Dallas Cowboys’ Owner Jerry Jones Needs to Look in the Mirror
Apparently missing out on the playoffs on the final weekend of the regular season two years in a row doesn't sit well with Jerry Jones.
In an interview with the Star-Telegram, Jones said that he was "very upset, very irritated" with current state of the team.
He went on to say "I can assure our fans it's going to be very uncomfortable from my standpoint; it's going to be very uncomfortable over the next few weeks and months at Valley Ranch."
Of course, if you ask me, the first thing Jerry Jones needs to do is look in the mirror. Jones has always considered himself the general manager of the team. He makes the decisions on who to draft, what coaches to hire, who to fire and so forth.
In the NFL - as Black Monday shows - when a team fails to make the playoffs for consecutive years and continues to underperform every season, the coach and the GM are usually the first ones to go. Just ask Chicago's Lovie Smith. Or San Diego's Norv Turner or A.J. Smith.
And yet, here are the Cowboys sitting on the outside looking in on the playoffs, and Jones continues to believe that the problems lie elsewhere.
As he told the Star-Telegram:
"I'm going to spend a lot of time visiting with people outside of the organization... that will help us evaluate how to do the things that I know what our fans want to do, and that's not be sitting here at .500. There are a lot of teams that haven't been at .500, but nobody hasn't been at .500 and spent as much cash as I'm spending."
So, apparently, just spending a lot of cash is the answer. Ask Dan Snyder how well that worked?
As a long-time Redskins fan, I lived what the Cowboys fans are going through.
Snyder spent years throwing big money at big name free agents and got nothing in return but sub-par years and a cap that was out of control. It wasn't until Snyder admitted he didn't know what he was doing and went out and hired legitimate 'football' men in Bruce Allen and Mike Shanahan to run his team, then stepped back and let them do their job.
The result is that Shanahan and Allen have slowly rebuilt the Redskins into a playoff team. It took time, and there were some bumps along the road - Donavan McNabb anyone - but Snyder stayed out of it and let his people work. Now, despite the fact that the Redskins are in the playoffs, they still have work to do. But they are moving in the right direction.
Ironically, after the Redskins eliminated his Cowboys from the playoffs, Jones remarked on how impressed he was with the way the Redskins were structured. You would think he would listen to his own voice... as much as he likes to talk.
However, it doesn't look like Jones will follow the same path that Snyder did. Jones will continue to think he is a 'football' man and will point to his past Super Bowl success as proof he knows what he is doing.
Of course, there was another owner who won Super Bowls in the early years and continued to believe he knew what he was doing despite the results.
Ask the Oakland Raiders how they are doing.