At the Cowboys annual golf event, our fearless owner and GM, Jerry Jones, held court on a variety of issues. Of course, he spoke about the lockout and what is happening in that regards. As you may suspect, with Jerry being the most-dedicated of optimists, he sees football being played this year, and without much disruption.
"You play this on a week-by-week, month-by-month, day-by-day basis," Jones said during the team's annual golf tournament for sponsors at the Cowboys Golf Club on Wednesday. "There is no point in having deadlines because you have to think what happens if you don't make the deadline. But you get up the next morning and go forward. We are going to have football. We are going to have a great league. We are going to have a great group of players. That is going to happen. This train is going to get there. I just want to be on it."
With the owners getting the upper-hand in the court fight, the players may be more ready to compromise than ever. No one believes the players will win the June 3rd hearing, so the lockout will stay in effect as long as the owners want it to, and that could be a long time unless they get what they want. The players, on the other hand, will probably start losing some of the unity they currently have as time drags on. It really becomes a financial issue, and not the billions the fight is supposedly about, but the pocketbooks of the players become the driving factor.
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Moving on from the lockout, Jerry spoke of Dez Bryant.
"Dez is one who, if you get him near a football, you have to slow him down, not get him encouraged," Jones said. "So if he does that in the right form, he gets to work with our quarterback, he gets to do the right things, the impact of not having our coaches involved before the season."
OK ...I guess Jerry is saying it's a good thing Dez is working out, and is not worried about injury, and that not having coaches involved is a good thing. I think. JerrySpeak can be hard to decipher sometimes.
While speaking of injuries...
Cowboys coach Jason Garrett said a few weeks ago the team talks to a third-party regarding how players are recovering from injury. Garrett said all the players coming off injuries last season -- including John Phillips, Kevin Ogletree, Tony Romo, Akwasi Owusu-Ansah, Sean Lissemore and Bryant -- are progressing.
One more thing from Jerry, the Cowboys organization is not going to layoff employees due to the lockout, or cutback salaries, as other teams have done or are planning to do. Events at JerryWorld are helping them financially.
Jones said there has been "normal turnover" this offseason and the team has replaced those who have left.
"Each team has its own approach," Jones said. "Each team has its own need for its off-the-field employees that includes their coaching staff. We, for all practical purposes, the Cowboys, are year-round for 99 percent of the employees that we have. And certainly we have an obligation to our stadium and the events that we’re involved in. When you look at the big picture, our operation and what we’re doing with our employees, it is more dictated by that than it is by the fact that we’re locked out."
This concludes your dose of JerrySpeak.