Don’t ever believe the lazy theory that Cowboys owner Jerry Jones doesn’t genuinely care about wins so long as there are butts in the seats at AT&T Stadium on gameday, eyeballs on the TV when they play, and people talking about America’s Team.
That any-publicity-is-good-publicity idea may hold some water when discussing Jones the businessman, but the 77-year-old owner of the world’s most valuable sports franchise has spent an entire lifetime in football. And when the team- his team-is responsible for the kind of mess that was displayed at Soldier Field on Thursday night, this man cares. Deeply. Passionately. Fiercely. Even profanely.
Twelve hours after the 31-24 loss to Chicago went final, Jones was still seething about it, as he showed in a heated phone interview Friday morning with Dallas radio station 105.3 The Fan.
Speaking on the K&C Masterpiece show, Jones was first asked for his answer on how the team is playing as of late.
Jones, who normally needs very little prodding to launch into a meandering monologue, was uncharacteristically blunt with a five-word reply: “We’re not playing very well.”
As a follow-up, Jones was asked if he was embarrassed by the team’s showing. That’s when things went sideways without warning. Jones snapped.
“Hey, get your damn act together yourself. Okay? Now, we’re going to have a good visit this morning, but settle down just a little bit. We’ve got a lot to go over; now go on with your question. But I’m going to give you the answers I want to give you this morning, and I don’t like your attitude to come in. I’ve been traveling all night, and I don’t have the patience to jack with you today. Now get with it and let’s ask some questions. The right kind of questions.”
Some of that dressing-down was hard to hear, as Jones would pause and then suddenly relaunch his tirade as soon as a new question was started. It was a shocking exchange, and social media lit up with reactions as the unexpectedly contentious Q&A played out in real time.
As talk tentatively turned to the particulars of the game and what needs to improve with the team, Jones cut off the hosts once again before they could finish their question.
“When you have as many things as were off-kilter as we had last night, you’ve got a nice litany of places to start to correct. Now, just like we all do, you take the ones that are the most obvious, that you can do the most about, and you correct those to the extent that you can. That’s what we tried to do last week, and we’ll try to do it these next ten days before we play the Rams.”
Specifically mentioned as an area of concern were Brett Maher’s missed field goals. While coach Jason Garrett said earlier in the morning that the team would need to evaluate Maher and mentioned the possible need to explore bringing in replacement kickers, Jones implied that the club couldn’t really upgrade at the position with anyone who would be available right now.
Jones was pressed about the details of the current kicker situation when he interrupted again:
“I’m giving you my answer. So you go ahead and ask your questions and I’ll give you my answers this morning.”
In other words, move on, next topic.
The owner’s tone softened some as he talked through the difficulties of adding brand-new players so late in the season, and he even sounded as though he perhaps felt a little bit bad about his earlier outburst.
When the chat turned inevitably to the touchy subject of Garrett’s job status and the constant speculation about it, Jones gave a thoughtful answer that started with having the average fan’s perspective in mind, and finished with a cryptic comment about who Jones might be considering as a potential coaching hire to replace Garrett.
“Of course I understand why [those questions] come up. Our fans are interested. And they’re frustrated that we’re not playing better, and I understand that. And I know. That goes with the territory. So I fully expect to have those questions, and I know that if you really think about it, if I did have answers as to different directions regarding talent- if I did– I would not share them right now because, first of all, if you’ve got other teams’ talent in mind, that’s tampering. Even if you had something in mind, unless they’re not involved in the National Football League right now, and it wouldn’t be smart if they were involved other places.”
And then Jones apparently dropped an expletive. The radio station’s delay system muted over the offending phrase, although Jones could still be heard asking rhetorically, “Do you understand bull [expletive]?”
The hosts referenced having to bleep Jones twice, and they continued with a new question about the notion that the team had quit during the Chicago game. Then they waited for Jones’s answer. And waited. And waited.
The line was dead. Jones was gone. For a few horrifying seconds, it was assumed that the owner of the Dallas Cowboys had just hung up in the middle of a live interview on the Dallas Cowboys Radio Network’s flagship station, presumably because he was so offended by the question or the hosts’ perceived “attitude.”
That’s bad. But it quickly got worse. Turns out the station actually hung up on Jones.
In not-too-technical terms, when the delay system tried to skip too far ahead past Jones’s multiple obscenities, it went to a “safe mode” by terminating the phone call entirely. Oops.
The call was re-established after a few uncomfortable moments. A seemingly calmer Jones even joked, “I had been talking all this time.”
He went on to explain that he still believes in the talent of the current roster, and that if the players can put together the bits and pieces of brilliance that he (and fans) have seen this year in flashes, good things are still possible. As for the notion of the players quitting in Chicago, Jones put no stock in that thought:
“You’ve got to remember that when you quit on your coach, then you quit on yourself. Because we’re all a part of this. And you were absolutely right when we started this show: the one that deserves the most responsibility is the one that ultimately makes the decision to put what players out there and put what coach out there. That’s the general manager, and in this case, it happens to be the same man that owns the team. And I completely understand the fans’ frustration with me.”
By the time the interview ended, the tension had cooled and Jones expressed once again his belief that the team is capable of better than they’ve recently shown. And he assured fans that he is just as eager as they are to see it take shape.
“I know good and well that there’s nobody in the NFL that’s any more responsible for what’s going on out on the field than me. So I certainly have that kind of frustration as well. Now, what I do is I get mad, I scream in my pillow. That low, low, eerie thing you’re hearing go across Dallas? That’s me screaming in my pillow. And so the bottom line is, you can imagine, I’d like to make this better.”
And then, just like that, he was gone.
From a furious tongue-lashing to screaming into pillows to fixing not only the Cowboys’ problems, but the country’s while he’s at it. It’s all in a day’s work for the owner of America’s Team.
