Me, Jerry Jones and the Ice Cold Beer

I met Jerry Jones in WalMart last night and introduced myself as one of the BTB bloggers. He said he reads it daily, recognized my name and said that I looked much thinner in person. (Obviously referring to my avatar.)

To my surprise he invited me to his house in Highland Park and he and I sat around watching past issues of ‘The Man Show' on Tivo and drinking really cold beer. As you might expect, the talk turned to the Cowboys and I think because he had consumed several beers Jerry held his head in his hands and said, "Jim, you are clearly one of the brightest guys on BTB and you have no ulterior motives to steer me wrong. I'm frustrated about this team, I thought we were so close in 2007 and then we tanked in 2008. I decided to clean house and rebuild from within. What advice would you give me? Give me three gems of wisdom to get us to the Super Bowl and I swear I will follow your advice."

I was stunned but without hesitation I said, "Jerry, you are a great owner, but you should hire an outside guy as a GM. I thought you were on the right track with Dan Reeves. Call them a consultant or a GM or whatever, but get a guy with a long term view on how to build a team.  Hire someone who has experience in building an organization, not just a team"

Jerry was mumbling something about Dan Reeves and a time card but I went on with my advice.  "Jerry, the second gem I would offer up is that you should implement a long term strategy towards success, using the Patriots as a model. They have consistently been winners over the last few years, and yet I always seem to see them picking early and often in the draft. They lose players but have backups ready to step in and perform. That should be your strategy too."

He was nodding his head in a positive manner and started to take notes. I went on with my third gem. "Finally Jerry, I have heard people ask the question about are the Cowboys making a run for the playoffs now or is this a rebuilding year? Why does it have to be either or? Why can't we always be running towards the playoffs AND rebuilding where we need to rebuild. They shouldn't be mutually exclusive. I like the moves you made this year"

He looked at me with a strange look in his eye and started kicking my shin saying, "Why are you calling me Jerry?"

I apologized and said, "OK, I'll call you Mr. Jones, but you asked me for my advice, I was......"

My wife kicked me in the shin again saying, "I'm not Mr. Jones either you knucklehead, wake up!"

OK, so it was all a dream, Jerry probably doesn't buy his beer at Wally World either. But what if I really was having a few cold ones with Jerry? What do you think of my advice? Would you offer something different?