Jerry Jones still calls Cowboys’ draft shots, but admits ‘less risk-taking in me today’

Entering his 34th draft as Cowboys owner, Jones says the decision-making process remains the same, but he claims he’s more conservative now. | From @ToddBrock24f7

Thursday will mark Jerry Jones’s 34th draft as owner of the Cowboys.

While it’s reasonable to assume that anyone who has ever been in a job for that long has changed the way they do it over that many years, Jones maintains that, by and large, the organization still drafts players the same way they did in 1989, when they took Troy Aikman with the first overall pick and jump-started a dynasty in the process.

The game has evolved, to be sure. Prospects are more skilled, both at football and at negotiating. But Jones says when the team is on the clock, how the Cowboys make the final decision has remained the same.

“It’s being made exactly the same way that it was always being made,” the team owner, president, and general manager said Tuesday at the Cowboys’ annual pre-draft press conference.

Much has been made with the passage of time about the inner workings of the Cowboys hierarchy. One popular theory holds that 79-year-old Jerry has stepped back and now serves mainly as the team’s mouthpiece and hype man; that it’s his son Stephen, 57, who’s really running the show now.

There’s some truth to that; Stephen is listed as Cowboys executive vice president, chief operating officer, and director of player personnel. That’s a significant load to carry for the most visible and valuable sports franchise on the planet.

But make no mistake, Jerry is still the one who holds the checkbook.

“Around here, if it has a dollar sign associated with it in any way, I make the final call,” he explained. “I’m responsible for the money, coming in and going out, ultimately. I make that call. Have been since the day I walked through this door.”

Jerry does readily admit, though, that his son’s role with the team has increased over the years.

“Stephen’s been doing this now for 33 years. He walked in here with a chemical engineering degree; he ought to be smart enough to pick it up somewhere along the way,” he laughed. “But seriously, he’s been around here in everything we’ve done. If you can’t have confidence in that, you need to go home… It’s a luxury on my part to have that kind of talent around me. I’ve got it, the Cowboys have it in several places around here.”

One of those places is certainly in the scouting department and with draft preparation. Jones famously went into his first draft less than two months after purchasing the Cowboys. With so little time to put into evaluating prospects, Jones and brand-new coach Jimmy Johnson relied heavily on players that they were already familiar with. The rest, they learned on the fly.

Leaning on his coaches is still a key ingredient to drafting players who will help the club find success, according to Jones.

“I have always thought that the men coaching the players should have an investment in the decision being made of putting the players out there,” he said.

To that end, head coach Mike McCarthy has confirmed that he’s more involved in his Dallas drafts than he ever was in Green Bay.

Jones maintains that the Cowboys’ draft process is essentially the same as it’s ever been, but, practically speaking, it’s more of a group project now than in 1989. From coordinators to assistants to scouts to team vice president of player personnel Will McClay- one of the best in the business- Jerry has plenty of help in the war room, even though he’s the one picking up the phone to tell a young man he’s been chosen to be a Cowboy.

That phone conversation is the moment the TV cameras capture, creating the illusion that Jones alone is calling the shots. But the owner explains that it’s about buy-in from the rest of the brain trust.

“There’s a lot of me that would like to take a player and hand it over when we draft him and have Mike sign it, have Stephen sign it, have Will sign it, and then go down through the coaching staff and have everybody on there sign it: ‘This is the guy we picked,'” Jones told reporters. “There really is buy-in here. And there’s buy-in with how players are selected. And there’s buy-in with, after they’re selected, how they evolve and how they’re coached. I believe in that.”

So while Jones is the most recognizable face of the front office, he says he wants everyone in the organization to take genuine ownership in the decisions that they help make, especially during the draft.

“I really do- and should, in my spot- make other people believe they’re making the decision,” the owner shared. “I should do that. I should work very hard to make other people believe it’s their decision, because if they think it’s their decision, they will work their ass off to try to make sure it’s a good one.”

Of course, they’re not always good decisions. The reality of trying to evaluate football players is that both the players and evaluators are human beings. And sometimes the players prove not to be who they looked like they’d become at the pro level. And that’s what makes the draft such an inexact science. At its heart, it’s still a crapshoot, one with very high stakes.

If there is a change in how Jerry Jones approaches the draft 34 years in, it’s in his stomach for taking gambles.

“There’s probably less risk-taking in me today than there probably was when I look back thirtysomething years ago,” the former oilman says. “When we got here, I frankly was the only one in the room that had ever taken a risk, certainly financially, when I first got involved. I knew how to take risks, knew how to judge consequences if you mess up on a risk. And I was experienced in that; that’s how I owned the Cowboys. That’s how I got them.”

Chalk it up to his past life as a wildcatter, prospecting for black gold, constantly drilling new oil wells and waiting for one to strike it rich. Sometimes it comes down to luck, to following a hunch.

And even though the gushers are the ones that create a life-changing fortune, the misses tend to haunt the mind, even many years later. The same goes for draft picks.

“The decision on off-the-field issues, I’m probably a little more conservative than I was fifteen years ago,” Jones admitted. “About availability, probably a little more conservative. Maybe a little more conservative about players [who have] got some developing to do, need to get some strength, because I feel like we need to use them now more than we did 15 years ago, 10 years ago.”

So while Jones may have the Shante Carvers and Taco Charltons somewhere in the back of his mind, he plunges ahead, knowing that the club’s next first-round pick just might turn out to be Troy Aikman or Micah Parsons.

[listicle id=696502]

[listicle id=696403]

[listicle id=696426]

[lawrence-newsletter]

Taco Tuesday: Jerry Jones deflects blame for Cowboys’ maligned pick in 2017

Jones jokingly said his son Stephen was responsible for taking Taco Charlton in 2017; he facetiously took credit for drafting Micah Parsons. | From @ToddBrock24f7

Sometimes it’s so bad that all you can do is laugh about it.

That’s what happened on Tuesday at the Star in Frisco during the Cowboys’ annual pre-draft press conference. While it’s traditionally a chance for the media members who cover the team to explore offseason issues and press for insight as to the team’s upcoming draft strategy, team owner Jerry Jones also seized an opportunity to jokingly deflect criticism for one of the organization’s most widely-panned personnel decisions.

The question was about working the phones leading up to draft day, whether the front office had been engaging in calls to either trade up or down rather than sit tight with the 24th overall pick.

“We always chum,” Jones said. “You’re always talking about possibilities for things. There’s nothing dangerous about thinking crazy things.”

Jones went on to talk at length about thinking unconventionally when it comes to the draft, when it comes to working trade offers, when it comes to juggling the roster, when it comes to being flexible with players as the draft unfolds in real time.

Four minutes later, Jones was still monologuing.

He had segued into an explanation of how the Cowboys war room works, how even the team’s scouts will occasionally pound the table for this guy or that guy, and how the final decision on drafting a prospect is finally reached.

That’s when Jones chose to get back the attention of the room with a zinger directed at his son Stephen, the team’s director of player personnel.

“There’s a lot of talk in this business about who makes the call, who actually makes the call,” Jones deadpanned. “Taco was Stephen’s call. Parsons was my call.”

It slayed.

Taco, of course, is Taco Charlton, the University of Michigan edge rusher who was the Cowboys’ first-round pick in 2017. The club, in desperate need of defensive help that year, famously bypassed linebacker T.J. Watt to instead select Charlton 28th overall.

Charlton lasted just two years in Dallas, recording 46 tackles, four sacks, two forced fumbles, and one recovery. Still seen as a massive bust for the Cowboys, he has since bounced around for one season each with Kansas City, Miami, and Pittsburgh. He’s now under contract with the Saints.

Word of Jones’s joke apparently reached Charlton, who seemed to respond via Twitter with a reminder that he and his estimated $10.3 million in career earnings are getting by just fine.

Charlton was not a pick many thought would go to the Cowboys at the time. Neither was Micah Parsons, but for different reasons.

The Penn Stater has already worked out much better in Dallas; he had a transcendent rookie season and earned Defensive Rookie of the Year honors.

It may have been a funny moment (to everyone but Stephen… and Charlton) meant to lighten the mood on Tuesday, but it will be no laughing matter if the Cowboys make another big-time blunder with this year’s first-round draft pick.

Less Taco, more Parsons.

[listicle id=695283]

[listicle id=696459]

[listicle id=695044]

[lawrence-newsletter]

‘Let it go’: Randy Gregory responds to Cowboys’ Jerry Jones still spinning contract fiasco

Jerry Jones is still trying to convince fans it’s better the Cowboys didn’t re-sign their DE, but little about his reasoning made sense. | From @ToddBrock24f7

The low point of the Cowboys’ 2022 offseason was easily the very public flip-flop and free agency exodus of defensive end Randy Gregory. First, the team had re-signed the veteran edge rusher and even announced it on social media. Then within hours, he was gone again, having changed his mind to sign with Denver, supposedly over objectionable language in his contract.

But watching team owner Jerry Jones spin the story more than a month later to make it seem like it worked out the way he wanted all along is proving to be almost as embarrassing.

At Tuesday’s pre-draft press conference at The Star in Frisco, Jones added new details to the story that simply don’t jibe with things like logic or common sense.

And Gregory took to social media shortly thereafter, asking for a wake-up call for his former boss.

“As you know, I think a lot of Randy and how he has evolved in where he is in his career,” Jones said Tuesday at the team’s annual pre-draft press conference. “But he evolved so well that he got beyond where I wanted to go, what with the guarantees that were going to be involved to have Randy here. And I could have done it. It was unacceptable to us.”

It’s well-known that the Nebraska product missed two entire seasons and almost all of a third serving various league suspensions for violations of the NFL’s substance abuse policy.

The Cowboys stood by Gregory’s side through all of it. Since his return during the 2020 season, he was named to the team’s leadership council and missed only the team’s Week 2 game last year (on COVID protocol) and sat out four midseason games with a calf injury.

Reaching new terms with Gregory became one of the club’s priorities for the offseason.

The contract language that soured the Dallas deal last month reportedly involved the Cowboys’ right to withhold financial guarantees in case of a league fine or suspension. The Cowboys maintained that it’s standard in their contracts (except for quarterback Dak Prescott), but Gregory and his agent claimed it was slipped in late and wanted it removed from the paperwork.

The Cowboys refused to do so. Denver reportedly offered the same contract without that clause. And Gregory was gone.

Jerry suggested that despite a since-relaxed substance abuse policy now in place with the league and with a $70 million deal on the table on March 15, Gregory’s ability to stay on the field was- out of nowhere- suddenly a pressing concern for the Cowboys brass.

“Availability was a big item here. Being available,” Jones mysteriously explained Tuesday. “And you can reach to a point where if you’ve got a big question mark on availability- forget ability- if you’ve got a big question mark on availability, do you want to strap on millions and millions of dollars to your salary cap with that big a question mark and availability? It got too high for the benefit of the team.”

Was there really some new worry about Gregory’s availability? If so, where did it come from?

Jones had always been a staunch supporter of Gregory’s. He wasn’t overly concerned about availability during Gregory’s multiple suspensions. And he clearly still roots for Gregory as a person.

“Frankly, individually,” Jones said at the presser, “I like him about as well as anybody I’ve ever been around as far a player of the Cowboys.”

But now, judging by Gregory’s own Twitter response to Jones’s latest spin job, the feeling may no longer be mutual.

 

Jones was also asked about the effect that Gregory’s departure has had on the Cowboys’ draft strategy and free agency spending, if adding a pass rush prospect had suddenly become more of a priority for a team that already has several roster holes to patch.

“I’d rather have the two,” Jones said, “than the one.”

The two Jones is referring to are Dorance Armstong and Dante Fowler. Armstrong, a four-year veteran with 4.5 career sacks, was signed to a new deal in Dallas two days after the Gregory debacle. Dante Fowler, a former first-round pick who will turn 28 before the season opener and is coming off a knee injury, was hired via free agency four days after that.

It’s possible that both moves would have been made even had Gregory stayed in Dallas. Possible, but pretty unlikely. What’s more probable is that the team scrambled to lock in Armstrong and Fowler as contingency plans after Gregory bolted.

But Jones is trying to sell an alternative reality that things have worked out better this way, that he inexplicably chose to not sign Gregory to the contract that the team had already announced so he could go out afterward to sign two lesser players as part of his replacement platoon.

“To his credit and their credit, Denver wanted him more than we did,” Jones said. “And that’s not a hard adjustment, because we got extra players for that, and we wouldn’t have. We wouldn’t have had the players that we got had we signed Randy. Period. And I’d rather have the two than the one.”

Armstrong has performed well for the Cowboys. Fowler likely has plenty left in the tank and will be a solid veteran contributor. But neither player is Randy Gregory, even though Stephen tried to claim in mid-April that Armstrong alone is “right there” with Gregory from a production standpoint.

Even combining the two players’ talents, Dallas is a lesser team for having lost Gregory. And defensive end is definitely a position the team has to be considering supplementing in this week’s draft and beyond.

There’s no other way to spin that.

[listicle id=696459]

[listicle id=696431]

[listicle id=695582]

[lawrence-newsletter]

 

 

Takeaways from Chargers GM Tom Telesco’s pre-draft press conference

Tom Telesco spoke to the media via Zoom on Friday.

Chargers general manager Tom Telesco met with the media in a Zoom pre-draft press conference call to discuss multiple topics. It was the first time Telesco has met with the media since the NFL Scouting Combine.

Here are a few things we learned from Telesco during his press conference with the media:

Quarterback class is deep

While many have projected the Chargers to select a quarterback early, Telesco isn’t just locked into the top signal-callers. He believes the class offers talent and value in every round.

“It’s pretty strong,” Telesco said. “I think that people tend to look at only the top of the draft at these different positions, but a lot of them there’s players as you move on, in second, third and fourth rounds that I think are going to be very good players in this league… it’s a good class of quarterbacks.”


Injuries are being taken seriously?

When players are selected next week, expect the ones that the Chargers pick to be as durable as a rock.

“We value the durability of players very high. It doesn’t matter how good they are on the field if they can’t even get on to it.”

Or at least that’s what he wants us to believe, for now.

Telesco’s statement has had fans believing that former Alabama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa won’t be in consideration with the No. 6 overall pick because of his lengthy injury history during college.

However, with less than a week to go until the draft, everything that is said must be taken with a grain of salt because general managers and front office personnel want teams to believe everything they’re saying so that way they don’t show their bluff.


Forrest Lamp in the mix at left tackle

The left tackle position still remains a mystery after the departure of Russell Okung. I mentioned how it wouldn’t be surprising if they bank on Trey Pipkins to serve as the starter, or elect to select one on Day 2 to create competition at the position.

But could there be a possibility of Forrest Lamp being in the mix for the job? Telesco said that Lamp could be an option. Lamp played left tackle in college, but kicked inside to guard when he got to the pros. Unfortunately, he has struggled to stay healthy due to various lower body injuries.

Telesco also said tackle Sam Tevi has “very good left tackle feet,” suggesting that he could have a shot for the job, too.

While these all might not seem like the most viable options for left tackle, new offensive line coach James Campen has done an excellent job at developing the most average offensive linemen into All-Pro selections.


Mike Pouncey is doing well

Pouncey suffered a severe neck injury in Week 5 of the 2019 regular season, leaving his career up in the air. Fast forward to now, Pouncey is “trending in the right direction” to play in 2020. “Everything looks good right now,” Telesco said.

Pouncey still is not cleared to play yet, though. Medical and travel limitations related to the COVID-19 pandemic have prevented him from a checkup on his neck, Telesco said. Pouncey has one more year remaining on his contract.


Other notes

  • There’s no solidified plan regarding Chris Harris’ role on the defense, but he can play multiple spots in the secondary. The same thing applies with Desmond King, who Telesco said can play “outside and inside.”
  • Telesco said the limits on offseason workouts and instruction caused by the coronavirus won’t push the team to push more polished prospects up the draft board over more talented but rawer ones.
  • Expectations for the second-year players are different because of the lack of a traditional offseason. He said those players will need motivate themselves to work and get better but believes they’ve picked guys who have that makeup.