Jason Garrett on the Dan Patrick Show Full Interview | 8/29/24

[Music] [Applause] today's Mercedes-Benz interview of the day brought to you by Mercedes-Benz dream days Mercedes-Benz dream days are here with the exceptional offers clle Coupe E-class sedan C-Class sedan CL Cabriolet going on now through September 3rd learn more at mbusa.com SL dream he is Jason Garrett football night in America Studio analyst the season begins on NB uh NBC and peacock Chiefs and Ravens that'll be the Thursday night game and then uh Friday you're going to have football on peacock as well where the Eagles and the Packers and Jason also serves as a game analyst for Notre Dame working with Dan Hicks man you're busy look at you you're like bellich you got a lot of jobs here a lot of jobs yeah excited about the start of football season though Dan um Let me let me I don't know if you saw this the Patriots named jacobe brassette as their starting quarterback give me that philosophy do you think with Gerard Mayo rookie coach going with a little more experienced quarterback instead of his rookie quarterback you know I agree with the decision I I keep thinking back of what Andy Reid did in Kansas City with Patrick Mahomes and just the idea that you draft the guy High you know he's going to be your quarterback of the future but in Kansas City they had Alex Smith Alex is going to play this year Patrick you're going to learn and I think that's probably going to be a similar situation for for Drake May in New England and jacobe Brett's an accomplished player he's played a lot of football he'll do a good job for them I don't think they're a great team right now I don't think the environment is great so you'd probably rather have a a veteran guy who can handle that the ups and downs of it maybe a little bit better than a rookie and uh and Dr will learn at some point this season I suspect he plays a little bit and uh he'll be their quarterback of the future he certainly showed a lot in the preseason for Patriots fans to be excited about what do you need to see from a rookie in preseason that would lead you to believe that he could be your starting quarterback week one you you know we had Dak Prescott we drafted him in the fourth round in 2016 but you know Tony Romo was going to be our quarterback and Kell Moore was going to be our backup and Dak was going to be our third guy and um you know Dak just played so well at the outset that we felt really good about it but you know he wasn't going to play Kellen gets hurt in the preseason Tony gets hurt in the preseason all of a sudden you go from three to one and we're all looking at each other like okay we got to figure out how we create an environment for Dak to to play well and uh we lost our first game they won 11 in a row and then we ended up winning 13 games so it wasn't by Design that's not what we intended to do but I thought we res we responded well to create an environment for him and I think what you do as a staff is you say okay what does this guy do well what do he shown us let's try to feature that I don't know that there's any litmus test that you say okay I need to see this in order for him to play the different situations are what they are I think it makes sense for Jaden Daniels to play in Washington and for Caleb Williams to play in Chicago but you know they have jacobe they did that on purpose their team isn't necessarily great why not let him wait he hasn't played as much football as Jaden Daniels did in college so maybe he's a little less experienced and and I don't mind this this route at all Tom Brady came out recently and said that it's a tragedy we're dumbing offenses down for these quarterbacks and I disagreed because a lot of these quarterbacks have played for two different schools and uh you know you saw that with Bo Knicks and Jaden Daniels Caleb Williams they're coming in at 2324 they've already been paid money I I mean they're they're ready to go so I I know Tom it sounds like the get off my lawn back in my day this is the way we do it but are they dumbing down offenses for Jaden Daniels Caleb Williams and Bo Knicks this year you know it's it's a great conversation I I I think the kids growing up these days are so much more advanced in some ways than the quarterbacks way back when you know there's all these seven on seven leagues there's all this exposure when they're really young to throw in the football um you know they have these summer leagues and these and so so there's a lot of throwing and catching going on in this generation that didn't happen quite as much in previous generations so I think in some ways they're really advanced in other ways they're not uh to to to to Tom Brady's point I do think there's like a Simplicity that these guys grow up with you hear a lot of people say hey it's a one-word play the word tells them everything to do like back in the day um you know the plays were longer you need to know formations you need know variety of defenses you need to know all these things before you're ready to play Give me give me an old school play call that you remember oh God I mean I'll I'll give you an easy one um okay explode to Bunch right motor Scout right 525 f post swing right and and that that's the digit system and so uh if if you want it that's the Don Corel Sid Gilman Ernie zany Norv Turner system Mike Marts those guys uh there's also the West Coast system um let me think of one there uh far Double Wing right Z short uh 72 flanker drive you know that that sort of a thing and you know they get much longer than that if you have have shifts and motions and all of that and I'm not necessarily advocating that but there has been an evolution and I do think you have to be careful of saying um okay we're GNA just make it easy on the player and kind of dumb things down I think you need to challenge them they're pro football players but if but if I look at now you go to the line of scrimmage I just have one word and then then we're going to go to the other play right well that's been in football forever yeah used to call they used to call them check with MES you go to the line of scrimmage you have two plays and they became what you call kills and cans we're going to run the first play till we kill it or can it to the second play that's been in football for a long time you know now they have three and four and five plays and go to the line of scrimmage with depending on your offense but kids you know quarterbacks have grown up looking at the sideline and having a coach Hold Us hold pictures up yeah and nobody calls plays so you that that's part of football you don't want to be like you said the guy screaming get off my lawn so there's an evolution there but I also think you need to challenge not only quarterbacks but all the players to be pro football players and to learn and and and not to simplify it so much that you're not uh as comprehensive as you used to be you know there's an interesting thing Dan that that a lot of very um smart people talk about you need to you need to understand learning styles of players and and I've had really good coaches share this with me and it's something that we always valued okay how does Dan Patrick learn okay how does Drake May learn how does whoever learn are they visual Learners are they better watching film are they better in walkthroughs whatever that is I think it's important to understand that but if you if you are in football you understand that in a meeting typically you'll see a list of plays okay that's the game plan it's a list and then that meeting will evolve to we're going to show you drawings of those plays then we're going to show you film of those plays then we're going to go walk through those plays then we're going to go practice those plays then we're going to come back afterwards and watch the film of those plays and then we're going to walk through them again so whatever kind of learner you are the essence of of teaching in football has been you're going to get it a lot of different ways so to say that he can't handle it Patrick you know he can't handle it so we're going to give him one word sometimes I think you're diminishing the player and and I get things evolve I get things grow you want to keep it simple for guys but at the same time you want to challenge them and help them be pro football players I think that's probably the essence of what Tom Brady was talking about okay that's fair but also I think aren't we saying to the entire offense you guys need to learn the play so if I have one word and I say it's banana everybody knows what banana is I don't have to give the uh tight end or you know the line blocking assignments my running back so why not make it more simple so your entire team is they have to learn the system not just the quarterback who's then going to be the uh the conductor to the orchestra it's a great question but if you look at a call sheet in the NFL and I'm not necessarily advocating this there might be 300 plays on an offensive call sheet for a game now you're not going to run 300 plays you if it's a good offensive day you run 70 of them but there's a lot of different situational things that you have to be prepared for they may or may not come up in a game right so the question for me is okay let's let's use banana let's use banana then we'll use avocado we'll use orange we'll use apple we'll use how many of those fruits and vegetables can you use to get to the number of plays that you want and my experience has been for me when you're saying okay banana means all these things apple means all these things Arizona means all these things your your brain only can handle so much of that stuff and know all the little specific intricacies of all the different things sometimes you want to tell a guy hey you know 525 f post the f is running a post now we used to call that Ernie because it was Ernie zamy right we evolv to a word too Scott R Ernie got it okay but if you want to have the number of plays that you want and all the volume you have in your offense you run out of fruits and states and okay how about we do this though Jason how about we just go I'm gonna throw the ball on a post pattern to Michael Irvin I'm that's the play What's the protection what's the formation Ju Just just protect me just like it feels like you guys like having your own language you know that somebody has oily hips or they're a waist Bender or you know there's always some new uh three technique there's every year that you got to have a new one here it's like you guys are lawyers and you're speaking to one another well it's a great point I I I do think uh descriptions are are great but if you said okay instead of calling Aaron Donald a three technique if every time you're referred to the position he played is he's the guy that lines up on the outside shoulder of the left guard you'd rather just say he's the three technique right no I would just say it's Aaron Donald like I don't need to tell you anything other than that's Aaron Donald he doesn't have a position to me he's just a he needs to know where to line up though yeah he knows where to line up wherever damn well pleases to line up we're talking to Jason Garrett NBC football night in America Studio analyst did you ever get involved in contract negotiations uh not really no not specifically I mean we we talked about the macro ideas of it but never specifically with the numbers were you ever ask about a certain player Oh constantly no but with money attached to it you have those discussions all the time you're always thinking about okay the priorities you know this is a guy that we should go pay we needed to pay Zack Martin it's a six-time pro bowler let's go pay Zach I don't know if it's $15 million $16 million whatever you get it the the the people who are doing the actual negotiation get into all those specifics but the essence of it is we need them on our team but weren't you going to take Johnny Manzel instead uh we were not gonna take Johnny Manzel there's a good story about that though okay it felt like the the owner wanted to take him maybe the GM didn't or the GM wanted to and the owner did wasn't that with Jerry that it felt like Manzel but then wiser heads prevailed and then it was Zach Martin yeah I think the essence I think the best way to describe that in hindsight is Jerry was enamored with the idea of having um you know a quarterback uh transition we had Tony Romo at the time he loved the idea of Montana to Steve Young fav D Rogers those kinds of things so he was being forward looking on who is the next quarterback for the Cowboys and not being afraid to draft that guy and he really liked Johnny Manzel but it worked out that we had an opportunity to get Zack Martin and we all embraced that you got a smile on your face so he's only made he's only made 10 straight Pro bowls oh I know you you made the right call but it uh it felt like that's where Jerry could have used veto power to say nope we're going to take Johnny Manzel he likes he likes shiny objects so Johnny was a shiny object well the shiny object there was Zach Martin was the blinking light on the draft board like this is the guy he's graded way higher than everybody else let's take him and we followed that blinking light have we gotten to the point where we've taken momes for granted that we just expect him you know we we did this with Tom we did this with Michael Jordan I mean we do this with greatness but have we done that with Mahomes that we just assume he's going to be great and we assume they're going to be a Super Bowl Contender yes we have gotten to that point and um that just the way it is in in society it's human nature but you know one thing that I was so amazed by and I've said this out loud a few times I thought what they did at the end of last year was remarkable I thought it was Andy Reid's best coaching job he's ever done if you think about how how much they were flopping around on offense all year long they were playing really good defense but they weren't good on offense they were trying to find their way yeah and it's almost like some guys got into a room and said okay enough of that this is what we're doing and I saw with my own eyes I said they're gonna hand it to Pacho they're gonna throw it to Kelce they're gonna throw it to Rashi rice period And if anybody else gets it that's fine but these guys are the guys that we're going to give the ball to and if you watch him the last part of the season and through the playoffs that's exactly what they did we did the Kansas City Miami game the really cold game Mike too and I and I'm watching I'm like this is what they're going to do and it's exactly what they did it's like we're going to throw it to the guys that we have complete faith and confidence in and we're going to roll right through this and um they just got their act together and and played so confidently and decisively in the biggest moments their defense played great and it was really fun to watch but also you saw this transition of they realized they were a defensive team first it wasn't usually you think Mahomes and Kelce and Andy that is going to be offense that they realized they're going to lean on their defense the way the defense used to lean on the offense that game against the Raiders where they got embarrassed they got humbled I thought that was the you know you don't want to have a loss a good loss but that was a good loss cuz that woke them up and they realized we can't win this way we got to win another way right and and I do think that consciously or subconsciously they had the standard of their success in the past in the back of their minds like okay this is the offense that we've been we got to try to get back there and then they looked at each other and said okay that guy's playing in Miami that's guy's no longer with us okay here's what we got how do we maximize this group and and and I'm sure there was a meeting after that game that you're referring to I'm sure there was a meeting where they said okay what are we doing who can we trust these are the guys that who can trust build it around them and that's what they did and that's why I thought it was so remarkable they still relied on their defense but their offense played plenty well enough uh through the playoffs and and they were fantastic and um the coaches on another level and the quarterback's on another level great to talk to you as always uh have fun with the season Notre Dame as well thank you for joining us Jay always enjoy it thanks Dan see Jason Garrett football night in America analyst former Cowboys head coach and uh now an analyst for Notre Dame again with Dan Hicks they've got the opening night on Thursday night uh next week that'll be at Arrowhead Stadium football night in America will be there coverage begins at 7 Eastern with uh the Ravens and the Chiefs all right we'll take a break we'll come back we got phone calls and also we have the rudest rudest cities in 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