Well, that didn't take long now did it?
Back at the Senior Bowl – less than eight weeks ago – Jerry Jones said the Cowboys were “all-in” for the upcoming season.
That was taken by many – pundits and fans alike – to mean the Cowboys were going all out in 2024. The only focus was winning the Super Bowl no matter the cost.
If you believed that, I have this bridge in New York I can let you have for a song.
If you truly believed it, then you don't know Jerry Jones at all. And you've never looked him right in the eye while he's answering your questions.
I have.
So I was completely unsurprised when Jerry held court in front of reporters on the first day of the owners' meetings on Sunday and changed his tune.
Suddenly, “all-in” had become “doing more with less” for the 2024 season.
No contract extension is likely for Dak Prescott this year – and possibly ever. The Cowboys are hemorrhaging free agents.
They've retained less than a handful and signed only one outside free agent so far this spring.
Their first three draft picks from 2023 are going to report to training camp recovering from some form of surgery.
They have just seven picks in the 2024 draft and will not have a fourth round pick this year. They will go bargain shopping later in free agency to try to fill the many holes on the roster.
This is the “less” that they will try to accomplish “more” with – all the while saying “We are where we are, locked and loaded for this year.”
Loaded with blanks, if you ask me. Because this roster, as it stands today, will not make the playoffs much less the Super Bowl in 2024.
The Arkansas Oil Man
This whole episode has reminded me of my first face-to-face encounter with the Cowboys' owner in 1993.
The Cowboys had won the Super Bowl just months earlier. But Emmitt Smith was holding out for more money and Jerry didn't want to write the bigger checks.
He thought then, as he says in 2024, that the Cowboys were locked and loaded for the 1993 season.
Without Smith they weren't, and it took losing the first two regular season games for that fact to sink into Jones' brain.
He finally relented and paid Smith what he'd been asking. Smith's first game of the year was at the Phoenix Cardinals at Sun Devil Stadium.
Derrick Lassic started at running back and scored two touchdowns in the game with Smith serving as a backup.
But just his presence on the field energized the Cowboys' team and they won that game and eventually a second-straight Super Bowl.
But on that night, outside the locker room and the media crush surrounding Smith, Jones was sipping coffee from a plain white Styrofoam cup.
And there I was, notepad and pen in hand, interviewing him and my first question – after I chewed him out for firing Tom Landry — went just like this:
“Everyone knew you were going to pay him what he was asking before the season began. I knew it. Emmitt knew it. So why did it take you two losses to open the season – as the defending champions – to get the memo?”
I'm going to pause here to explain something. Before I launched my sports writing career I grew up in the same oil business Jerry made his fortune in.
I worked the oil fields in West Texas – and a few other states – and I've met hundreds of Jerry Joneses.
Granted, only one went on to own the Dallas Cowboys – another went on to be President of the United States but that's another brag post for another day – but still, they are a type.
Namely, don't believe a word they say. And don't be surprised when they directly contradict what they just said not 10 seconds ago.
It appears to be in their DNA. But if you know this going in, you can figure out what's what and possibly keep a firm grip on your sanity.
Now, back to Jerry's answer.
Translating The Doublespeak
It was, quite frankly, a master class in shoveling horse manure that I've yet to have seen matched in my entire life.
It basically boiled down to: The NFL is a business and these contract negotiations are just part of the song and dance that goes with it.
The translation: I bluffed, he called, and I lost my shirt but damned if I'm going to admit it to you, you little twerp.
Again, I grew up around this so no offense was taken. And I'd dished out worse to many oilfield businessmen during my heyday.
Besides, I'm betting the look on my face conveyed my thoughts on what he'd just said clearly enough.
I thanked him for the interview. He thanked me for the questions, and said to look him up for a job if I ever came to Dallas.
He might have been impressed with the fact I threw hard questions at him and didn't buy the crap. Or he was just being the typical oilfield businessman and shining me on.
Either way, that encounter told me all I needed to know about Jones.
And it prepared me for these last 30 years, as I am preparing you now.
Do not, under any circumstances, buy anything being sold to you by Jones Inc. when it comes to the future of the Dallas Cowboys.
It will save you a lot of frustration – and heartburn – in the months and years to come.
Our only hope lies in the knowledge that sooner or later, the Jones family will no longer own the Dallas Cowboys. That's the day we can start to believe we have a chance to win a Super Bowl again.
