Dallas Cowboys
owner Jerry Jones made his first public comments about the release of
defensive coordinator Rob Ryan during a taped interview that aired
Wednesday.
Jones alluded to two losses -- at Seattle in Week 2 and
to Chicago at Cowboys Stadium in Week 4, when Dallas' defense was
almost completely healthy -- as part of the reasons why he let Ryan go.
The
Cowboys lost to the Seahawks, 27-7, but two special-teams turnovers put
Dallas into a 10-0 hole in the first quarter. As a defense, the Cowboys
were missing only one starter, nose tackle Jay Ratliff, to injury.
In the 34-18 loss to the Bears, quarterback Tony Romo
threw five interceptions, with two of those returned for touchdowns.
The Cowboys were missing two defensive starters to injury in that game, Anthony Spencer and Ratliff.
"I
didn't like the way we were playing in a lot of cases," Jones said in
the taped interview that will air in its entirety Saturday night on
KTVT-TV in Dallas. "I thought we could play better before the injuries,
and so I factored that in. It wasn't like we had a lot of injuries out
here when we played Chicago. It wasn't like we had a lot of injuries
when we played Seattle. I didn't like the way we played there.
"It's
not hard for me to go to those games and say what can we do to improve
when we played Seattle and when we played Chicago, and I liked the way
we played in subsequent games and I know we didn't have the talent level
on the field that we had when we played Seattle and Chicago."
The
Cowboys played a bulk of the season without five starters and two major
contributors to their defense. In the last two games of the regular
season, Pro Bowl outside linebacker DeMarcus Ware,
who led the team with 11.5 sacks, played with one arm. He was dealing
with injuries to his elbow and shoulder and he will undergo surgery to
repair a right shoulder injury Thursday.
During the season, the
Cowboys never used the injuries to the defense as an excuse, but Ryan
noted he had to mix and match personnel because of it.
"When we
weren't short-handed, we were kicking ass," Ryan said Tuesday night
after being released. "We weren't at full strength ever, but we were
pretty damn close and pretty damn good. We were a long way from 31st. If
I'm fired on the last six games, that's OK."
As a defense, the Cowboys finished 19th overall, 22nd against the run and 19th against the pass.
But Jones was hoping for a much better effort from the defense.
"It's
not hard for me to go back there and say, 'OK, we had all of our
players out there we had our talent level there,' " Jones said. "That's
what we've been saying we didn't have. Now let's evaluate that. When we
had all of our talent level, we've got to be able to beat Chicago at
home and we've got to be able to go to Seattle and win that game there.
"We
know they're formidable. We know Seattle had a good football team and I
don't think we underestimated Seattle at all when we played them. But
you're going to have to get to where we want to go and you have to go
into Seattle and win games in Seattle."
Jones also acknowledged that the Cowboys' poor recent performance against their divisional rivals factored into his decision.
"We
certainly do need to not change for change sake," he said. "But
basically we need to look at what we're doing. I've heard it even
criticized that maybe we shouldn't look at the matchups. We play six
games in a 16-game schedule against our division, and we need to be
successful in that division. We let Washington beat us twice this year,
Philadelphia beat us twice last year -- so all of those things are under
our consideration."
In a taped interview Monday, Jones made what could be perceived as a precursor to his thought processs regarding Ryan's status.
Jones released Ryan of his duties Tuesday with one year remaining on his contract.
Source: http://espn.go.com
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