Jerry Jones wanted less confusion on defense. He wanted a system with less moving parts.
He got that when he fired Rob Ryan and hired Monte Kiffin in January. Out was Ryan's 3-4 scheme and in came Kiffin's 4-3.
After the Dallas Cowboys were dominated 49-17 Sunday night by the New Orleans Saints – the team Ryan currently works for – that move isn't looking like one of Jones' best decisions.
"We had our reasons for making our change and Sean [Payton] did a good job of getting Rob down here," Jones said. "He's as smart as he can be. He's from an outstanding football bloodline. That's why we hired him two years ago with the Cowboys is because he's that good of a football coach.
"We thought that it was best for us to go in the direction that we are and that doesn't look good right now. Hopefully we can make it look good. But I have all the feelings that you have anytime you want to look back at a decision and I realize when some of them work you have to have a few things go along with it and candidly we're having some of the same things that Rob had last year.
"He had a lot of people, frankly, to be fair to Rob, he lost a lot of guys on defense [because of injuries]. We've lost more this year. That's the game, though, that's the NFL."
When asked by a reporter after Sunday night's game if he's starting to wonder if the Cowboys defense is the worst he's ever seen, Jones replied: "Well, I think you can."
The Cowboys entered the Superdome as one of the league's worst defenses, allowing opposing offenses to average 419 yards per game. The Saints made them look even worse, setting an NFL record with 40 first downs to go along with 625 yards of total offense.
"I saw some stats at the end of the game, was glancing up and they were talking about teams that have had the kind of yards that have been gained against them," Jones said. "But I think at the end of the day we're trying to win the game.
"We're here at 10 games and we have six more to go and we've got to put together a plan that allows us to get in here and have a shot at this thing. At the end of the day what we're trying to do is get into the playoffs and go from there. I thought we certainly ran up against a team that played very good and we didn't play good tonight."
Follow Jon Machota on Twitter: @jonmachota
