Jerry crying makes me think the opposite -- that not only is he is going to have to fire Garrett but that he is never going to get the 'redemption' that he has been working towards by winning a super bowl his way. Everyone talked about Jerry's redemption comments as if referring to Garrett, but I believe whether Jones knew it or not he was talking about his own redemption.
It's not just creating uncertainty around leadership and an unaccountable culture that is the problem, but our foundational strategy of trying to build a team like we did before the cap. Jerry still believes that the way to win is to have a more talented team but it's impossible to build a team that way in the salary cap because you can't pay more than everyone else like we did in the 90's. So we sign key guys to big contracts and then fill other crucial parts of the roster with high risk / high reward players, whether the risk is behavioral, mental health, or injury risks.
We then just line up our guys and expect them to execute better than the other team, which works physical ability separates us from them. There have been times where we have seemed far and away better than other teams, but invariably there are injuries and key guys are out. Plus with our high risk / high reward players some of them don't pan out (e.g., Gregory) and so they aren't on the field either. We've spent our cap money on the big name guys, so our backups are subpar. And so we are left with a team that has a lot of high end talent surrounded by low end talent and a scheme that is designed to win through superior talent alone.
...and so we hover around 8-8...
Patriots have taken the exact opposite approach, accepting that teams will be roughly equal talent wise and therefore trying to squeeze out every other form of advantage. Scheme and game plan changes week-to-week depending on the strengths and weaknesses of the opponent. Their roster never has many pro bowlers but when a guy goes down there isn't much of a drop in ability. They will pay some high risk high reward players to help push them over the top (Randy Moss), but they never commit to long term high end contracts for these guys no matter how good they are. They are always in a position to walk away from a guy (i.e., Brown).
It wouldn't surprise me to see Jerry turn the reigns over to Stephen fully and focus on what he is good at, which is making money. Despite 25 years of poor results the Cowboys are still the most valuable sports franchise. Kind of incredible.
