Don't shoot the messenger. Found this article tonight on the Journal Sentinel Website. I will say as a Packer fan I wish Ted Thompson would take a risk every now and then in regard to trading a draft choice or taking a flyer on a player like the Jerry Jones, Daniel Snyders or the world but he just goes to the beat of a different drummer. Anyway, here is the article
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=807376
Cowboys owner’s bets are off
Jones’ gambling sets team back
Posted: Oct. 17, 2008
As the expression goes, “Everything is bigger in Texas.”
Dallas Cowboys owner
Jerry Jones lives the mantra. From his new football stadium to the way he has constructed his team, Jones operates in a manner that says, “The bigger the risk, the bigger the payoff.” If it’s not risky, it’s not worth doing to Jones. It worked wonders for him in business, as his oil and land company helped make him a billionaire.
But that gambling approach has not translated well to his football team. Sure, the Cowboys were the team of the 1990s, when they won three Super Bowls in four years. But that was a much different time in the league. The Cowboys won two of their championships (’92 and ’93) before the salary cap was introduced in 1994. The third came the next year.
As the league has learned the ins and outs of life under the salary cap, Jones’ gambling ways have fallen more out of style than Zubaz. It doesn’t pay to be bold any longer. Slow, steady and calculating has become the method for winning championships. All the teams that have won the Lombardi Trophy in the past decade have been built that way.
But here we are in 2008 and Jones, who has personnel control, is still swinging for the fences. And missing.
From 1997-2006, the Cowboys were a combined 73-87. They have won one division title (in ’07) since 1998. They have not been to a conference championship since ’95. That was the last year Dallas was in a Super Bowl as well.
The persona of the Cowboys has not matched up with the on-field product. The Cowboys have been portrayed as the New York Yankees over the last 15 years. In fact, the Minnesota Vikings (96-80) had 23 more victories than the Cowboys from 1997-2006.
The trade for Detroit Lions receiver
Roy Williams this week was just the latest in a line of risky moves that will likely put the Cowboys further off track from winning a championship.
Not only did Jones give up first- and third-round picks for Williams, who has questionable hands and just one 1,000-yard season in five-plus seasons, but Jones handed Williams a five-year contract extension with $20 million in guaranteed money. That will surely ruffle the feathers of problem-child receiver
Terrell Owens.
The Williams deal echoes the colossal blunder Jones made in 2000, when he traded two first-round picks to the Seattle Seahawks for receiver
Joey Galloway, who never had more than 908 yards in four forgettable years in Dallas. But the Seahawks were in the Super Bowl in 2005 thanks, in part, to that deal.
Galloway is just one in a long line of recent acquisitions who haven’t panned out for Jones: quarterbacks
Drew Henson (cost a first-round pick),
Chad Hutchinson and
Quincy Carter; offensive lineman
Marco Rivera; wide receiver
Terry Glenn; linebackers
Kevin Hardy and
Bobby Carpenter; defensive end
Ebenezer Ekuban; and running back
Anthony Thomas.
And then there’s cornerback
Adam Jones, who, predictably, was indefinitely suspended by the league again this week for his off-field behavior.
That’s not to say Jerry Jones hasn’t improved as general manager. He has.
The Cowboys are finally near Super Bowl level because of the moves he made. But it’s his big, risky — and mostly unneeded — moves that ultimately cost his teams championships, and likely will again this season.
The Cowboys were good last season. They had talent all over the field, as evidenced by their 13 players selected for the Pro Bowl. There was no reason to bring in an Adam Jones or trade for a Roy Williams.
Could the Cowboys be better with both of them? Yes, without question. But considering where the Cowboys were, was the risk worth it? No. And that’s what Jerry Jones has not learned and perhaps never will.
In the NFL, the bigger risk often leads to the biggest failures.
