“It would be embarrassing, it would be shocking if you knew the size of the check I would write if it guaranteed me a Super Bowl. It would be obscene. There is nothing I would do financially not to get a Super Bowl.” -Jerry Jones, owner and general manager of the Dallas Cowboys
Jerry Jones is lying.
His team, the Dallas Cowboys, is the most valuable sports franchise on earth. Bigger than the New York Yankees — even bigger than the biggest soccer teams in Europe. Earlier this month, it became the first sports franchise to be worth over $10 billion.
On the gridiron, the Cowboys have been wildly successful, too. Since the Super Bowls era began 58 years ago, they’ve made the NFC Championship game and/or the Super Bowl an amazing 16 times! That averages about once every 3.5 years. It’s one of the highest totals in NFL history. Sounds impressive, doesn’t it?
It is… until you realize that over the past 28 years, they’ve made the NFC Championship game and/or the Super Bowl exactly ZERO times.
“I’ve done it all,” said Jones. “So I have an ordinate amount of confidence that f—k, if anybody can figure out how to get this s—t done, I can… I’ve been there every which way from Sunday, and have busted my ass a bunch, a bunch. And there’s nobody living that’s out cutting and shooting that can’t give you a bunch of times they busted their ass. So hell no, there’s nobody that could f—king come in here and do all the contracts… and be a GM any better than I can.”
He's lying again.
In theory, he does have a point: The Dallas Cowboys is the only NFL franchise where the team owner is also the general manager. Theoretically, this could give the Cowboys a competitive advantage. All other G.M.s are limited in their wheeling and dealing. Some owners are risk-adverse and overrule G.M.s, but more importantly, all owners reserve the right to fire the G.M. when things go sour. Because Jones is the G.M. and owner, in theory he could make strategic, long-term investments in personnel without worrying about his job security.
It's a lovely theory, but it doesn’t change the fact that they reached the NFC Championship game and/or the Super Bowl 16 times over the first 30 Super Bowls, and zero times in the 28 since. Only three other teams — Washington, Cleveland and Miami — have longer championship game droughts.
I’m sure Jerry Jones would like to win. If you gave him a choice between being a winner and being a loser, he’s not going to choose being a loser. Who would? But it doesn’t change the fact that his decisions lead to postseason failures. Jones has owned this team since 1989, so his strengths and weaknesses have been thoroughly documented. And it’s not all negative. To be fair to Jones, his strengths are significant:
He’s a brilliant marketer. Nobody is better at brand management. He’s proven himself capable of consistently building an above-average team. Hey, there are 31 other teams in the NFL, and the Cowboys are almost never in the bottom-five. That’s got to count for something… right?
But his fatal flaw is that he’s utterly incapable of building a championship-level team on his own.
When he acquired the Cowboys for $140 million, Jones’s first move was hiring his old college teammate, Jimmy Johnson, as head coach. (Sadly, Jones hired Johnson before notifying then-Cowboys head coach Tom Landry. The legendary Landry learned of his dismissal through the media. According to Landry’s autobiography, when Jones finally told him the truth, Jones was so rattled, he tried to leave in the wrong car.)
Hiring Johnson was a masterstroke. In the early '90s, Johnson was far ahead of the game, innovating tactics and revolutionizing the team-building playbook. Johnson revamped the draft value sheet, swung more trades than every other team, and built the youngest, most dominant team of his era.
They won two Super Bowls together.
Then, after league meetings concluded in March of 1994, Jones spotted Johnson sitting at a table with a few coaches that Jones had fired. Jerry Jones, feeling bubbly, sent their table a round of shots — to toast dem Cowboys! Cheers!
Alas, Johnsons (and the fired coaches) declined the toast, snubbing Jones.
Embarrassed, Jones gulped down his booze (as well as a few others) and told the media that “500 coaches” could lead the Cowboys to victory. It was frontpage news.
Johnson left the team almost immediately.
Jones has hired seven additional head coaches since then. His current head coach, Mike McCarthy, is in the last year of his contract. Barring a lengthy postseason run, it’s unlikely McCarthy will return.
“The reason I don’t let somebody else be the GM is because I don’t have anybody that I will let do it to actually do it right,” Jones rambled. “If I didn’t give a s—t, if this wasn’t fun for me to do, or interesting for me to do, whatever you want to call… the facts are, I really would rather be f—king around like this. This point is I love this.”
And that really says it all: Doing what he loves is more important than winning.
Jerry Jones would rather lose doing it his way than win doing it someone else’s way. He’s a billionaire playing with his favorite toy — and he’s unwilling to share. It’s not a secret anymore: The top priority for the Dallas Cowboys is entertaining Jerry Jones. Maximizing profits is number two.
Winning is a distant third. Way, way in the distance.
Almost as far back as their last NFC Championship game.
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