Latest / The Facts with Jamal ๐บ๐ธ๐ฆ ๐ / Has Jerry Jones gotten too much blame for the #DallasCowboys 30 year title drought?
Transcript
- 0:01The Dallas Cowboys, since Jerry Jones bought the team in 1989,
- 0:07was once a power franchise. Of course.
- 0:11They won three Super Bowls in the four year span in the 90s,
- 0:17spearheaded by Jimmie Johnson leading the way as head coach.
- 0:21They were fueled by the triplets Troy Aikman, Emma Smith and
- 0:26Michael Irvin, as well as Charles Harry, Hall of Famer at
- 0:32the linebacker position and players you can argue that
- 0:36should be in the Hall of Fame have a case.
- 0:40And Jay Novacek and defensive back slash safety Darren Woodson
- 0:48we can't forget about. Also the great offensive line
- 0:51that they had that powered their way to three Super Bowls in four
- 0:56years. And it seemed like everything
- 1:00was on the up and up for Dallas, that they were just going to
- 1:02roll through the 90s and that the good times would continue in
- 1:07Dallas thing a loyalty setting amidst A turbulent end of the
- 1:181993 season despite the team winning the Super Bowl.
- 1:22Jimmie Johnson, for reasons we still technically don't
- 1:30understand, decide to step down at the end of that Super Bowl
- 1:34season. And even though Barry Switzer
- 1:38was hired not long after Johnson's departure, the team
- 1:43still ended up winning the Super Bowl in 1995.
- 1:48But it was century be the end all be all for that dynasty.
- 1:53The salary cap came a year prior, which forced Dallas to
- 2:00century got their team that had been the nucleus as far as some
- 2:04of the deaf players of those championship teams of the 90s
- 2:09and had to say goodbye as they went elsewhere.
- 2:14And after the 1995 season, that was the last time Dallas ever
- 2:21sniffed a Super Bowl. They haven't been back to the
- 2:26Super Bowl since that point, much less be in a conference
- 2:30championship game. And in the turn of the
- 2:35Millennium, since 2000, the franchise struggle essentially
- 2:41trying to stay afloat because of the Jerry Jones's bad draft
- 2:46decisions as GM or overpaying of guys that he ended up acquiring
- 2:53for your trade that just for one reason or another never seemed
- 2:57to pan out. Now while Jerry, and rightfully
- 3:03so, has gotten a ton of criticism for Dallas not being
- 3:09back in the championship game, much less a Super Bowl in over
- 3:14the last 30 years now I feel as if he has gotten way too much
- 3:21Flack for why this franchise hasn't gotten to that point.
- 3:28Because yes, it's easy to blame him directly for pretty much why
- 3:35this franchise has been so irrelevant in 30 years as far as
- 3:40the playoff runs, But I feel as if he's gotten so much blame for
- 3:49reasons that just never really made sense to me.
- 3:54I'm going to explain why, even despite everything, that this
- 4:00franchise has not really gotten done as far as being back to the
- 4:06Super Bowl. I'm going to talk about why
- 4:08Jerry Jones has gotten way too much blame for why that has been
- 4:14the case and that not enough of it has actually gone to the
- 4:20teams or player slash coaches that were actually good enough
- 4:26to get there. It's no secret that Jerry Jones
- 4:34throughout his tenure as owner, general manager and president of
- 4:40the Dallas Cowboys, he's always been known to doing things his
- 4:45way. Now, whether or not that's been
- 4:48a really a good thing, you know, you probably might need to talk
- 4:54to somebody that's your Cowboys fan or it's closely associated
- 4:59with Jerry. But if you really think about
- 5:04it, a lot has changed since the Cowboys last made to the Super
- 5:08Bowl in 1990. Five 96 season.
- 5:13Now mind you, their last Super Bowl win slash appearance was in
- 5:23the 1995 season. But the game itself, mind you,
- 5:27the Super Bowl, I'm sorry, it was in 1996.
- 5:34So we'll. So just for sake of
- 5:36clarification, I was born in early 1995. the Super Bowl was
- 5:46in February 1996. So I've been alive for 31 years
- 5:54and I have yet to see that franchise be in the MC title
- 5:57game slash Super Bowl. Yeah, that's three decades of
- 6:03that team being completely out of the mix, it seems come
- 6:08playoff time every year. And look, while most people want
- 6:14to blame Jerry Jones for the franchise not being able to get
- 6:19back to that point, to me it feels as if the Cowboy fans have
- 6:25blamed the wrong person too many times.
- 6:31If you take out, let's just say for the sake of argument, 1996
- 6:38to let's say 2002 when the franchise, you know, had some
- 6:46really turbulent years. If you really look at it, from
- 6:532003 to, I'm just going to say up until 2018, give or take,
- 7:02this franchise actually started to turn the corner and actually
- 7:09drafted better. Now, the majority of that you
- 7:14can credit even now from 2018 to now has been Will Mclay, who was
- 7:22at one point the scouting personnel director for the
- 7:27Cowboys. He's still with the
- 7:29organization, but he's been elevated, I believe, to pro
- 7:33player personnel. And also having Steven Jones
- 7:38kind of like stealing his stat away from the controversial and
- 7:44even at times draft picks with red flags or even the free agent
- 7:52that Jerry want to go all in on. But Steven had to kind of
- 7:57convince us that let's not do that.
- 8:00Let's go with the safe bet that has actually been more of a
- 8:04positive for the Cowboys than anything.
- 8:09And look, when I mentioned the year 2003, that's essentially
- 8:14what I want to start with after the after Barry Shorts, his
- 8:18tenure ended in Dallas and Cherry Gary and Don Campbell's
- 8:24afterwards didn't necessarily pan out.
- 8:28Jerry actually went with a old NFC East rival.
- 8:34That would be one Bill Par Sells.
- 8:38Now if you really look at from 2003 to 2006, that was par sells
- 8:47tenure with the Cowboys. He actually got that franchise
- 8:52turned around. He led them to three playoff
- 9:01appearances in that time and while we didn't yield much
- 9:05postseason success, a lot of credit went to him simply
- 9:09because if you consider where the franchise was at that time,
- 9:13it was sort of an upgrade more than anything.
- 9:18But at a certain point, and unfortunately, this is what with
- 9:21Layer BB, Jerry being known for all too well, just like with
- 9:27Jimmy Johnson, Pryor, he didn't like the idea of Parcells
- 9:34getting way too much credit for the Cowboys turn around.
- 9:37And you know, when you're working for a guy like Jerry who
- 9:41wants to be hands on with everything, you can pretty much
- 9:46guess that maybe it's time to go yourself away.
- 9:51And that's what Parcells did. And as a matter of fact, that
- 9:55was actually his last head coaching job.
- 9:58Besides, he was probably going to retire after that anyway, so
- 10:03kind of makes sense for the Hall of Famer.
- 10:07Then we get to weigh Phillips in 2007.
- 10:11That was when Phillips was higher.
- 10:14You can argue that Cowboys team was just as good as any team in
- 10:18the NFL, maybe outside the Patriots that year until
- 10:23obviously the final game of the season that year the of a Super
- 10:29Bowl. I'm sorry, that year the Cowboys
- 10:33won 13 games. They look like to be the class
- 10:37of the NFC. And when you had a team that was
- 10:42literally loaded on both sides of the ball from Tony Romo to
- 10:48Jason Wayne, Taylor Owens, Marion Barber, Mayhew, Rest in
- 10:53Peace, Julius Jones, a stable offensive line and a great
- 10:58defense anchored by DeMarcus Rare and a standout defense
- 11:05overall, you would think they were good enough to at least get
- 11:10to the championship game, much less the Super Bowl, right?
- 11:14Well, they won 13 games like I said, and actually had the
- 11:18second seed because remember at that time before the NFL, next
- 11:22to two teams, if you had the top 2 records, you got first round
- 11:28bars. Dallas got one of those.
- 11:30And so it was the perfect scenario, Dallas hosting a home
- 11:36game against the All Tribal Giants in the divisional round.
- 11:41The Giants, fresh off of a upset win over Tampa, apparently
- 11:46didn't take too kind to Jerry Jones when he essentially
- 11:52guaranteed tickets to his team for the NFC title game next
- 11:56Sunday. That day against Green Bay.
- 12:00Whatever Tom Coughlin, Giants coach, said to his team prior to
- 12:07kick off that day, it must have worked because not only did the
- 12:14Giants use that as a morphine factor, they essentially went
- 12:22out there and beat some would say arguably the best team in
- 12:27the NFC that year. All signs sealed and delivered
- 12:31by a late interception by Tony Romo to essentially end.
- 12:37That was the stream again, back to the Anarchy, Tywin and of
- 12:43course the following year, everything that went so well the
- 12:49year before since we came unravelling.
- 12:54They were eight and four at one point with a handful of games
- 13:00left and look to be in a good position to win the division
- 13:05once again. But then, and unfortunately,
- 13:10this is another thing that will come to define Jerry Jones's
- 13:16tenure as owner, president, GM of the team.
- 13:20They fell apart in the second-half of the season, and
- 13:25it got punctuated by two games, one of those games that just
- 13:31happened to be against my Ravens at the final game ever at Texas
- 13:36Stadium. Oh, yeah, I remember that like
- 13:40it was yesterday. The Cowboys were officially
- 13:44closing their doors on the historic stadium at the 30
- 13:49years, 35 years, I'm sorry, in existence.
- 13:54My Ravens came in there. I want to say it was on a
- 13:58Saturday night, 'cause remember it was, I believe week 16.
- 14:04And it's usually around that time when, you know, holidays
- 14:09arrive and especially it's that time when playoff positioning
- 14:14matters. Not only did my Ravens go into
- 14:18Texas State, you know what I mean?
- 14:21Since she gave it a respectful goodbye by being the Cowboys, it
- 14:29left Cowboy fans kind of wondering, well, we ended up
- 14:37losing in our final home game ever at that stadium.
- 14:41So surely Philadelphia, where Dallas was going to be the
- 14:44following week since they have already been the Eagles, you
- 14:49figure, well, we can shake off that loss and you know, just
- 14:53focus on our hair rival, right? Long story short, Philadelphia
- 15:03events not only their early season loss to the Cowboys, but
- 15:09the game itself was never even close. 41 to 44 is 6.
- 15:16I'm sorry, was the end result and that game actually was what
- 15:23the Eagles needed because remember 2008, the Giants won
- 15:29the division that year after posting trouble for record.
- 15:35And like I said, the Eagles were trying to get through the back
- 15:37door to playoffs and it happened.
- 15:42And there's no better feeling, obviously, of sending away your
- 15:47division rival after they are humiliate you earlier in the
- 15:53season and send their playoff hopes back.
- 16:00And then, of course, you know, following year, underweight
- 16:04Phillips, the teammate to playoffs but lost in the solo.
- 16:08And then the year after, it just got off to an uneven start.
- 16:14Phillips is 5 midway through the season.
- 16:17And then came Jason Garrett, who Jerry Jones had kind of been
- 16:23waiting in the rings to be the head coach at that point.
- 16:26He was the offensive coordinator.
- 16:29Also was the back of quarterback to Troy Aikman in his eighth
- 16:35seasons with the franchise before moving on to the Giants
- 16:39to end his playing career. He will end up being the longest
- 16:4710 year head coach of Jones's time in Dallas and for some of
- 16:52the good if you want to say came with a lot of missed
- 16:57opportunities once Jason Garrett finally was named the full time
- 17:07head coach in 2011. The first three years, as far as
- 17:13what that team potentially could have been with a new transition
- 17:17of players were almost still at the helm.
- 17:21But then you had guys like Dez Bryant, Miles Austin, DeMarco
- 17:25Murray, a revamped offensive line and the defense.
- 17:31Even though DeMarcus Rare was about to be out the door after
- 17:34the 2013 season, that was still good enough to at least contend.
- 17:40Unfortunately, and this probably would be the only time I can
- 17:45actually remember each of Garrett's first Four Seasons as
- 17:52a head coach. The first three, they ended up
- 17:56missing the playoffs. Oh, and not just missing the
- 18:01playoffs, they had chance to win the division all three of those
- 18:11years in the final week of the season.
- 18:14And all three they lost in no particular order to the Giants,
- 18:20Redskins and yeah, I guess that Eagles.
- 18:29Now what does that say? That your team on the last week
- 18:37of the regular season ended up losing to all three of your
- 18:43divisional opponents with a chance to not only win it, but
- 18:48to host at least a playoff game. Now if that were any other
- 18:52franchise and owner, their head coach would have been kicked out
- 18:56after that last one in particular.
- 19:01But no, not Jerry Jones, and he ended up not only keeping
- 19:08Garrett, which you can kind of question if that was even a
- 19:13smart thing to be honest with you, but 2014 it may have seemed
- 19:24like Jerry was right. Here's what actually helped
- 19:28Jerry and the Cowboys subsequently.
- 19:32Let's look at a 2014 info tribe. The Cowboys were on the clock
- 19:37that year. I forgive me if I don't remember
- 19:39what pick they were. I think they were in the mid,
- 19:44you know, from 11 to 20. Jerry felt that certain point he
- 19:51needed to infest in the quarterback position long term
- 19:55'cause Roman was getting up there in age and he wanted
- 20:00Johnny Manzo from Texas AM. But at the last moment, Steven
- 20:08Jones had to kind of step in and say, you know, yes, we may need
- 20:13to prioritize the back or quarterback position, but we
- 20:17need an offensive lineman, more particularly Zach Martin.
- 20:24And even though Jerry wasn't really too keen on wanting to
- 20:28make this pick, he had to listen to his son, and it actually
- 20:33turned out to be the best move possible.
- 20:37So they ended up taking Sakamoto, who became the
- 20:39nucleus, along with Travis Frederick and Tyler Smith, of
- 20:45that revamped offensive line that kept warmer upright for
- 20:51most of that season. That allowed DeMarco Murray to
- 20:55lead the league in rushing and to let Dash Fine continue his
- 21:02what was All Pro trajectory as wide receiver, while Jason
- 21:05Witten continued to be the safety foul at the tie in spot.
- 21:13And it worked. I mean, Dallas once again was
- 21:17among the top two teams in the NFL that year as far as the NFC.
- 21:22And after being the Lions in a home playoff game, they were on
- 21:28their way of Green Bay to face off against the Packers.
- 21:32And if you're a Cowboys fan listening to this,
- 21:35unfortunately, I have to Fast forward to what has now been
- 21:43unfortunately, the, I guess, signature moment of the Jerry
- 21:50Jones era. See, and I'm sure you've
- 21:54probably always seen this by a lot of Times Now, the catch that
- 22:01that's by made that he thought was a completion actually turned
- 22:08out to be not. So it was when I first saw it on
- 22:13the instant replay a couple of times, it was really hard to see
- 22:21if that was really a catch or not.
- 22:24At first I thought he completed it.
- 22:26I thought that is an incredible catch at the most near time for
- 22:34that team. But then that's when instant
- 22:38replay came about and the official, whoever was said that
- 22:46the ball, you know, it started to hit the ground when Dash was
- 22:49trying to, after getting tackled, tried to hit the ground
- 22:58and it just felt incomplete. And in that immediate moment, if
- 23:04you were a Cowboy fan, you were in disbelief that not only that
- 23:09you thought your star receiver had made a game changing play,
- 23:17but instantly play with Sod O. And then of course, Green Bay
- 23:22found a way to win. And if NCAFNFC title game
- 23:27against Seattle. Now, as a Rams fan, and I can be
- 23:38the first to admit I've seen my team had their share of playoff
- 23:42disappointments. And yeah, well, they're games
- 23:46that I looked at as a fan and say, yeah, we could have won
- 23:49that game and maybe going even further, you know, a little bit
- 23:54hard to say, But that's why I don't look at playoff losses
- 23:59particularly that bad to see. I would much rather lose to see
- 24:06my team lose in the wild card, divisional round or even, let's
- 24:13say, a conference title game scenario.
- 24:17Because if I had saw my team lost in the Super Bowl, after
- 24:21everything they have worked hard for from all season, train to
- 24:25train, camp the rigors of the season and to get to the Super
- 24:30Bowl and have it all meant for nothing, Yeah, I think that
- 24:38would be something I would never lift down.
- 24:43And unfortunately for Dallas fans, at least in the Jason
- 24:47Garrett error, unfortunately for Dallas fans, that would actually
- 24:52be as good as a guy in the Garrett machine at work. 2016,
- 25:01they ended up drafting Dak Proskar in the fourth round.
- 25:05And ultimately he had to be inserted into the starting
- 25:11rotation because Romo had got injured in the pre season and
- 25:17subsequently that would be the end of his career.
- 25:21And while they drive the C Galleria in the first round, he
- 25:26was the callous of that offense and the offensive line was still
- 25:31great. And once again, and this is
- 25:35actually where you could say 2014, 2007 prior and 2014 and
- 25:472016 might be the three years they could have done something
- 25:53meaningful but fell short. So they were hosting a playoff
- 25:58game at AT&T Stadium. Once again, Green Bay was wait
- 26:05on the other side. Now I won't give that plus guy
- 26:10credit 'cause I have not given him many since he became star.
- 26:15He actually went toe to toe with Aaron Rodgers and played great.
- 26:21It's just that when the game was tied at a certain point, Aaron
- 26:26Rodgers, who had been accustomed to come back so often, ended up
- 26:33engineering a game when he drive, punctuated by finding
- 26:37Jared Crooked's tie in near the sidelines rule completion.
- 26:44And then Mason Crosby ended up kicking the game-winning field
- 26:47goal, eliminating the one seed Cowboys once again.
- 26:53And if you're a Cowboys fan, it's like, wow, for two out of
- 26:58three years we had an opportunity to get to the tile
- 27:03game of the conference. And in both years we fell short
- 27:08against Green Valley. And then really to sum it up,
- 27:15the next couple years, despite being CIO in the playoff game,
- 27:19it really didn't matter. And Jason Gale was gone not long
- 27:23after that. And to sum up, essentially Mike
- 27:28McCarthy and his Simon Dallas, I mean, the only game that you
- 27:33really need to know that summed up there.
- 27:38It was a couple things. But poor clock management, a bad
- 27:44defense and against San Francisco at home, of course, we
- 27:50all know the end of that. When they tried to come up to
- 27:54the line the Cowboys offense when time was seeking down
- 27:58'cause they did not have any timeouts, that plus got tried to
- 28:02spike the ball hoping to save at least 2nd 2 left on the game
- 28:09clock. He actually spiked it.
- 28:14They just time had expired and San Francisco hanged on and won
- 28:19the game and to a couple of years later.
- 28:25Same opponent, different really cast characters.
- 28:31Now that year Dallas had you can argue with team, you could say,
- 28:37well we'll see 'cause remember by that point the playoff format
- 28:41changed and only one team could get 5.
- 28:45So they were hosting Green Bay once again.
- 28:48They had not lost a home game that year.
- 28:52The defense was all world, their offense was good enough, and
- 28:57they were playing A7C Packers team led by Joy and Love and
- 29:02Marvel Fluor that many thought would get blown out by Dallas.
- 29:08Oh, it was a blowout, right? But it happened to Dallas and
- 29:15once again, Dallas fell short in the post.
- 29:18And if you're a Cowboy fan and the span of a decade, you lost
- 29:27it with same franchise three times in the post season, along
- 29:31with the other mishaps you had, from the Botchormel snap to
- 29:36losing the Black father against the Vikings and to missing the
- 29:41playoffs three straight years, losing to you, the divisional
- 29:46opponent in all of those. And we'll see about what Brian
- 29:54Scheinheimer does, you know, going forward.
- 30:00So I essentially highlight in Barbarium 30 years of this.
- 30:07If you're a Cowboys fan wondering if we'll ever get back
- 30:12to a Super Bowl, much less a conference, talk now.
- 30:25Everybody that's a Cowboys fan or have known to be around the
- 30:30Cowboys and even former players, everyone wants to point the
- 30:35finger at Jerry Jones for why that team has not gotten back to
- 30:39that point. And you know what?
- 30:43Has Jerry said a lot of controversial things?
- 30:46Sure. Has he in a lot of ways been the
- 30:51countless or the sole reason why they haven't gone back to that
- 30:56point? You can definitely say that for
- 30:59sure, but I feel as if he's gotten way too much blame for
- 31:07all of the wrong reasons. You can't blame him for many of
- 31:13the team's failures cause the reality is he's not out there
- 31:17making mistakes. He's not out there, if you are a
- 31:21coach, you know, either being bad with time management, you
- 31:30know, not knowing what to do in critical situations.
- 31:36And if he's not a player that's out there making bone hand
- 31:41mistakes, not knowing what he's supposed to do, committing down
- 31:46penalties. And certainly when it comes to,
- 31:50you know, the Cowboys being known for notorious headline
- 31:52making, he's not out there doing all that.
- 31:58So it's hard to say and sit here and say that, well, Jerry
- 32:02deserves a ton of blame, OK? While he has, you know, gotten
- 32:09his share, you can't blame him entirely for 30 years of not
- 32:17getting on far. If anything, you should be, you
- 32:22know, looking at the coaches he's had, the players that come
- 32:27to this franchise in the games that you thought you should have
- 32:32won as missed opportunities. Because the reality of it, we
- 32:41can't. And I think This is why society
- 32:45is what it is. Unfortunately, we always want to
- 32:49look for a reason to blame one person for.
- 32:54You cannot blame Jerry for this. He has done what he has to do to
- 33:01put the team in the spot to where they can be competitive.
- 33:07But saying he's been the problem all these years, I think it's a
- 33:13little bit misleading now, yes, if you want to say he has been
- 33:22responsible for bad decision making as far as picking the
- 33:25wrong players, probably not being all in or free agency and
- 33:30that stuff. Sure, I'm going to listen to
- 33:34anybody that says it. But at the end of the day, he's
- 33:38not out there making your mistakes on the field because
- 33:42here's where I think you should actually look at the players and
- 33:46or coaches. Saint Nigeria's to blame.
- 33:51I think it's as I mean he had teams now that were good enough
- 34:01over the last, you could say 2 decades that were good enough to
- 34:11get there. He had the players to do it.
- 34:14He had the talent to do it. Why not look at the players and
- 34:22or coaches? Because essentially trying to
- 34:26blame everything on him is essentially saying like it's all
- 34:33his fault that we're never going to be able to compete at a high
- 34:37level. It work.
- 34:42Yeah. I'm not a Cowboys fan, so I can
- 34:44only speak from a distance, but I just don't think he deserves
- 34:50all of the blame. Now, maybe at one point if you
- 34:55wanted to say he deserved it because you know, he say he was
- 34:59going to go all in, he was going to do this and that to kind of
- 35:02help the franchise, sure. But the idea that he has gotten
- 35:09not enough blame is ridiculous. I mean, look at the players he
- 35:16had that had named that were good enough to get that team to
- 35:21the top. Why not look at them?
- 35:25Why not look at, at least for the majority of the time, Jason
- 35:30Carragan or Mike McCarthy? Why don't you look at those
- 35:34guys? Unfortunately in in the end, I
- 35:42don't know in all honesty, if the Cowboys will even get back
- 35:47to this point because the way Jerry, I mean, remember, this is
- 35:56a guy that at one point said he would write a huge paycheck just
- 36:03to get to a Super Bowl. So I think he knows that his
- 36:09mortality as far as being here on the surface about to come
- 36:14right in. But the idea he deserves so much
- 36:20blame for all the wrong reasons or the right reasons, it's
- 36:24ridiculous. You can't blame him for now 30
- 36:29years. Just pure misery.
- 36:33You have to look at the other reasons as to why they have not
- 36:38gone back to that point. Cause trust me he may be on
- 36:42there that is for sure. But there are more underlying
- 36:46factors that you're not realizing.
- 36:50That's the one why?