Say this for Dan Reeves -- he does not give a flip.
He had an idea in his brain of what duties, responsibilities and power Cowboy “consultant” exactly entailed. And when Cowboy owner Jerry Jones balked, he walked.
Literally.
Out. The. Door.
Forget that he already had settled into a Valley Ranch office and started to assemble a to-do list as of Monday. Whatever happened in that span of 48 hours, Reeves obviously decided he was too old, too rich, too respected to un-retire and help sell tickets to JerryWorld by bringing a whiff of credibility, while in reality his influence was actually going to be very limited.
So he said “to hell with this. I’m done.”
Not so dumb, this Reeves. It took him all of 48 hours to figure out what Bill Parcells needed four seasons to learn -- Valley Ranch is not conducive to serious football people, not as presently operated.
Don’t get me wrong, in terms of a vehicle for landing your own reality show, Valley Ranch rocks.
Ditto for being a wildly entertaining circus.
And double ditto for being very good at making crazy money from diehard fans.
What this franchise has ceased to be is a place where real football people go to try to build teams that contend for Super Bowls. Just ask Bill Parcells who, when recently asked what advice he’d give to Jerry, said “I don’t think it would make any difference”. And this does not bode well for all of you wide-eyed optimists holding your collective breath for Bill Cowher/Mike Shanahan/Mike Holmgren or whoever the next Mike Tomlin is.
The coaches who come to Dallas are the ones who have limited choices, ones who have to say “yes” when Jerry says we’re bringing Pacman back and, “how high” when Jerry says jump and “OK” when he plans to bring T.O. back for 2009 against advice of his football people, ones like Coach Cupcake.
They are “yes” men. And Reeves very obviously is not one, which is probably why he is no longer here. Can you just imagine that conversation Wednesday?
Jerry: Welcome aboard, Danny. I’m so tickled you have agreed to be a consultant. I’m still going to do the GM thing, but man, fans are going to eat up you helping me. So what should we do first?
Reeves: We need to cut Tee-o …
Jerry: Ha ha ha! Really funny, Danny. You kidder. What about signing Michael Vick instead? Imagine how many bottled waters those PETA types will buy at training camp!
Reeves: You really are crazy. See ya.
The Cowboys, of course, were spinning this as a result of simply being “unable to reach an agreement on all of the details of a contract, and both parties were comfortable with the fact that Dan would not be joining the organization” in a hastily released statement after news of a much more nuanced breakup already had broken on The Ticket.
And who knows? Maybe, Reeves really did decide he was not up for all the work at his age or realized just how deep the mess was or just did not like his office.
Or maybe this goes back to what Reeves told The Mayor of East Texas, David Smoak, on his radio show back in December. He basically said the Cowboys were a train wreck because of players like Pacman and T.O.
“They had an awful lot of distractions -- things that you don’t need to have with a football team, the T.O.s, the Pacman Jones instances,” were his exact words. “You say, well, that doesn’t really bother us. But it really does, because that’s the focus. Everybody has to answer those questions, and it takes away from the time that you could spend doing something that’s productive.”
Amen, Brother Reeves. Amen.
Talk about a man needed in Jerry’s ear, and immediately, which is why Wednesday’s news was so disheartening. Reeves was hope that maybe, just maybe, the Cowboys were serious about instilling discipline and accountability and “more whatever”.
I was hoping, at very least, he could instruct Wade Phillips on the finer points of why winning the bye week is not like winning a playoff game, about what training camp is supposed to look like and about how to yell at players who deserve a good dog-cussing. Could he have salvaged this mess?
Talking to former Cowboys safety and Ring of Honor member Cliff Harris about Reeves on Wednesday, long before news of his abrupt departure, he seemed to think so. But he had three questions for me:
Who hired him?
Who does he answer to?
And how much power does he have?
“You can make all the threats you want or yell or scream but, if you don’t have authority to make a change, what can you really do?” Harris said, almost presciently. “I think with the right amount of authority, Dan can bring exactly what this team needs. If not, though, what is the point?”
And maybe that is what Reeves inevitably asked himself.
What is the point of trying to bring professionalism and accountability to an organization who obviously puts so very little value in either.
