What was Jerrys biggest mistake?

[jobberone]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Campo.

IMO, there is no one single thing. I believe most of it is cumulative over a long period of time. The biggest problem is the overall lack of talent of the entire roster. Most of what has been mentioned has led to that. It doesn't matter how good a coach you are. You must have enough good players along with some very good to great ones to win consistently. And talent acquisition as well as cap management to do so falls under the GMs umbrella.

We're improving along multiple fronts but they aren't there yet. Maybe I'll live long enough.

 

[Yeagermeister]

Buying the team

 

[Idgit]

In other words, ignore the real issues and focus on small incidental matters.

I have no idea how you ended up there from what I posted above, which was basically a list of Jerry's biggest failures. So, no.

 

[DFWJC]

Staying GM.

This....

 

[Verdict]

With all due respect to my fellow posters, I believe Jerry's biggest mistake has been omitted from this list. Before I tell you what I think it is, I will tell you why the aforementioned reasons fall short of being Jerry's biggest mistake.

While I agree that the Galloway trade, the Roy Williams trade and not drafting Randy Moss all cost us a great deal, in each case there was a gamble involved that included an UPSIDE that just didn't turn out like Jerry expected or feared. He made a gamble in each case and in each case, he guessed wrong. Moreover when he lost Jimmy Johnson some of that was beyond his control

The biggest mistake he made was keeping Emmitt Smith long after his time was up just to have him get the all time rushing record as a Cowboy. It was fitting and nostalgic but in terms of helping the team ..... It didn"t accomplish anything positive for the team and in fact held the team back ..... For what?

Granted it didn't set the team back AS MUCH as some of the examples cited but in this case there was no real upside to doing it in terms of winning games or developing a better team.

 

[Dodger12]

The biggest mistake he made was keeping Emmitt Smith long after his time was up just to have him get the all time rushing record as a Cowboy. It was fitting and nostalgic but in terms of helping the team ..... It didn"t accomplish anything positive for the team and in fact held the team back ..... For what?

You're letting him off the hook way too easy......Emmitt had over 1000 yards in 14 games in 2001 and 975 in 2002, his last year with he club. Keeping Emmitt on the team is hardly something negative against Jerry. Far from it....I give him credit for it.

 

[CowboyMcCoy]

Keeping this guy from going to Baltimore..

 

[TellerMorrow34]

Of course he would. He wasn't going to miss a chance to three-peat and make history. He just could no longer tolerate the lunatic who owned the team.

First I'll say I completely agree with you on the ego of Jerry being his biggest mistake and it's the thing that's led to the list of mistakes he's made during his time as owner/GM, and that includes his role in Johnson leaving.

I don't, however, agree with the above statement because it's pretty clear that a three peat and history meant absolutely nothing to Johnson.

If it did then he could have put his own ego aside to have pursued it. Would it have been as much fun? Nope. Would it have been easy? Absolutely not.

But it could have, and should have, been done. Johnson shouldn't get this blanket of security from the whole thing because he allowed his own ego over a very stupid argument over who gets enough credit.

Everyone who knew anything about the game had to have known that ultimately the vast majority has to go to Jimmy and his staff. The 3-Peat meant absolutely nothing to Johnson.

 

[CowboyMcCoy]

With all due respect to my fellow posters, I believe Jerry's biggest mistake has been omitted from this list. Before I tell you what I think it is, I will tell you why the aforementioned reasons fall short of being Jerry's biggest mistake.

While I agree that the Galloway trade, the Roy Williams trade and not drafting Randy Moss all cost us a great deal, in each case there was a gamble involved that included an UPSIDE that just didn't turn out like Jerry expected or feared. He made a gamble in each case and in each case, he guessed wrong. Moreover when he lost Jimmy Johnson some of that was beyond his control

The biggest mistake he made was keeping Emmitt Smith long after his time was up just to have him get the all time rushing record as a Cowboy. It was fitting and nostalgic but in terms of helping the team ..... It didn"t accomplish anything positive for the team and in fact held the team back ..... For what?

Granted it didn't set the team back AS MUCH as some of the examples cited but in this case there was no real upside to doing it in terms of winning games or developing a better team.

I can agree with that. Keeping Emmitt for so long actually made me resent Emmitt. In a lot of ways, I still do.

 

[Clove]

Allowing his ego to run the Dallas Cowboys. add note for people with a lot of money. Having a lot of money doesn't make you smart at everything.

 

[Clove]

Let me clarify. He had a big ego from day one but it did not run all aspects of the team at that time. The day he removed Jimmy from the equation, was the day he allowed his ego to run football operations. From that point on' almost everything he has done has been an epic failure.

We can Nic pick every little thing that he's done, but at the end of the day, most of his moves were predominantly bad. It's amazing how some people can be so successful at one thing and a total loser at other things.

 

[KB1122]

No one has mentioned this one:

Marcus Spears over Aaron Rodgers.

 

[jobberone]

It's been death by a thousand cuts. But I think the hemorrhaging has stopped.

 

[mmillman]

Jimmy leaving left Dallas the team of the 90's. Jimmy stays that was going to be considered the best team ever as I think they win at least two more if Jimmy stayed.

As soon as Jerry became the GM Dallas has been trending from awful to mediocre.

 

[LatinMind]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Campo.

IMO, there is no one single thing. I believe most of it is cumulative over a long period of time. The biggest problem is the overall lack of talent of the entire roster. Most of what has been mentioned has led to that. It doesn't matter how good a coach you are. You must have enough good players along with some very good to great ones to win consistently. And talent acquisition as well as cap management to do so falls under the GMs umbrella.

We're improving along multiple fronts but they aren't there yet. Maybe I'll live long enough.

They had so much dead money idc who was coach. it wasnt going to get much better. Ill say this tho. The def shouldnt have been changed by parcells. Dallas had a fast defense who couldnt be run on. He shouldve concentrated on the offense and this team wouldve won alot sooner. but instead he brought in players like Marcellus Wiley, Chad Eaton, Tyrone Williams. When he couldve had Antoine Winfield and Bertrand Berry

 

[john van brocklin]

Staying GM.

THIS, a thousand times over !!!

 

[john van brocklin]

I agree that the Roy Williams trade was a giant mistake between the cap dollars wasted, the loss of draft picks, dedicating a starting WR job to someone putting up #3 WR numbers and resulting in the premature departure of a good #3 WR Patrick Crayton.

However, I think the problems really began when he became overconfident in his roster following the 2007 season. We had just come off of a great season, we had Anthony Spencer to fill-in for Greg Ellis but we had an ageing OL and pretty bad #3 CB and a hobbled #2 CB. We did the right think by taking Mike Jenkins but we struck out at the RB spot. We gave Barber a huge contract which he hadn't earned when we could have just tendered him. We compounded that error by spending a 1st round pick on a complementary RB who hadn't shown that he could handle the load in college who made his living running outside the tackles. Jerry wrongly concluded the offensive failures towards the end of the season were from lacking an explosive player at the skill positions from the loss of Terry Glenn. He thought Felix was the answer. The truth is we fell apart because the OL's play fell off because of age and this was further compounded with the loss of TO to the ankle injury against Carolina. If we had only decided here to rebuild the OL instead of adding more skill players most of our problems in later years could have been avoided.

If we were able to back up the clock there that offseason and just tendered Barber at a 1st and 3rd round compensation rate we would have been able to avoid giving him that monster contract. Now in the draft we could have still drafted Jenkins but we could have also taken the best OL around with the Felix pick or traded down a bit and then taken the best OL available. We could have still drafted Choice as the backup if we had wanted or did what I wanted to do - draft Jamaal Charles in the second. We could have added a DL in the second round instead of adding another backup offensive player in Marty B. Now if you add those moves and not traded for RoyW during 2008 and you keep your 2009 draft picks and again maybe pick an OL in the first two rounds this may be an entirely different team right now. You also had salary cap flexibility to sign two premier players instead of RoyW and Barber.

Jerry just cannot evaluate talent and the decline in performance as players age catches him every damn time. He just pays way too much for age and the players get fat after their first contract and decline rapidly.

Of course, the right answer to this question was not finding a proper player personnel guy after Jimmy left. He assumed he could handle that role with the input from his hand chosen head coach but that was a formula for disaster as few head coaches are great personnel guys - ideally you need someone a bit isolated from the players for that role and that is why most organizations have a GM and head coach.

AWESOME POST !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Appreaciate the efforts and agree with you.

 

[JackWagon]

LOL .. nothing good to talk about with the current team ... so lets go over the last 20 years and nitpick every move ... sounds like fun.

 

[Verdict]

LOL .. nothing good to talk about with the current team ... so lets go over the last 20 years and nitpick every move ... sounds like fun.

Maybe so, but why post in this thread if it is such a waste of time?

 

[DenCWBY]

#1 - Letting Jimmy get away due to his ego.
#2 - Demeaning the power of his head coaches