Biggems;1978518 said:
The Negatives of Jerry
1. Firing Tom Landry - I still am bothered by this one....always will be
2. Not being able to get along with Jimmy....cost us at our destiny of owning the 90s......probably 5-6 SBs
3. Trading two 1sts for Gallowaste
4. Letting Emmitt go to the Cards in favor of Hamhock
Every owner makes mistakes. At least Jerry has owned and learned from his mistakes. Also, for every mistake he makes, he seems to do several positive things for the franchise on and off the field.
While I don't think Jerry is perfect, EVERY ONE of those moves seemed logical at the time.
1. Firing Landry. Sorry but Landry had to go. The game had totally passed this guy by. I grew up watching Landry and I loved him, but his coaching style wasn't effective anymore and he was no longer the innovator that he was for the previous two and a half decades. The only thing that I have qualms about is HOW Jerry got rid of Landry. The whole deal could have been done with more tact. Jerry has admitted this and cites it as one of his single biggest blunders since purchasing the Cowboys.
2. The whole not being able to get along with Jimmy had a lot more to do with Jimmy than Jerry. Jerry wanted to extend Jimmy's contract multiple years. Jimmy wanted no part of it. Jimmy still had South Florida on his mind and was actually considering the possibility of being able to coach the NFL expansion Jaguars. When it was apparent that Jimmy's time in Dallas was limited anyway, Jerry made the famous "500 coaches" comment during the league owners meetings. A jab at Johnson, no doubt, that facilitated the "mutual parting". The fact remains Jimmy wanted out. He had done what he had come here to do and he was poised to move on. Jones, not being one to beat around the bush, figured if it's over then let's move on and accelerated the process.
3. Without a doubt the biggest mistake (player wise) that Jerry has made since owning the Cowboys. Two firsts is a heavy price to pay for ANY player. On a WR it's suicide. BUT, the Cowboys needed a true #1 on the flank for an aging yet still effective Troy Aikman. The Cowboys weren't quite dead yet and at that point the entire NFC East was as weak as ever. The Cowboys window of opportunity was closing fast and Jerry knew it. It was a move made out of desperation. Those moves almost never work out. But you can't fault the man for laying everything on the line to win. Was it a bad decision? Of course, but it wasn't a decision that was made to save money, or boost ticket sales. It was a move Jerry thought he had to make at the time to win. You can fault Jerry Jones for a lot of things. Tanking a season or not doing everything in his power to putting out a winning team will never be one of them.
4. Ahh the Emmitt Smith ordeal. First of all let's face it: Emmit was done. And, he was done WAY before he was ever released by the Cowboys. The forgotten gem in this whole debacle was the fact that Jerry Jones actually offered Emmitt MORE money (albeit on a one year deal) than the Cardinals were willing to give him (at a yearly average) on a multi year deal. Emmitt had his choice and he CHOSE Arizona. I went to the very first pre-season game of Emmitt's at Sun Devil Stadium against none other than Bill Parcell's Dallas Cowboys (I was so sure that I was seeing history because I KNEW Parcells would lead us to the Super Bowl and I was going to see the first game he EVER coached for the Cowboys). You could see it in Emmit's face on the sideline that whole game that he knew this was all wrong. His forced enthusiasm and half hearted waves to his "new" fans were as genuine as a snake oil salesman. He had made a mistake and he knew it (the Cowboys lost that game BTW, and Romo looked HORRIBLE. I remember thinking "If we EVER have to rely on this guy we are DONE" LOL). You can lay that whole debacle squarely on Emmitt. Jerry had already taken enough heat for overpaying for washed up players. He wasn't about to do it again on a team that was being rebuilt in every facet of the word. The only area where Jones stumbled in letting go of Emmitt was not replacing him with a decent back (like Steven Davis) at the time. But that goes squarely on the football genius Bill Parcells also.
