Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is in real danger of becoming the NFL’s next Al Davis, and I’m not talking about the visionary and celebrated version of Davis from the 1960s and 1970s.
I’m talking about the latter years of Davis’s strangle hold of the Oakland Raiders franchise where they went from being in a Super Bowl to becoming the punch line of a bad joke in the space of a couple of seasons.
This tragic period only came to an end when Davis passed away. Jones is in no danger of leaving this earth anytime soon from natural causes. He can potentially continue to sabotage his own franchise for potentially decades yet.
The fortunes of Davis’s Raiders and Jones’s Cowboys are taking an eerily similar path. Although the Raiders seemed to be in a much bigger hurry to become the worst team in the league, the direction the Cowboys seem to be headed in isn’t far from where the Raiders ended up. But there is still time to stop this from happening.
The last time the Raiders made the Super Bowl was in 2002 where they lost to Tampa Bay, giving the Buccaneers their first league championship. Since then, the Raiders have not had a winning season and have had six different head coaches. The architect of this disastrous period was Davis.
Davis had assumed the dual role of owner/general manager back in the 1960s and had success during these years including Super Bowl victories. However, during the final decade of his life, Davis lost the plot.
Before the 2002 NFL season, Davis traded then Head Coach Jon Gruden to the Bucceneers for first and second round picks plus and $8 million. Gruden had taken the Raiders to the playoffs in 2000 and 2001.
So of course the best thing to do to keep winning would be to trade your successful head coach elsewhere… as far away as possible. They must’ve gotten along like a house on fire.
If you’ve been paying attention, you already know that the Bucs ended up beating the Raiders in the Super Bowl that year. Largely because Gruden’s replacement, Bill Callahan, used the same offence Gruden had used with the Raiders the four previous seasons.
The old “if it ain’t broke, why fix it” approach. The Raiders MVP QB Rich Gannon threw five interceptions that day. The Bucs defence even said after the game that they knew the plays that were coming. Gruden had schooled them up on the Raiders offence. It was like shooting fish in a barrel for Tampa Bay that day.
The rest, as they say, is history. Now, Jerry Jones isn’t exactly the Mad Hatter that Davis was. But the man is a control freak.
Before the Cowboys-Falcons game last week, Jones was asked if after a 123-124 win-loss record since 1997, whether “owner Jones” would have fired “General Manager Jones”. The answer was a surprising, “I think so.” But just when Cowboys fans thought a change was finally in the air, he came back a couple of days later and smashed that possibility to pieces.
“We are not structured that way,” said Jones. “We didn’t structure it that way with my ownership. There’s no way that I would be involved here and not be the final decision-maker on something as important as players, and that is a key area.
“That’s never been anybody’s misunderstanding. It’s been a debated thing, but it’s just not going to happen.”
Jones has had complete football control over the Cowboys since 1989, but despite early success, the strain is well and truly starting to show. And in today’s NFL, it is almost impossible to do it right.
The Cowboys have not won a Super Bowl since 1995 and haven’t made the playoffs for three years. The salary cap has made a general manager’s job a tough one. It is also increasingly becoming one half of a partnership with the head coach.
Some head coaches also fulfill the role of general manager, the Patriots Bill Belichick being one. However, as the burden of taking responsibility for all personnel decisions is so great, very few coaches in the NFL are tempted to it take.
The same can be said for the owners of franchises. They mostly from a business background and enjoy the game. And making money through the game. They are not fully equipped to make decisions on players and coaches. So they hire people who do. This is the norm. And history shows that this works.
The recent discussions around ex-Cowboys assistant and Super Bowl winner Sean Payton possibly becoming a free agent and going back to help Jerry out in Dallas are works of fiction, simply because of who Jones is and what he represents.
Payton worked with Saints QB Drew Brees to come up with the high powered offence the Saints are renowned for, it won them a Super Bowl. He worked with General Manager Mickey Loomis to give Brees the weapons he needed to run this offence. They were all on the same page.
In Dallas, if Jones doesn’t like it, it won’t happen. Simple. Payton won’t appreciate that kind of environment and Jones will end up firing yet another coach in his quest for another Super Bowl.
Jerry Jones is the Dallas Cowboys. Those who follow the game understand that. But if “America’s Team” is to be successful again, he needs to let go of the control he has over the coaches and players and cease being the egotistical fiend looking over everyone’s shoulder.
The pressure and frustration will turn him into a Mad Hatter, just like it did to Al Davis.
However, if Jones does somehow get to the big game in February and wins it, you can just see him with a huge Texas-sized smile on his face… while drenching himself with the Gatorade.
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