As I write this, we're thick in the midst of the NFL playoffs. My Dallas Cowboys were humiliated last week by the upstart Green Bay Packers. It was one of the most humiliating defeats I've witnessed in over forty years of watching football. To call it an embarrassment is an understatement.
I became a Cowboy's fan in 1978 at the age of seven. This was the year the Dallas Cowboys played the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XII. I remember vividly how I became a fan. McDonald's used to run promotions every year for the Super Bowl. One day, about a week before the game, my Dad and I went to McDonalds and I saw banners for both teams. I didn't know, or care, much about football at that time, but my Dad asked me who was going to win. Being an animal lover, I was drawn to the horse on the Bronco's helmet so I declared that I would root for Denver. My Dad smirked at me and shook his head. I'll never forget him saying: "You never count out Roger Staubach and the Dallas Cowboys."
Anyone who knows football knows the legendary exploits of Roger Staubach. I didn't want to disappoint my Dad so I declared that I'd root for Dallas instead. The Cowboys went on to beat Denver for their second Super Bowl win of the 1970s. I still didn't follow them all that closely, but anytime a kid at school would ask me who my favorite football team was, I defaulted to the Cowboys, even though growing up in Sacramento, we were in Forty-Niner territory.
As I got older I started watching football more and rooting for the Cowboys. Unfortunately, the 1980s were not a good decade for the Cowboys and many times I wished I'd have gone with the "home team" Forty-Niners as my team. They dominated the 80s as the team of the decade.
The Cowboy's fortunes changed in the 1990's when Jerry Jones bought the team and installed Jimmy Johnson as the coach. Although I became a fan in the 70s with Roger Staubach, Tony Dorsett, Randy white, etc., I was in my twenties in the 90's and Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith, Michael Irvin and the rest of those teams truly became "my" Cowboys. The Cowboys won three Super Bowls in the 1990s and should have won more had Jerry Jones not fired Jimmy Johnson. We Cowboy fans were spoiled and only vaguely understood the ramifications of that firing. I knew the firing was all about ego and felt this was a bad sign going forward, but I never dreamed it would be twenty-eight years and counting without another Super Bowl victory!
As a fan, I have a love/hate relationship with Jerry Jones. I'll always be grateful for those three Super Bowl victories, but also resentful that he's so ego driven that he can't get out of his own way. It's well documented that Jerry Jones learned the NFL-ropes from Al Davis, notorious owner of the Oakland Raiders. In retrospect, their ownership tenures mirror each other. Both had early success, but then stubbornly refused to change their ways, and ultimately never won another Super Bowl. As frustrating as it is, I truly don't think Dallas will win again until Jerry Jones is gone.
Ego can be a good thing in some cases, but not in his. Jerry Jones needs to be the center of attention. He craves it! He can't handle sharing credit or the spotlight. He's one of the few owners in all sports that does more interviews then the head coaches. Speaking of head coaches, he refuses to hire strong-willed head coaches who will challenge him, and potentially pull the spotlight away from him.
We're currently stuck with Mike McCarthy. By all accounts he's an average head coach, but has proven he can't get the Cowboys over the hump. This latest beat-down should have signaled the end of his tenure in Dallas, but Jerry is keeping him on. I don't hate McCarthy. He's a good head coach, but not great. My biggest issue is that this offseason there are two obvious coaching upgrades available in Bill Bill Belichick and Jim Harbough. When you have a chance to get a head coach of their calibur you've got to take a chance.
Dak Prescott is our quarterback, and like McCarthy, I don't think he's terrible, but he's not elite. He's a rank 8-15 level quarterback. If the rest of the team was loaded he could lead a team to a Super Bowl win, but he doesn't elevate the play of others. I fear Jerry is going to pay him elite-level quarterback pay which is going to hamstring our salary cap for years to come.
The team is in that no-man's land area. They are good enough to produce winning records in the regular season, but not good enough to go deep in the playoffs. Having a good record means a poor draft choice, and then paying a mid-level quarterback elite-level money means the cycle of mediocrity the Cowboys have been in for 28 years continues.
I will give Jerry Jones credit as an astute business man. He's built the Cowboys into the most valuable North American sports franchise despite no championships in almost 30 years. They are the most highly covered team in all sports. Their games consistently get top ratings. I'm sure he's raking in the money. However, this makes him complacent. He says he's all about winning, but what does winning a championship really accomplish for him? Nothing really. This is why I don't buy into his boasts about how desperatly he wants to win another Super Bowl.
I'll always be a Cowboy's fan, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't extremely frustrated. It's depressing realizing that the Cowboys won't win another Super Bowl until Jerry Jones passes away and a new owner takes over. Hopefully an owner who will hire a good general manager and a good coach and stay out of the way and let them do their jobs. Until then I'll try to comfort myself with good regular seasons and low expectations of winning a championship.
