Cowboys Hire Wade Phillips For Some Reason

Boy, the Dallas Cowboys finally ended their exhaustive, four week search for a head coach. Thank goodness, I was worried if they waited any longer, they might get desperate and hire the wrong guy.

Oh, wait, they hired Wade Phillips.

He of the incredible .551 win percentage during a total of 6 seasons coaching four teams (two of them interim stints). He of the three trips to the playoffs and zero victories.

In critiquing Wade, I'll be nice and ignore his interim coaching jobs, in New Orleans back in '85, and in Atlanta in 2003 in between Dan Reeves and Jim Mora, Jr. That brings his record to a more respectable 45-35 (.563 win pct.)

Wade coached the Broncos during the '93 and '94 seasons. 1993 was Shannon Sharpe's breakout season, but the offense suffered the running back tandem of Rod Bernstine and Robert Delpino. They snuck into the playoffs at 9-7 and got the snot kicked out of them by the Raiders, 42-24.

The 1994 Broncos took a step back, using two 3+ game losing streaks to finish 7-9.

Both of these Bronco teams had a top-five passing game, a horrible running game, and a horrible pass defense.

Then Wade moved on to coach Buffalo ('98-'00). '98 marked the return of the legend, as Phillips brought in Doug Flutie as his starting quarterback for those three seasons (and Flutie followed Phillips to San Diego afterwards). The '98 team also received a breakout season from Eric Moulds in his third year and Antowain Smith's first full season (and first 1,000 yard season) to turn around an 0-3 start and sneak into the playoffs, where they lost to Miami, 24-17.

In '99 the offense was rather middling, but Phillips' defensive genius started to shine, as the defensive line of Bruce Smith (in his last year with Buffalo), Ted Washington (who left when Phillips did), and Marcellus WIley (also left with Phillips) finally gelled, and Buffalo had the league's best defense, allowing a measly 86 yards rushing and 180 yards passing per game. The team finished 11-5, again went to the wild card game, and again lost, this time 22-16 to Tennessee in the Music City Miracle.

The 2000 Buffalo Bills looked good on paper, but that's about it. Their offense was ranked 9th, but Flutie split the QB duties with Rob Johnson and no one ever emerged as a dependable tailback. The defense was still good even without Bruce Smith, finishing third in the league. The Bills fell to 8-8, and Wade was shown the door.

Article Author: Geeves

Geeves is mainly a critic of the sports and entertainment arena, recently shifting his time and resources away from his own middling blogs and into the Blogcritics realm at something resembling full time.

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