EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – Head coach Jason Garrett's role expanded in the offensive communication during Sunday's game against the Giants.
The Cowboys made a change by having Garrett receive the plays from Bill Callahan and relay them to quarterback Tony Romo. Previously, that role belonged to Wade Wilson, who moved up to the booth for the first time.
Garrett said the new role is something he's comfortable with, having done it before during his days as a play-caller and an assistant coach.
"It was more just about mechanics," Garrett said. "I don't know that I took a bigger role in the play-calling. One of the things we really try to emphasize is communication during the ballgame."
"I thought it was an opportunity to get Wade upstairs to see the game that way. Wade's got great eyes. He sees the game as well as anybody I know. Just getting him up there I thought was good for us."
Meanwhile, tight ends coach Wes Phillips went from the booth down to the sidelines Sunday. Garrett said Phillips does a great job interacting with the players and he thought Phillips could be useful in the new position.
"I just thought the whole thing worked out well, just a way for us to change things up a little bit, maybe get the communication going better, making better adjustments as the game goes on," Garrett said. "I thought for the most part we did a good job. Again, it's hard to tell in a game like this and the conditions aren't great. You aren't able to execute maybe quite the way you want to, but for the most part I thought we handled it well."
Romo agreed and also said it helped out having an extra set of eyes with Wilson up in the booth. The transition to having Garrett in his ear again didn't seem strange to Romo.
"To the quarterback, it doesn't feel or sound terribly different," Romo said. "When I get to the sidelines, I get on the headset and talk to Wade and Bill."
But there's a limit to how much Garrett wanted to chat with Romo.
He talked to Romo before each play, but Garrett said he knew from his previous experience in the league it's not always helpful for a coach to get in the ear of his quarterback too often. [embedded_ad]
Garrett said he had a chance to "add something here or there," but he maintained that the switch wasn't necessarily made because of a previous problem in the way the system worked.
"You just want to make sure you're communicating during the ballgame," Garrett said. "That's something that we really emphasize with our players and certainly among coaches and between coaches and players, just to make sure we're all communicating as to what we're getting and what we want to get to. That's just a big part of, I think, calling plays well and calling defenses well and really handling the game well."
