In an interview with Bob Costas of NBC’s Football Night in America, Cowboys linebacker Keith Brooking takes issue with the suggestion from Jaguars quarterback David Garrard that the Cowboys quit against Jacksonville last week.
“He’s not out there on the practice field with us,” Brooking told Costas. “He’s not in our huddle during the game. He’s not on our sideline. He doesn’t know what’s going on with the Dallas Cowboys. I can tell you this, it wasn’t for lack of effort. We’re not going to quit, not on my watch.”
Right, but Garrard was on the game field last week. And he detected a “woe is me” attitude from the Cowboys.
Brooking also claims that the Cowboys aren’t playing to keep their head coach employed.
“I don’t think we’re playing to save Wade’s job,” Brooking said. “That doesn’t mean that we don’t care about Wade. I love Wade Phillips. The Dallas Cowboys as a team, we have to go out there on the field and play to win a game. We’re not playing to save Coach Phillips job. That’s not our mentality.”
Meanwhile, Brooking indirectly indicted the coaching staff for the underachieving nature of the team’s performance. “The reason that we’re not doing better than what we’ve done and our record doesn’t show that is because we’re not going out on the football field and executing the defense that’s called, the offensive play that’s called, and whatever we have going on with our special teams,” Brooking said.
In other words, the coaching staff have failed to make the players accountable. And now the coaching staff needs to be held accountable.
The Cowboys visit the Packers tonight on NBC.
