Wade Phillips Fired: Cowboys' Jerry Jones Pulls "Tom Landry Card"

According to just one media source, Dallas Cowboys Head Coach Wade Phillips has been fired of today, according to CBS News Dallas and the AP.

There was no official press release as of this writing, and a number of media people are stumped and confused, even though this is the move many of them wanted.   They should not be surprised; Jones treated Tom Landry the same way, and he was The Dallas Cowboys.

 Fox Sports super-analyst Jay Glazer reflected the confusion when he tweeted five hours ago this:

Jay_Glazer Jay Glazer
Those close to wade who have spoken w him today says he doesn't think anything is going down w him today.

And for the next four hours, Jay's tweets reflected the total state of media confusion around the Sports world:

Jay_Glazer Jay Glazer
They have not yet fired wade but they are strongly leaning toward doing it but again, coaches have been told nothing

Finally, Jay, and everyone else, got the word that Wade Phillips was fired.

And still no official press release from the Dallas Cowboys. But the Dallas Cowboys website is up, reports were that it was down, and reflecting the news that Wade Phillips was fired from the team as head coach.

And the media's surprised over the approach. Why? Dallas Cowboys Owner Jerry Jones is pulling his Tom Landry card.

Yep. The legendary Tom Landry. Remember bim? In 1989, the season of the Cowboys worst year before this point in 2010, Coach Landry, this blogger's hero, discovered Jones fired him via a radio program, not by Jones himself.

What's even worse, Jones actually flew Wade Phillips on his private plane from Green Bay, back to the DFW Metroplex Sunday night.

In other words, Jones didn't have the guts or respect for Phillips to fire him personally.

Instead, Jones, who's business acumen I admire, but not his football management skills, asked, of all people, Cowboys Offensive Coordinator Jason "No-Merit" Garrett to be the interim head coach.

Why.  Word in the Cowboys blogsphere is the players don't like Garrett.

It's clear the one change Jerry Jones should have made, the one he needed to make, was to fire himself.  To take himself out of the decision making picture.