He's a Winner. Except for Those Dadgum L's.
Relax, it's only football
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I don’t want to beat a dead horse, since the Eagles took care of that on Sunday, but how often do we have to revisit the “Jerry Jones is a winner” trope before someone finally eighty-sixes it for good?
Jones is not a winner, he’s an accumulator. He captures money, both immediate-term and in the aggregate; but with the Dallas Cowboys now nearly assured of completing their 29th straight season without a Super Bowl appearance, this is not a winning owner. Period. Full stop.
He’s a self promoter, you bet. He can sure turn a buck faster than you. He was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2017 after being deemed responsible for much of the NFL’s insanely massive run-up in annual revenue and valuation over the past few decades.
But listen, the Cowboys do not win. They just don’t. Jones fails the very first fan test of ownership, and he does it year after year. He just goes on failing that test.
Guess you can’t have everything.
Jerrah is 82 years old. For at least the past 10 of those years, but I would reckon closer to the past 20, he has been absolutely begged by football people — and legions of Cowboys fans — to quit acting as his own general manager and hire, you know, a general manager.
Year after year, Jones has rebuffed those entreaties. Year after year, the Cowboys have been either bad, mediocre, or (more recently) good but not nearly good enough.
Following the 1995 season, Dallas won its third Super Bowl in a four-year span with Jones as the owner. By then, Jimmy Johnson, the architect of those winning teams, had already departed as head coach after Jones’ jealousy boiled over. Jerry hated Jimmy getting the credit, both guys had egos, and that was that.
And man, it really was. In the nearly 30 years since, the Cowboys have gone a collective 5-13 in the playoffs. They’ve not so much as advanced to an NFC title game, let alone the NFL championship.
It defies the odds. Given Jones’ bank account and the seemingly simple application of fate, Dallas almost certainly should have fallen sideways into a Super Bowl somewhere along those 29 seasons. I mean, the Titans did it during that time. The Colts did it, and even the dumb Raiders, and even the smelly, unkempt Bears. The Rams did it in two different cities, for the love of Roman Gabriel.
Jerry’s Cowboys? Always a player or two short. But hey, Jones squeezed nearly $500 million out of Arlington and the NFL got AT&T Stadium built, and the average ticket will only run ‘ya $399.50. So — yeah.
Pressed on this, the pro-Jones crew will usually default to an explanation that invokes either injuries/luck or, when truly cornered, profit.
Sure, but Dak’s hurt.
Sure, but look! The Cowboys are valued at $11 billion.
Dak Prescott is usually hurt (editor’s note: this is not strictly true), and his severe hamstring injury two weekends ago makes it highly unlikely that he’ll be able to play again this season. But by the time of Dak’s injury, Dallas was already on its way to losing its third straight game — this one to Atlanta — and submerging to 3-5.
Things got waterier on Sunday. The visiting Philadelphia Eagles, who’ve appeared in three Super Bowls since the last time Jones’ franchise got there, took Dallas apart to the tune of 34-6. Again, the Cowboys were reliant on a backup quarterback, and they’re banged up in a couple of other places, and yadda yadda they stink.
They’ve lost four straight. They are 0-4 at home this season. Nice stadium, though. Amazing video board.
On his weekly radio show last month, Jerry Jones was questioned by two hosts who wondered about the Cowboys’ relatively quiet offseason, with few player acquisitions.
"This is not your job,” Jones replied. “Your job isn't to let me go over all the reasons that I did something and I'm sorry that I did it. That's not your job. I'll get somebody else to ask these questions, men. I'm not kidding…You really think you're gonna sit here with a microphone and tell me all of the things that I've done wrong without going over the rights?"
Oh, man. Sorry, Mister Jones. By no means will we do that.
We just don’t have that kind of time.
Insightful piece, Mark. Most of NFL fandom struggles to describe the Dallas malady (it’s like it feels like the flu, but could it be COVID🤔💭⁉️).
If it wasn’t so tragic it’d be funny…(well, it’s kinda comical—in a megalomania sort of way).
All hat, no cattle this guy!