Owners or Groaners?

I think people hate Jerry too much yet can rarely name an owner they’d rather have than him. Yeah, he does some questionable things (fa signings especially) but one thing you cannot accuse him of is not caring. He probably cares more than any owner in the NFL and spends more money and time on the team than any other owner. He does have 3 superbowls under him, I think he knows the formula to get more and he has set up a team to that standards. The statement flying around ‘the Cowboys have the most talent" is a somewhat true statement. Who’s to say the talent is the best, but no one can say the talent isn’t there.
Atleast we’re not the Raiders.

And by that I mean whatever he does will be wrong in some people’s eyes.

He has gone out and got the best signings he could, he rarely ever lets a star leave the team and ponies up big money to keep them. So now he is getting criticised for having too many stars and not enough role players.

but one thing about your post. You compare Jerry to some of the worst owners from the past and present NFL. Why not include some of the better owners? Of course Jerry isnt the worst, but it is doubtful that he is the best, and that is where the discussion is. (Personally I think he is probably the fifth best owner in the league) But comparing him to bad owners isnt really fair. Would you be happy if you were a Seahawks fan just because you were better than the Lions or better than the dolphins last year?

I think Jerry is a good owner, and should be compared to similar guys in the league, not the worst.

People need to ease up off of Jerry. I’m glad we have proactive owner. He just wants to win so bad he cant get out of his own way. Im okay with that.

I think he has made the Cowboys the second most recognized sports franchise in the nation, just behind the New York Yankees. And if the NFL continues to maintain the top spot as America’s most watched sport and the Yankees continue to decline we could see the Cowboys surpass the “evil empire”. As a native born Texan and lifetime fan I cringe at the thought of it, but it does mean that Jerry is delivering a successful product, and it’s already pretty bad anyway.
Granted before Jerry assumed stewardship of the Cowboy’s organization they already were tagged as “America’s team” giving him a sound foundation to build upon, but in the business world it is just as easy to destroy a storied franchise as it is to build upon one. The New York Knicks come to mind.
So I agree with Jim. All you fans screaming for Jerry’s head on a platter cut the old guy some slack. We are lucky to have an owner that is passionate about the game and his team because it could be waaaay worse.

Very sad that Cowboys fans are now finding solace in the fact that Jerry Jones isn’t Al Davis. At one point in our history we were proud to be one of the best run organizations in the league. Now we are happy with just not being one the worst.

But you forgot to mention the ABSOLUTE favorite Cowboy owner to HATE – Dan Snyder, the DEAN of “how to spend money and put horrible teams on the field” (not to be confused with Dean Smith, my hero)

Also good point by Aussie… but he doesn’t take the time to offer any coaches! And so, as this is a comments / discussion – based blog, why not move things in that direction? Here is my list of top owners, thoughts?

Robert Kraft – New England Patriots — for tremendous productivity w/ a tight wallet… and for staying out of BB’s way.

Mara and Tisch – NY Giants — consistent product on the field plus consistent hands-off policy

Dan Rooney – Steelers — if nothing else, for a tremendous knack of hiring the right head coach

Denise Debartolo York and John York — anyone with the name Debartolo gets on my list?

Bud Adams — leaving Fisher in place is reason alone to include him on this list

… the same could also be said for Jerry Richardson, except he seems tighter with money?

Thoughts? Rankings???

I like Jerry. Why? Because he probably cares about winning more than any other owner out there. Jerry is obsessed with making the Cowboys the best. Sure, you can argue he had a little beginner’s luck, then hit rock bottom, but I think he’s learned from a lot over the years. He tries to give us the best team he can, each year. A lot of fans of other teams that I meet are envious, because they wish their GM/owner would go to the lengths that Jerry goes to to make their team better. Lastly, it is nice that Jerry still understands that he is in the entertainment business. Yeah, it leads to a lot of drama sometimes, but so what? Many call him one of footballs greatest innovators in that regard, and I agree.

would have to be the single most important criteria for being considered a good owner, right? I think the Jerry haters would evaporate if he won a SB every three years or so. I too would probably put Dan Rooney at the top. He has been a stable leader, he’s hired good people and let them do what they do, and he is willing to pay for talent. But, Jerry Jones is more showman than Dan Rooney and I can’t ever see Jerry taking a behind the scenes role – it’s not in his DNA. AND, Dan Rooney doesn’t win enough Super Bowls to suit some.

I used to live in the Bay Area and the Yorks were very unpopular, things may have changed since I lived there. Eddie DeBartolo was a bit more like Jerry in that he wanted to win and would do anything he could to achieve that end. Denise is Eddie’s sister, but her husband Dr. York was primarily running the team and compared to Eddie he was a wet blanket.

In the final chapters of Landry’s Boys, Peter Golenbock details the demise of Clint Murchinson. He went from booze and broads to coccaine and questionable real estate deals. (He even invested in a ski resort in Iraq, of all places, if that can be believed.) By the time he was forced to sell the Cowboys to Bum Bright, his entire family fortune was wasted and his heirs destitute.

Bright was a cheap owner, a skin flint and a tightwad. He never was willing to pay for the talent necessary to field a championship team, so Schramm, Landry and Brandt had to make do with what they had. That, combined with the fact that the other teams had caught up with the Cowboys’ draft schemes and game plans, and Dallas was slow to adjust, contributed to the decline in the 80s. But they were turning it around. The 88 draft laid the foundation for the 90s team. However, Bright wanted to sell the team, and as a condition of the sale he demanded the new owner fire Tom Landry, whom he blamed for his own failures.

And then along came Jones. The smartest thing Jerry ever did was to bring in Jimmy Johnson and let him build and run the team. The first few years were painful, but Johnson built on the foundation Landry had laid and soon was winning championships.

Back-to-back Super Bowls. What kind of owner screws up that kind of success? What kind of owner drives off a winning coach because his ego demanded that he get more credit than he derserved? Answer: an owner possessed of a demon.

Since Johnson left, it’s been one bad decision after another, beginning with poor coaching hires. Jerry hired Barry out of spite, and nothing else. Yes, Switzer was able to lead Johnson’t team to the NFC Championship in his first year and win the Super Bowl in his second, but the team deteriorated after that. Jerry signed Deion out of desperation, and his exhorbitant salary caused the Cowboys to lose 16 veterans developed through the draft, who fled to more lucrative contracts with other teams. (Question: would you rather have the prima donna or the talent?) What followed was weak drafts and disastrous free agent acquisitions, more poor coaching hires, and twelve years of losing in December and collapsing in January, six consecutive playoff losses including five one-and-dones.

Nothing has changed. Rather, it’s gotten worse. Jerry’s lost a fortune in the stock market, while at the same time he’s gone $1 billion in the hole for a stadium without adequate parking that he can’t even sell the naming rights to. This is why he can’t afford to buy out Wade Phillips’s or Jason Garrett’s contracts, predictably pitiful hires both, and bring in real coaches to turn the team around. He’s locked in an underachieving offense to long-term contracts. He’s given tens of millions to a quarterback who doesn’t know the difference between an interception and a punt, and apparently doesn’t care whether he wins or loses. He’s re-signed a prima donna receiver who can’t keep his mouth shut and wasted valuable draft picks on another who can’t keep his mouth shut. Moreover, four years after dumping a No. 1 ranked 4-3 and switching to a failed 3-4 defense, which is ill-suited to the personnel and forces players outside of their natural positions, Dallas still doesn’t have the defensive ends, the nose tackle, the inside linebacker, or the strong safety to run effectively. And don’t even get me started on special teams coverage units.

Most disastrously Jerry has done nothing to change the culture of complacency he’s allowed to fester for so many years. Now we got players questioning coaches, finger pointing, back stabbing and fighting with each other in the locker room and on the plane, assaulting fans at Valley Ranch after the worst loss in decades, which they laughed about by the way. This is a fractured franchise.

Comparing Jerry Jones to other loser owners in the NFL can possibly make him look good. Comparing him to the standard the Dallas Cowboys set for themselves as America’s Team cannot.

Murchison was a coke head and Bright was a tightwad?

Sounds like Jerry is the best owner the cowboys ever had.

This is an excellent post and one I think all of the Jerry haters should read. What people need to realize is that this is Jerry’s team, this is not the Cowboys team of old. All of those who keep crying about legacy and things of the past, they are just that the past. The can not help our present team in any way. While the past makes for great war stories and hype to pass the time, all things evolve and change. You either roll with it or jump ship. Life vest anyone???

"The very best football players have to depend more on their teammates. All eleven men on a team have specific roles on every play. Unless each successfully does his part, the play won’t work. It’s a coordinated effort.

It’s not enough for ten out of eleven defensive men to perform their assignments perfectly. Ninety percent performance can mean one hundred percent failure. Everyone has to do his job. If one blocker misses a block, the best runner can be tackled for no gain. If just one defensive player misses his assignment, you have a huge hole the offense can run through for a touchdown.

What this means is that in football no one individual can be more important than the team. Sometimes this is a hard lesson for the most talented athletes to learn; it’s why some very gifted players bounce from team to team. It’s also why in football the greatest superstars may not be the ones with the most physical talent; they’re the ones who learn to adapt and fit their talents into the team concept. Prima donnas don’t often make great football players and it’s even more seldom that they make for a successful team."

—Tom Landry

Does anyone on this blog really think that the same doesn’t apply to ownership?

When you have an owner, a check signer, who drives away a winning coach, because he wants the credit for the team the coach built and can’t handle it when the coach won’t give it to him, what does that say?

When you have a general manager, who insists on having the final say in all football decisions because, hey, he’s also the owner, and then continues to make poor coaching hires, failed free agent acquisitions, bad trades, and bum draft picks, to the detriment of the team, what does that say?

When you have an owner/general manager who has overseen a culture of complacency and coddles players on an underachieving team that hasn’t produced a winning record in December or a single playoff win in January for twelve consecutive years, what does that say?

I’ll tell you what it says to me. It says this isn’t about ownership or general management; it’s about self-aggrandizement. And that is the demon of ego.

Witness the monument to his vanity being built in Arlington. You know, the one without adequate parking, surrounded by highway construction (anyone thinks the Texas Department of Transportation is going to fix that mess anytime soon is a fool), that he can’t even sell the naming rights to so he can take some pressure off his mortgage payments.

Please. “Vanities, all is vanities” (Proverbs).

No, I don’t blame Jerry Jones for the economic downturn. I’m just pointing out the fact that as a result of it he can’t afford to correct the mistakes he’s made, of which there are many.

Jerry Jones is not the Dallas Cowboys, as much as he’d like to be thought of as them. I couldn’t care less about him. I only care about the team.

But then I’m Old School. I grew up under Landry and fully embrace his philosophy of football. You use the game as a vehicle for personal excellence, to become the best you can be. You subordinate your ego to what is best for the team. You do your job, man your position, and execute your assignment. You go all out, leave everything on the field. When you do that, the outcome on the scoreboard ultimately doesn’t matter. You can be outscored and still walk off the field with your head held high, a winner. When you don’t do that, the outcome on the scoreboard does matter. You will be beaten and walk off the field with your head down, a loser.

This is why some players, like, oh I don’t know, Roger Staubach, can be successful on and off the field. He was outscored in two Super Bowls, but he was never beaten. He used the game as a vehicle for personal excellence and walked off the field with his head held high. Then he left football, went into business, became enormously successful, and made tens of millions. Why? Because he applied what he learned in football to business. And what did he learn? It’s not about him.

This is a lesson that Jerry Jones has failed to learn. He wants it all to be about him. About the coach he hired, the free agent he signed, the player he drafted, the stadium he built. He’s the worst prima donna in franchise history!

Has Jerry Jones ever admitted that driving away Johnson and hiring Switzer was a mistake? Has he ever admitted that signing Deion and losing 16 verterans was a disaster? Has he ever admitted that trading for Joey Galloway was a bad deal? Has he ever admitted that drafting Quincy Carter was an unmitigated failure? Has he ever admitted that every coach he’s hired since Johnson has been unable to build a championship team, much less win a playoff game since Switzer? Has he ever admitted that his draft busts far exceed his draft finds? Has he ever admitted that the only constants over twelve years of December fades and January collapses are him and Joe Juraszek?

They say it’s better to be lucky than good. That’s a myth. I’d rather be good. Luck is a lady, and she’s fickle. Sure, she’ll help you win big, and then she’ll turn her back as you lose horribly. If you’re good, consistently good, you won’t win all the time—no one does—but at the end of the day, you’ll win more than you lose. That’s the point.

Jerry Jones is lucky that the Cowboys are the premiere franchise in all of sports. He can thank Schramm, Landry and Johnson for that, because he had very little to do with it.

Question: How long do you expect the Cowboys to remain the premiere franchise with all the general mismanagement going on today?

You can build the biggest stadium in the history of the world and it won’t mean squat, not if you can’t field a winning team. And Jerry Jones has not proven that he can do that, because he wants it to all be about him, not the team. That’s the problem right there.

As far as Jerry admitting his mistakes I dont recall Landry or Schramm doing that either. Losing 16 veterans had to do with a brand new salary cap era that Landry never dealt with. Had Landry and/or Shramm been owners (and couldnt have been fired) would have they to gone on stumbling and losing for several more years before turning it around.. They didnt have the look of men on their way back up when they were fired. Had the salary cap era come about in their day I wonder if said sustained success would have happened. Does Jerry win more SBs because he doesnt lose so many players to FA. Would landry last 20 plus years with one team with todays pressure and media.

You keep mention the stadium as a testament to his Jerrys ego. That is clearly a personal issue you have with him. That has nothing to do with him as an Owner/GM.

I havent lived in Dallas for 20+ years but Im as proud of that stadium as anyone. If you want to talk about whats wrong lets talk about cities who build these stadiums with taxpayers funds and dont have money for schools or Librarys. At least Jerry has put up a ton of money and steps up and puts his money where his mouth is. He hasnt held his city hostage because of our love of his team

As some of the stats have showed in earlier posts. There is just not that much difference between the two regimes
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Im a christian and believe and try to adhere to these beliefs or moral code you seem to be insinuating. What I dont, do because of my faith is pass judgement on others.

The business moves he has made since buying the Cowboys have been nothing hsort of brilliant, raising the value of his franchise and the league.

Jerry the Super Genius GM should set up a fantasy football league where he cannot do any damage.

we can sit here all day and argue about the team getting the lucky bounces in 2007 but not 2008. i, for one, don’t see it that way. you still have to be good enough to capitalize on that good bounce so we were good not just lucky in 2007. now what happened in 2008 that was different? injuries. lots of them. to some key players. yes jerry probably is vain. and really since i’m not around to hear the conversations i don’t know how good a gm he is or isn’t. i think we will bounce back in 2009 and i can’t wait til the may otas.

someone can turn this into an official post if they see fit.

http://cowboysblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2009/02/jerry-jones-hints-that-to-will-return.html

My gosh, I think Im truning into Terry only Im defending JJ. I think one day JJ will get us another SB.

ARLINGTON, Texas — Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones insists he hasn’t decided whether Terrell Owens will return and that coach Wade Phillips will be his own defensive coordinator in 2009.

Jones also said Tuesday he wasn’t surprised an agreement couldn’t be reached with Dan Reeves. The former Cowboys player who coached the Denver Broncos and Atlanta Falcons to the Super Bowl was set to join the team as a consultant before the deal fell through at the last minute.

Repeated questions over the status of Owens angered Jones. Speculation about the receiver’s future has swirled since the Cowboys’ season imploded with a blowout loss at Philadelphia that kept Dallas out of the playoffs.

Defensive coordinator Brian Stewart was fired a few weeks later, and Jones said Tuesday he decided not to hire a replacement.

Terry called it.

link

I believe the guy IS too involved in day-to-day operations, that he undermines his coaches with regard to discipline, and I’m not convinced he does have any respect for Cowboys’ history or the fans. He’s a great businessman; he knows how to make money. He’s a wretched coach.

but not as good as a GM/HC…….though, he has learned plenty through his many years.

However, JJ has failed to learn the most fundamental element of an organization…. let the HC do his job and not undermine his authority……or for sure he will be set up to fail.

If a person has a responsibility……he must have the authority to meet that responsibility and there are no ands, ifs or buts about it……………………..