Jason Garrett: Cowboys took a step backward this season

Jason Garrett acknowledged that the Dallas Cowboys took a step backward for the first time in his tenure.

Garrett refused to use injuries to Tony Romo and Dez Bryant, among others, as an excuse for the team’s 4-12 season.

“Ultimately it’s a bottom-line business, and we all recognize that,” Garrett said. “But I would argue to you that doing things the right way, establishing the right culture, going through the process the right way, ultimately gives you the best chance to win in the long run. I think if you looked at it after last year, after 2014, you had seen a team that had gotten better and better and better, that competed for the division in Week 17 in each of the first three years, finally broke through in Year 4 — won the division, won a playoff game, felt good about where we were, developing that program the right way.

“Obviously we took a step back this year. We didn’t handle the adversities of the season well enough. And that’s part of building it. You have to fight through those kinds of things and you have to grow as a result of those things. And we have to take advantage of the opportunity going forward and being hardened by this experience and be better because of this experience. That’s coaches; that’s players; that’s everybody connected with our team.”

Garrett wasn’t ready to look forward to the NFL draft in his season-ending news conference, nor was he ready to speculate on team needs.

Instead, Garrett was in more of a reflective mood for a season gone wrong. He doesn’t believe the organization needs a major overhaul, echoing what owner Jerry Jones said.

Garrett expects to keep the majority of his coaching staff intact. He gave a vote of confidence to offensive coordinator Scott Linehan, defensive coordinator Rod Marinelli and special teams coordinator Rich Bisaccia.

Bisaccia was in the final year of his contract, but will return.

“We all have to go back and evaluate what happened in 2015 and all get better,” Garrett said. “We’re all going to focus on doing that. That process has already begun.”

The Cowboys regressed in just about every area in 2015 compared with 2014. That ranged from total offense (7 to 22) to rushing offense (2 to 9) to takeaways (2 to 32).

But Garrett acknowledged there were some clear-cut areas that had to be addressed. The backup quarterback situation is at the forefront after the team went 1-11 without Romo as a starter.

Another pressing issue is cornerback as they had only two interceptions and were the 24th-ranked team in passing yards per play. So is pass rush, where they had only three more sacks (28 to 31) than last season.

“We’ll literally go through every running play, every passing play. We’ll go through every play that was run,” Garrett said. “We’ll have a critical evaluation of them. We’ll look at it a lot of different ways. We’ll group the plays together and we’ll watch them. We’ll watch the games over again. We’ll watch the situations over again. We’ll take notes on every play and every situation. We’ll decide what we like and what we don’t like.

“Part of that evaluation is evaluating the people who are running those plays and how they handled that, so we’ll evaluate the guys who are here, if they do those things well, how we can put them in better situations. It goes on and on and on. We spend weeks and weeks and months and months doing this. We’ll have long comprehensive meetings taking our notes, making our adjustments and changes. We do that on offense. We do that on defense. We do that in the kicking game.”

Garrett on Hardy

Garrett didn’t want to talk about Greg Hardy at length on Monday during his season-ending news conference.

Judging by his answers and reactions to Hardy questions, it’s easy to draw a conclusion that Garrett may not want Hardy back.

Hardy had been at the center of controversy from the moment the Cowboys signed him, giving him a second chance after a May 2014 domestic violence incident. There were at least four instances in Hardy’s time with the Cowboys that Garrett had to meet with him on how to handle himself better.

Those headaches may not have been worth what Hardy gave the Cowboys on the field — six sacks, including two over the final eight games.

“I thought Greg did some good things for us on the field,” Garrett said. “Defended the run well at times. Impacted the quarterback at different times during the game.”

That was all Garrett wanted to say about Hardy, and wasn’t ready to speculate on whether he would welcome Hardy back.

Asked if the multiple meetings with Hardy eventually paid off, Garrett said: “I think with all your players, what you’re trying to do is you’re trying to coach them every way that you can. Try to coach them on the field. You try to coach them off the field.

“You try to be a positive influence. You try to create the right environment for them to be their best. Hopefully some of those things that we’ve done with all members of our football team have had a positive impact on him.”

For his part, Hardy expressed an interest in re-signing with the Cowboys after Sunday’s regular-season finale and was appreciative of the opportunity given to him by owner Jerry Jones and the organization.

However, Garrett didn’t seem overly warm in talking about Hardy during the course of his news conference.

Garrett didn’t offer much when asked what he had learned about Hardy that he hadn’t known previously.

“Again, I thought Greg did a good job playing for us,” Garrett said. “He defended the run fairly well and he impacted the game by affecting the quarterback over the course of the season.”

Asked the same question about Darren McFadden prior to that, Garrett rambled on, raving about McFadden showing “mental toughness” and “being a high-character guy.”

It seemed to be telling in regards to how Garrett felt about Hardy and a possible reunion.

McClay to stay

The Cowboys ended a dreadful regular season on a four-game losing streak, capping their worst finish since 1989.

But they got the first big win of the off-season when senior director of college and pro personnel Will McClay turned down a request to talk with the Detroit Lions about their general manager position.

McClay cited family reasons and a desire to honor his commitment to the Cowboys for his reasons for declining all interview opportunities this off-season.

“I’m a Cowboy,” McClay said.

McClay, who has been with the Cowboys for 13 years, has been in charge of the past two drafts. He drew some interest from teams in search of a general manager last year.

Prospects list

The Cowboys signed eight players to their Reserve/Future list on Monday. They are linebacker Derek Akunne (North Texas), wide receiver Donte Foster, defensive back Buddy Jackson, running back Ben Malena (Texas A&M), defensive end Mike McAdoo, cornerback Brandon McGee, defensive end Efe Obada (no college) and linebacker Keith Smith.

This story was originally published January 4, 2016 at 8:21 PM with the headline "Jason Garrett: Cowboys took a step backward this season."