At this time of the offseason, when the football world is obsessed with grading the next batch of incoming NFL rookies and passionately pleading the case for why this guy should be ranked one spot higher than that guy, NFL.com’s Gregg Rosenthal decided to turn the tables and do the same for the big bosses sitting in the front offices.
In perusing a new ranking of the league’s general managers, Cowboys fans might expect Jerry Jones to fall near the bottom. Rosenthal, however, offers a different take, giving Jones a very respectable-at-first-glance 10th place finish leaguewide.
But hold your applause; that top-10 ranking isn’t nearly as impressive it sounds.
As an owner, Jones is unquestionably a force of nature, long rumored to be possibly the most powerful figure in the sport and outranking even the commissioner.
But Jerry Jones the GM? Cowboys Nation has debated amongst themselves for years upon years how much better off the team would probably be if the billionaire let a more dedicated tactician actually make the football decisions.
Ignore, for a moment, the longest Super Bowl drought in franchise history. Rosenthal says the Cowboys’ latest assemblage of personnel and the team’s habitual draft prowess should be the deciding factors in determining Jones’s ranking in this current snapshot of the league’s GM hierarchy.
“The top-shelf talent is close to the top of the league. There are homegrown Hall of Famers. After two straight years of winning, which has become a rarity in the Jerry Jones era, it’s time to give this front office some credit. Perhaps the increased influence of personnel VP Will McClay and COO Stephen Jones has helped the Cowboys, who still struggle at times with self-scouting (SEE: Amari Cooper trade). Brandin Cooks and Stephon Gilmore were smart veteran acquisitions for the price, but this ranking is mostly about Dallas’ consistently strong drafts that keep hitting, especially in the first round.”
Hard to argue with that, even though it’s harder for the fanbase to just gloss over an entire generation of postseason disappointment that persists only because Jones refuses to hand over the reins.
And although 10th place out of all the NFL’s general managers sounds like high praise, it’s worth pointing out that Rosenthal’s list doesn’t include all 32 of them. He opted to reserve judgment on any GM who doesn’t have two drafts under his belt; that drops seven general managers from the exercise.
Tenth place out of 25 is barely in the top half… and probably a bit more indicative of where Jones the GM really belongs.
As an extra bit of salt in the wound, Philadelphia’s Howie Roseman tops the list in first place. “No team does a better job using every avenue for player acquisition, balancing current needs with the future,” Rosenthal writes.
And it’s true: from making prescient draft selections and keeping their own standouts in-house to cutting bait with aging veterans and trading for some of the game’s biggest names at just the right time, Roseman is indeed conducting a clinic on how to keep his squad on top. Just look at the six-year turnaround between their Super Bowl appearances, when all the Eagles did in between was change out their head coach and nearly every assistant, ditch both quarterbacks from the 2017 roster, and replace all but seven players prior to the 2022 campaign.
Yes, there was one awfully lean 4-11-1 season in that in-between, but Roseman’s shrewd moves put Philly in every other postseason of that span, despite the radical roster churn happening all along the way.
That’s the kind of relentless laser focus on building a consistent winner that makes a great GM. The surprisingly aggressive moves Dallas has made this offseason feel like a step in that direction.
Where Jones ranks among his fellow general managers doesn’t really matter much at all, in the grand scheme of things. But if he were to finish higher on the same list next year, that would likely mean the 2023 Cowboys had another successful draft haul, put together a very strong season, went deep in the playoffs, and maybe hoisted a Lombardi Trophy.
And that’s the only thing that matters to Cowboys Nation.
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