Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is no stranger to the sideline during a game. In fact, he's usually there by the fourth quarter of every game, particularly at home.
But in the first quarter? And just a few plays into the game at that? Yeah, that's a little odd based on Jones' game-day tendencies during his 23 years of owning the team.
But according to Jones on Saturday and the Garrett on Monday, the two were simply discussing the team's plan to play Tony Romo, who had just injured his right hand. Jones actually alerted Garrett of the final score between the Giants and Jets. The Giants' 29-14 victory eliminated the Eagles from the playoffs and more importantly, eliminated the Cowboys' from winning the NFC East on that day, forcing them to beat the Giants this Sunday.
On Monday, Garrett explained the conversation in detail.
"*As you guys know, we have a few players on the team that were banged up last week and we had to have a plan for them depending on what the result was of the game up there in New York. And so we had a gameplan and a lot of discussions last week about how to handle them based on how their injuries were progressing as the week wore on. And my understanding is he came down to see who Tony was doing and then got the information about what the result was of the Giants and Jets game and told me.
- *It's not a big issue to me at all. We are a team. We are a team as players, coaches and personnel people and certainly our general manager and owner. And we communicate. And we feel communication is important And we just wanted to be on the same page in that situation. So I thought we handled the thing the right way in terms of not risking Tony anymore and not risking Felix anymore. We had a couple guys on defense who seemed to be doing Ok during the game, so we gave the opportunity to play. Anytime you go out there you want to win the game. But we felt like it was important to manage that situation that we did to get ourselves in the best position that we could be in this week against the Giants."
- But there shouldn't be any confusion this week. Not only is there no need for scoreboard watching, but Sunday night's game will be the last regular season game for the entire league.
And it's pretty simple: win and keep playing. Lose and you're out. There shouldn't be a need for any sideline discussions this week.
