The Cowboys are back to work preparing for the rival New York Giants. The Cowboys will visit the Giants this Sunday. At 6-and-6, Dallas sits two games behind Carolina and Seattle for the two Wild Card spots. The Giants are 2-and-10. Eli Manning will be under center for New York after being benched last week by head coach Ben McAdoo, who was fired on Monday along with GM Jerry Reese.
Dallas Cowboys coach Jason Garrett can sympathize with what NewYork Giants interim coach Steve Spagnuolo is likely feeling.
Garrett, now the longest tenured coach in the NFC East, began on an interim basis in 2010 when he was named by Cowboys owner JerryJones to succeed Wade Phillips after a 1-7 start that year.
Garrett ultimately led the Cowboys to a 5-3 finish on their way toa 6-10 record. The first victory for the one-time Giants backup quarterback turned coach? A 33-20 win over the Giants at the Meadowlands.
Still, despite that strong start, Garrett admitted that he often had to fly by the seat of his pants.
"It was a collective challenge," Garrett said via conference call Wednesday. "We had to somehow, some way, process what had happened and then get our sights set on a ballgame that we were going to play in six days."
That game, ironically was against the Giants, then led by Tom Coughlin. Now with the Giants, led by Spagnuolo, Coughlin's defensive coordinator who was retained by now former coach Ben McAdoo when he was named to succeed Coughlin, Garrett's message to the Cowboys at the time is pretty much like what Spagnuolo told the Giants.
"The biggest thing I wanted to do is to focus on what was ahead of us, not how we had gotten to that position," Garrett recalled. "I thought our coaches and our players did a really good job responding the right way."
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