Why I think Jason Garrett may be the best choice to be OC

It's obviously necessary for Judge to get an experienced as he navigates his first voyage into the head coaching waters. He's never been a head coach anywhere nor has he ever controlled an offensive or defensive unit. Thus, I think both the OC and DC should have some head coaching experience (which would disqualify someone like Joe Brady). That leaves a few options: Norv Turner, Jason Garrett, Scott Linehan, Ken Whisenhunt, Hue Jackson, Freddie Kitchens, Todd Haley, Jim Caldwell, Jay Gruden, to name a few

I would say the most important quality that our new OC must have is his ability to develop our franchise QB, Daniel Jones. You're not going to win in this league without quality QB play. DJ had a great year and needs to build off of that, which is why an offensive system to help him develop into a stellar QB is imperative for the future success of the team. Joe Judge never developed a QB, so whomever he picks as OC will be tasked with possibly the most important aspect of the job: developing Daniel Jones.

So onto the potential coordinators...

First off, it's very possible that Norv Turner may not want to coach in the same division as his son. His son, Scott was just hired as the OC for the Washington franchise. Purely speculation on my part, but I don't see it happening.

Most of the aforementioned guys just flamed out and were fired as OCs, namely Whisenhunt, Linehan, Jackson, and Haley. I'm not crazy about going after a retread.

One thing that slightly disturbs me about Jay Gruden was his handling of Dwayne Haskins Jr. Now yes, I've heard the rumors that Haskins was lazy and didn't really put in the work to understand the playbook and that whole "selfie during the game" thing was fucking unprofessional, but I find Gruden's handling of the Haskins situation a bit disturbing. I also heard that Gruden preferred DJ to Haskins and that Haskins was strictly a Dan Snyder pick, but regardless, you would think Gruden would do everything in his power to try to develop Haskins. Well, he didn't and you can blame that on either Gruden or Haskins, but there were strong indications that Haskins was completely unprepared at all when he was put in the game against us.

In fact, the whole handling of that situation was odd. You have a guy who you invested a first round pick in and who you hope to be your franchise QB and you don't prepare him for game action? And then basically say that you don't have a plan at QB afterwards? What does that say about you as a coach that you're not preparing the future QB of your team? Again, maybe it was Haskins and his immaturity, but that situation REALLY rubbed me the wrong way. You would think Gruden would do anything and everything in his power to help Haskins along because obviously, their fates are intertwined.

Where things get a little ambiguous is that Gruden also helped develop Andy Dalton and Kirk Cousins. Dalton has had a nice career and Cousins has had his moments, but neither turned into franchise QBs. Granted that they were expected to be, but I don't know. Maybe Gruden did optimize their talent. Maybe Haskins was just an outlier.

And then you have Kitchens, who oversaw a HUGE step back from Baker Mayfield. Baker did not have a good this year. In fact, he regressed. Kitchens did oversee an amazing rookie year from Mayfield, but I can't help but be disturbed at how this year has played out for Baker. And this was with a receiving corp of OBJ, Jarvis Landry, and David Njoku. I don't know. I think I'd be okay with Kitchens as a positional coach, but as the playcaller/OC, not really crazy about that.

But then I turn to Garrett and I see what he did with Tony Romo and Dak Prescott. Romo turned into a fantastic QB. Say what you want about him and his inability to win big games, but he was extremely prolific throughout his career and he spent most of his career coached by Garrett. Meanwhile. Dak was a fourth round pick who developed into a franchise QB. He's not without his warts, but I don't think anyone can dispute that he's a high quality starter in the NFL. Now, we don't know how much of a hand Garrett had in developing those two guys, but Romo was only his second season as a starter when Garrett arrived in Dallas in 2007, and Dak has been with Garrett his entire career.


So all in all, I think I'd be most comfortable with Garrett. Maybe Gruden, but Gruden seems like the safer, surer bet.