Jerry Jones sat down for a long interview with Chris Myers over at FOX Sports. I think this is a new interview, the FOX website is promoting it as such and I hadn’t seen it before. But they don’t talk about the draft at all which I thought was strange. Here is a recap.
Jerry said he needs to be the GM because of everything he has committed to the Cowboys and that if he wasn’t the GM and hired someone else to do it, he would be the biggest meddling owner in the NFL.
Myers asked him to describe his time with Bill Parcells, and Jerry said it was intense, and that he was surprised at how committed and how much time Parcells put into everything about the team. Jerry also said he never had a business associate with a better sense of humor than Parcells. He believes Parcells walked away because he looked at all the work that needed to be done in the offseason to get back or to surpass last year and he just wasn’t up to doing it. He was both surprised and disappointed by Parcells decision to leave. He thought he would come back and he wanted him to come back. Even though people thought they couldn’t work together, Jerry said Parcells honored his end of the deal but there were times when they clashed. During those times, Parcells would use every skill he had to make his case and convince Jerry of his point. The thing Jerry took away most from Parcells was his people skills with the players and his peers in getting them to do want he wanted for the team.
The conversation turned to Terrell Owens and Jerry again stated that both he and Parcells wanted T.O. on the team from the start. He also said T.O. had nothing to do with Parcells decision to walk away. Myers asked if Michael Irvin and T.O. were similar, but Jerry said only in their competitiveness. Jerry thought Irvin had the ability to motivate and elevate the play of the players around him. But he also said both guys are very genuine people.
When asked why he hired Wade Phillips at this time, Jerry said his style should work well following up on Parcells’ style. Parcells directed people on what he wanted to do, but Phillips works with people instead of directing them. He thought that style would fit the team better at this point. He also said he hired Phillips because of his experience and his track record as a coach, and that Dallas had invested a lot of resources into building a defense and he hopes Wade can maximize that potential.
Tony Romo was the next subject, and Jerry said that Romo has excellent instincts on the field but that he also works very hard to improve his play. He’s very diligent about working and getting better.
Jerry said that he would never sell the Cowboys and that it’s a family business. His biggest regret was not having the correct sensitivity in hiring Jimmy Johnson and letting go Coach Landry. He thought he got a grade of "F" for that effort when he maybe could’ve got a "C" if he had handled it better. Jerry talked about risk and how he is willing to take risks. He compared it to laying up or driving across the water in golf. He said if you play that way you will make some glaring mistakes but you try to minimize that as much as you can. Fortunately, he said, he can take those risks because he can’t be fired like other GM’s in the league.
When asked if he was shocked the Cowboys haven’t been back to the Super Bowl since winning three in the early 90’s, he said he was. He also said the "benefit of the doubt" he gained by winning those Super Bowls has been used up. He said he asked the "man upstairs" to give him that third Super Bowl win and that he wouldn’t ask for anymore. Now, he wants to re-work that deal with the "man upstairs" to get another. Jerry told Myers that he will never step away as the GM.
In a final piece, Myers wanted him to clear up the T.O. pill situation from last year even though it was old news. Jerry said unequivocally that T.O. wasn’t trying to hurt himself and that it was just a bad reaction to a mixture of pills.