, Garrett echoed Cowboys owner/general manager Jerry Jones' message from earlier in the day that, struggles aside, the team isn't considering a change of play caller.
"That's not something we're really talking about," he said. "I just think the biggest thing we have to do is evaluate what we have done in all three phases and what's been good, what hasn't been good, build and emphasize the things that have been good and correct the other stuff."
The question was bound to be asked after the Cowboys tallied just 193 yards of offense in Sunday night's loss to the Saints. With offensive coordinator Bill Callahan serving as the unit's play caller this season, the Cowboys are No. 19 in the NFL in yards per game.
But Garrett didn't indulge the idea, as he said the problems aren't an issue of play calling.
"We don't want to overanalyze and overreact to certain situations. We've done some good things on offense and we like the structure that we have in place," he said. "We have to, as a coaching staff, simply do a better job – that's everybody."
Since exploding for 522 total yards in the Oct. 6 loss to Denver, the Cowboys have cracked 350 yards just twice in five games and have failed to reach 300 yards in the other three.
Jones said Tuesday in a radio interview with 105.3 The Fan that the team's struggles, both offensively and defensively, didn't call for any major changes during the bye week.
"We're 5-5, we're tied for the lead in our division. We've got players coming back," Jones said. "We've got one of the best quarterbacks in the National Football League. We're off a rough loss. That doesn't call for major changes out here at all."
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Garrett said as much himself, although he faced more than one question about reclaiming play calling duties. With the league's No. 4 scoring offense and No. 1 turnover differential, he said the offense needs to focus simply on execution.
"We just need to play better on offense," he said. "The thing you got to remember is we're among the better scoring teams in the league right now and that's been a positive thing for our team."
With Garrett calling plays from 2007 until 2012, the Cowboys' offense never finished worse than No. 13 in the league, and it finished among the NFL's 10 best offenses in four of six seasons.
He added that it's on every member of the offensive coaching staff, from the top down, to improve whatever ails their production – particularly with a week off to closer evaluate the issues.
"Everyone's a part of that – I'm a part of that, Coach Callahan is a part of that, every coach on the offensive staff, every player," he said. "We just have to do a better job. We're going to look at what we're doing and try to do it better."
