Watching Jason Witten Retire With Grinning Jerry Jones

Risen Star said:

I'm not the one who mentioned Parcells while worshipping a guy who quit on his team in the middle of the draft.

I just pointed out the irony of it all.

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birdwells1 said:

They did it in 2014 when we went 4-12, then from 1999-2002 they went 8-8, 5-11, 5-11 and 5-11 the brand has never been damaged. The brand is "the Dallas Cowboys are the biggest tv draw in American sports" and that has not changed in my lifetime and I've been watching since the early 70s.

Jerry Jones has done a better job of marketing the Cowboys than the previous ownership and I'll give him credit for that but his generating more revenue hasn't helped us win and that's what we as fans are ultimately concerned with.

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Risen Star said:

You don't seem to get it . I responded to someone calling Parcells a quitter. You've seem to gloss over that and focus entirely on defense of your role model.

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OmerV said:

4-12 was immediately preceded by 12-4, and immediately followed by 13-3, so that’s not the same thing. Besides, I didn’t say the record was the only factor. Marketing the team and making sure there is always interest in the team - the brand - is huge. That’s what Jerry has been able to do, even in down times, and what the Cowboys were not able to do in the late 1980’s. It doesn’t just happen by accident. Why do you think companies from Coca Cola to ExxonMobil to Academy Sports to any other company you can name spends so much money on advertising? It’s because without it their brand (name, reputation, market share, profits) will fall. They promote the brand knowing if they don’t the brand will falter.

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birdwells1 said:

You're trying to give JJ credit for something that was in place before he purchased the team. Before JJ they were the number one sports franchise in USA, the number one ratings getter in all of TV, he just found a way to monetized it.

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jazzcat22 said:

You just don't get it do you, are are you that narcissistic?

I do not worship anyone, or any player. I say parcels quit on the team, because of all the things he said after the season ended, then he turns around and says he doesn't want to do it anymore. Whatever, tell yourself what you want, make up things I did not say.

Witten retired and it has been know that he may do so for a while. No way the tam or Jerry or someone did not know. ESPN didn't say all of a sudden during the draft, HEY JASON RETIRE..HERE IS AN OFFER.
Parcels acted as if he was going to be back, then a day later or maybe a few he said it just is not in him anymore.

OK maybe he didn't, and decided to retire, but to me the way he did it, he quit on the players. And that is not calling him a quitter, it is saying he quit on the players at that time.

There is no irony.

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Risen Star said:

St. Jason said days before he quit on the team that he intended to try to play until he was 40. Then he got a better offer and bolted. In the middle of the draft.

Parcells never acted like anything. You made that up hoping I would accept it as true. He was an old man tired of the Jones lunacy and he left before free agency and the draft.

I salute Parcells for restoring the Cowboys back to relevance.

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OmerV said:

No I’m not, because what was in place when Jerry bought the team was a brand that had faltered and was losing money.

I never said Jerry created the brand, and in fact, specifically said he knew that in buying the Cowboys he had a brand in place that he could market and promote. But that doesn’t change the fact the brand had lost some luster and was suffering at the time. Wjhat I said was, Jerry built it back up - and he did. Winning was the first step in restoring luster, but unlike the late 1980s, Jerry has been able to keep the interest and spending levels of the fans up even through down times on the field.

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birdwells1 said:

When you say the brand was suffering, where would you rank the brand in the NFL at the time JJ purchased it?

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drawandstrike said:

"They".

Thank you for bringing that up. Yes, once Jerry the GM finally wised up after the stunning 2010 collapse, he finally did something he should've done long before that: he started CEDING CONTROL to other people. THAT is why the team has been built the 'right' way starting with the 2011 draft. Jerry was finally SCARED enough to start actually listening to /giving control to other people.

I've said this often: as an OWNER Jerry is second only to Robert Kraft. As a GM, until around 2011 there were about 27 other GM's I'd have ranked above him. Now that the Cowboys have essentially been doing "GM By Committee" since 2011, with Stephen Jr. and Willie McClay and others actually getting Jones to listen to them, the drafts are very very good.

I'm not worried about PERSONNEL or talent level on this team. What that OP is about is the coaching staff that can't create/change the team culture since the owner has that under lock and key.

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Melonfeud said:

I'm taking that as being wrapped up in the yellow flag wrapping paper

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jazzcat22 said:

Tell yourself what ever you want then.
I never said Parcels wasn't good for the team.
That was along time ago anyway.

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OmerV said:

Lol - we’ll, I’m afraid my in depth knowledge of every NFL team 30 years ago isn’t as vivid as with the Cowboys, so I’ll have to decline to offer an exact ranking. The ranking damn sure wasn’t #1 then though. Probably more like middle of the pack. The reality is the team was being sold because it was struggling. Had it been increasing in value year after year like it has since Jerry bought the team, Bum Bright would have held to it like a life raft.

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drawandstrike said:

Made this rant on Twitter the other day as I watched the Witten press conference. The sight of Jerry Jones prattling on as he watched one of the greatest players of all time ride off into the sunset was too much for me to take.

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And so Jason Witten retires.

I am on the last episode of Amazon Prime Video's 'All Or Nothing: The Dallas Cowboys' which revisits the 2017 season Dallas had. And I am once again about to rant about Jerry Jones. Who is on my TV at the moment with Witten.

I am absolutely horrified by what I'm seeing in the 8 episodes of "All Or Nothing", which recounts a year in which once again, Dallas got nothing. I see a team culture where coaches crave the acceptance of their PLAYERS, which is exactly backwards.

I see a coaching staff that sees itself as father figures, motivational speakers, life coaches, who want to be their player's BFF's. You know what the most successful NFL franchise has been since Dallas declined in the late 1990's?

It's the New England Patriots.

The New England Patriots are owned by Robert Kraft and the head coach is Bill Belichick, a guy who learned the ropes under Bill Parcells, a no-nonsense disciplinarian. The team culture between Dallas & New England could not be more different or starker.

Bill Belichick & his coaching staff most certainly do not see themselves as their player's BFF's or hand clapping motivational speakers or life coaches. They are TASKMASTERS, strict disciplinarians who keep a firm line between those who give the orders and those who take them.

Jimmy Johnson was old school. He built a team and established a winning culture, all the while holding Jerry Jones at bay, who wanted to get in there and coddle and 'nurture' the players.

The biggest thing that caused the Jimmy/Jerry relationship to finally break down after 2 straight Super Bowl wins was that Jimmy Johnson got tired of holding Jerry Jones at bay. And once Jimmy left & Jones got his way, the club has never been the same.

The Team That Jimmy Built won 1 more Super Bowl under Barry Switzer, the good ol' boy who let Jerry get in there at last and completely sabotage the team culture.

I don't know if you've ever seen it, but Troy Aikman went off on a sideline rant that was captured on camera. In it he says stuff is now going on with the team that Johnson would never have allowed. They've lost their edge. Starts at 4:40



That wasn't just Barry Switzer's fault. That was Jerry Jone's fault. Jones completely changed the team culture in just 3 short years that Switzer was there. By 2002 Jerry the GM had made such a wreck of the franchise he finally threw his hands up and sought help.


Jones went and brought in Bill Parcells to rebuild the franchise, which Parcells did, with Jones interfering with him the entire way. Parcells was to draft and coach up the team and manage the games but Jones made it clear the TEAM CULTURE was off limits. The players needed a nurturing, family environment and Jones was not going to let Parcells change it.


From 2003 to 2006, in 4 seasons Parcells resurrected the franchise from the shambles Jones has reduced it to.

Try as he might, even as he built a team that could compete & brought in Tony Romo, DeMarcus Ware, Jason Witten & more, Parcells was helpless to counter Jones' influence in subverting his attempts to change the team CULTURE.

What was Parcell's reward for doing this? After rebuilding the club, Jones had his new stadium ready and figured he didn't need Parcells any more. So Jones didn't renew Parcell's contract once it expired after the 2006 season. The Cowboys had just made the playoffs with their new QB, Tony Romo. Jones figured he was set. So he bid Parcells adieu and made Wade Phillips the new head coach in 2007.

And thus was the stage set for the rise of a new Cowboys dynasty!

Just kidding.

After going 14-2 in 2007 with The Team Bill Built, the Cowboys lost to the Giants in the very first playoff game at home.

2008 followed with the team missing the playoffs. In 2009 they made the playoffs, beat the Eagles in the 1st round, then were absolutely blown out by Brett Farve and the Minnesota Vikings. And then 2010 arrived. And the team totally collapsed.

After a humiliating 1-7 start to the season, Jones fired Wade Phillips and promoted OC Jason Garrett to head coach. Phillips, like Switzer & Chan Gailey & Dave Campo, the coaches who followed him & preceded Parcells, were yes men. They didn't ever stand up to Jones.

And so since mid-2010, Jason Garrett has been the head coach, laboring under a team CULTURE that - like all the other coaches since Jimmy Johnson - he really has no control over. He does what he's ALLOWED to do by the owner always at his elbow playing GM.

Would Jason Garrett have been a rah-rah cheerleader motivational life coach-type head coach if he hadn't had Jerry Jones constantly at his elbow urging him to treat all the players like just one big happy family? Maybe, maybe not. But that's what happened.

And watching this 8 episode season of 'All Or Nothing: The Dallas Cowboys' horrified me at the state of this team culture currently. These players have absolutely no fear whatsoever of their coaches. Jerry's "we're all just one big happy family!" culture is everywhere.

I don't doubt Bill Belichik loves *most* of his players. But he will pick a time and a place to show it. After the work is done. After players have met his expectations. After they've, you know, WON SOMETHING.

I'm not saying there can't be different approaches to reach the same goal. But 1 of these approaches has garnered 8 Super Bowl appearances since 2001 & 5 championships. The other has won 2 playoff games since 1996.

And so today, as I watch another great Cowboys player retire, a guy who gave his heart and soul to this team, I can't help but wonder, what if Jimmy Johnson had won that battle of egos with Jerry Jones back in 1993? What if he'd manage to SHOW Jerry why you don't coddle players and treat them like family until they've WON something? How many rings would this team have by now?

They are all gone now. Tony Romo, DeMarcus Ware, Dez Bryant and now Jason Witten. I feel especially bad for Romo & Witten. At least Ware got a ring after he left the Cowboys and went to the Broncos.

But Jerry Jones is still there, doing it his way. With a coach he has complete control of, reduced to being a clapping motivational speaker nobody really fears or respects.

Sure, they will probably win a bunch of games this year. They went 13-3 just 2 years ago when everybody was healthy and no suspensions.

But championship?

I don't see it.

This team culture is too soft. And it wastes the careers of too many great players.

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Risen Star said:

Hey, welcome to the problem with this team for 20 plus years. I feel like we should give you an Austin Powers evacuation urinal break before we continue.

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birdwells1 said:

I've help you, as far as rating the cowboys were the number 1 show on TV, even in the bad years

There used to be a saying in tv "when we can't decide on what team to put in primetime just go with the Cowboys".

Now this doesn't mean that ownership didn't drop the ball as far as monetizing it because they did.

JJ hasn't change the positioning of the brand it always been number 1 and still is today. Just with the advent of the internet and numerous sports talk shows the NFL has grown and with that so has their number 1 team.

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Risen Star said:

No I was just pointing out your hypocrisy of calling Parcells a quitter while worshiping Witten.

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OmerV said:

Do you have a link that shows that in 1988 the Cowboys were the #1 show on television, or is this just an assumption based on an old saying? And, of course, TV isn’t the entire revenue stream, and TV contracts are with the NFL, and not the individual teams.

By the way, they played 2 Monday night games and one Sunday night game in 1988 - the same as the Giants and Commanders.

I’m still curious how you explain a team going from a thriving financial success to losing money if there were no losses in revenue.

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jazzcat22 said:

Once again I WAS NOT WORSHIPPING WITTEN. Just how “un-smart” are you?

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