FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Sunday, December 11th, 2016
“FOOTBALL NIGHT IN AMERICA” FEATURES BOB COSTAS’ INTERVIEW WITH DALLAS COWBOYS HEAD COACH JASON GARRETT
“It started before we drafted him. He came to Valley Ranch and we spent a couple hours with him…it was very impressive.” – Garrett on Dallas QB Dak Prescott
“It’s fighting to be your best. It’s fighting to live up to our standards. It’s fighting for each other.” – Garrett on Dallas’ team mentality
STAMFORD, Conn. – Dec. 11, 2016 – For tonight’s Week 14 edition of NBC’s Football Night in America, the most-watched weekly studio show in sports, host Bob Costas interviews Dallas Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett. Football Night will also include highlights, analysis and reaction to earlier Week 14 games ahead of tonight’s Cowboys-Giants Sunday Night Football showdown.
Football Night airs each Sunday at 7 p.m. ET on NBC. Costas will host tonight’s program live from MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. He will be joined on site by Sunday Night Football analyst Cris Collinsworth and sideline reporter Michele Tafoya.
Dan Patrick co-hosts Football Night from NBC Sports Group’s Studio 1, and is joined by Hall of Fame head coach Tony Dungy, two-time Super Bowl champion Rodney Harrison, and Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk on NBCSN, NBCSports.com and NBC Sports Radio. Kathryn Tappen will report from Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wis., on the Seahawks-Packers game.
INTERVIEW: Below are excerpts from Costas’ interview with Garrett. If used, please note the mandatory credit: “In an exclusive interview airing tonight on Football Night in America.”
JASON GARRETT WITH BOB COSTAS
On if the Cowboys are as good as their 11-1 record indicates: “We really don’t think much about that, to be honest with you. There are certainly records and commentary – we call it ‘noise, clutter, and distraction.’ What we need to do is focus on getting better each and every day, and we’ve done a good job of that so far this year.”
On the Cowboys’ team mentality: “I think ‘fight’ is a really important word. When we go to training camp every year, everybody gets a ‘fight’ sweatshirt and a ‘fight’ t-shirt. It’s fighting to be your best. It’s fighting to live up to our standards. It’s fighting for each other – and I thought that was on display last week in Minnesota.”
On his initial impressions of rookie QB Dak Prescott: “It started before we drafted him. He came to Valley Ranch and we spent a couple hours with him and really grilled him in football, and got to know him a little bit. He was very impressive. It was on the field, it was in the meeting room, how he walked down the hall – all of that over time was very impressive to us. And then he got more and more opportunities because of the situation with Tony (Romo), and he kept taking advantage of them.”
On former Dallas head coach Jimmy Johnson’s statement that success in football, “Isn’t about how many good plays you make, but how few bad plays you make”: “I played for Coach Johnson for two years. I probably heard him say that 5,000 times over those two years, and it is true. It’s not about how many good plays you make; it’s about how few bad plays you make, particularly at that position. He’s done a really good job this year just handling the ball, handling the different situations that come up, understanding the importance of the ball and how it relates to winning.”
–FOOTBALL NIGHT IN AMERICA–
