All managers' job performance is a reflection of their performance. A decades-old lingering perception is that Jerry Jones possessed the necessary managerial qualifications for managing three Super Bowl-caliber teams. Logically, the next step would be taking that perception and applying it to his entire tenure as GM.
The examination reveals a decrease in managerial performance, not based solely upon one criterion of winning championships. What can be the underlying factor underscoring the stark managerial results of 1989 through 1995
versus 1996 to the present?
The actual truth is Jerry Jones' pre-NFL (e.g., football-related) resume:
A. Played early 1960s college football
B. Earned pre-1970s bachelor's and master's degrees in business
C. Owned some Pizza Hut franchises
D. Worked as an executive in his father's insurance company
E. Self-employed as an oil and gas wildcatter
All of the above led Jones on the path of becoming rich and prosperous. None of it automatically qualified him for managing football operations in the NFL, including the attainment of business degrees. Academic and business experience did translate for him in non-football operations of managing an NFL franchise, but not the facets involving what is produced on Sunday afternoons.
Ranking in hundreds of millions for himself and the league is not necessarily equal to being a good GM. The final evaporation of what Jimmy Johnson built should have been the beginning of the end for observers' impression of Jerry Jones the GM. Instead, there remains a lingering confidence in him requiring constant re-validation that would likely not be extended to someone's local, average restaurant running Pizza Hut manager.
Some of that is correct, and some of it isn’t. They caught lightning in a bottle, hitting the NFL perfectly at the right time, getting lucky with trades—things like the Herschel Walker deal don’t happen often.
This was before the new free agency rules, before all the changes with the salary cap. They had depth, the right players, and made the moves they needed to make. But to say he should have recreated that? Show me where other dynasties or coaches have done it a second time. Same owner, same GM building a second dynasty after the first, like Bill Belichick?
Oh, wait. After his run, he’s now considered one of the worst college football coaches in the NCAA and didn’t even land another NFL job. Tell me when they’re going to win another 2, 3, or 4 Super Bowls in a row. New England might win another championship, but it won’t be in the same way.
What Jerry and Jimmy accomplished was incredibly difficult, and no other team has managed to replicate it a second time. When coaches move to another team, they don’t have the same circumstances,
they’re not winning Super Bowls with multiple teams or building a second dynasty. The same goes for general managers; I can’t think of any team that’s built a second dynasty and matched their first run. Sure, the first 5 to 10 years after Jimmy left were rough for Jerry, but what’s happened in the last 10 to 15 years hasn’t been solely because of him. Circumstances, injuries, bad luck, many factors have played a role.
The effort is there, and free agency changes the game, but history can’t be rewritten. You can’t recreate what they had because the same perfect alignment of circumstances will never exist again.
Like when New England had Bill Belichick find a 6th-round quarterback and build a dynasty, that’s not something you can replicate. It’s the same with Patrick Mahomes, 56 years for the Chiefs, and even with all the good quarterbacks Andy Reid had in Philadelphia, he never got it done until the perfect timing came together in Kansas City. Neither Mahomes nor Belichick nor Reid will do it again; history shows it doesn’t get recreated.
Expecting Jerry to repeat what happened post-Jimmy ignores that they caught lightning in a bottle, everything aligned perfectly for Cowboys fans. Saying it’ll happen again is wishful thinking, especially when some teams have taken decades to return to the top. I’m not excusing Jerry’s mistakes, but the reality is you can’t just rewrite history to say it was all Jimmy. It didn’t happen again for Jimmy in Miami, he was never hired as a GM elsewhere, and it didn’t happen again for Bill Parcells. When you break up a special group like that, lean years are inevitable.
I realize it’s more than just championships; I want to see us back in an NFC Championship game, maybe even win one. But there’s a reason the Cowboys, grouped with teams like the Packers, Washington, and the 49ers, haven’t expanded the gap during this drought.
Those teams aren’t exactly building second dynasties or piling up Super Bowls either. Eventually, this drought will just be seen as that, a drought and it won’t be a huge deal.
It won’t even be the longest; the Eagles took something like 56 years to win their first title. It happens. I’m not letting Jerry off the hook for mistakes, lack of big moves in free agency, or anything else, but I believe the Cowboys will get their sixth title with him.
He’s not letting this team go, and when it happens, it’ll come out of nowhere and we’ll all be thrilled.
