{"id":87941,"date":"2025-09-04T08:44:58","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T08:44:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=87941"},"modified":"2025-09-04T08:44:58","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T08:44:58","slug":"dave-hannigan-dallas-cowboys-paralysed-by-owners-inability-to-move-on-from-1990s-heyday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=87941","title":{"rendered":"Dave Hannigan: Dallas Cowboys paralysed by owner\u2019s inability to move on from 1990s heyday"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Jerry<\/p>\n

Jerral Wayne Jones snr was deep-sea fishing around the Baja Peninsula in 1988 when he read a newspaper article reporting that Harvey \u2018Bum\u2019 Bright, owner of the Dallas Cowboys, had tasked Salomon Brothers with finding a suitable buyer for his club.<\/p>\n

From the reception desk of a Mexican hotel, the one-time co-captain of the University of Arkansas football team phoned the Wall Street investment bank and announced his interest. With his fortune gleaned from oil wildcatting, insurance and real estate, he eventually paid $140 million for a franchise that was haemorrhaging $1 million a month in a league struggling to sell out games.<\/p>\n

\u201cI intend to have an understanding of jocks and socks, with players, with television, with day-to-day operations,\u201d said Jerry Jones, as America soon came to know him. He added that because of the price he paid, he had to be close to the operations.<\/p>\n

He was as good as his word, appointing himself general manager and firing Tom Landry, the legendary and only coach the Cowboys had known up to that point in their 29-year history. It was an audacious move that was hugely unpopular with the fanbase. Then he hired Jimmy Johnson, a former college teammate who had been successful helming the University of Miami. The pair won a Super Bowl together in 1993, then another the following year before inevitably falling out.<\/p>\n

Jones wanted somebody more malleable and when the team garnered yet another title in 1996 under Barry Switzer, the false impression grew that the owner somehow mattered more than anybody else in these triumphs.<\/p>\n

Between then and now, there have been three fallow decades. The Cowboys have never been back to the Super Bowl, even as the value of the club mushroomed to just north of $13 billion and Jones became known as the most meddlesome owner in sport.<\/p>\n

On his watch, they have come into NFL seasons in good shape and bad without ever threatening to win the whole thing again. Excellent coaches have come and gone. Many of them have struggled with the over-involved machinations of the outsized character in the owner\u2019s box who believes he always knows best. It has been obvious for some time that he doesn\u2019t always know best.<\/p>\n

\"Dave
Former Dallas Cowboys player Micah Parsons speaks to the media after being traded to the Green Bay Packers. Photograph: Jayden Mack\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Witness Jones trading Micah Parsons, the team\u2019s best defensive player, to the Green Bay Packers last week. A seismic decision that ensures when the Cowboys meet the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFL curtain-raiser on Friday night, they kick off what many now feel will be another futile campaign.<\/p>\n

Losing the best edge rusher in the sport was entirely the fault of the owner trying to play hardball in negotiations, seeking to cut a clandestine deal without the player\u2019s agent involved and consistently refusing to pay what the market says a linebacker of his calibre is worth. It was the type of dramatic brinksmanship that has always been Jones\u2019 hallmark. Hence the recent Netflix documentary titled, America\u2019s Team: The Gambler and His Cowboys.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Dave Hannigan: Why Samuel Beckett is a good fit for the New York MetsOpens in new window \u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cI know he loved Micah Parsons,\u201d said Michael Irvin, Cowboy wide receiving icon-turned-commentator and usually staunch defender of his former boss. Irvin described it as a \u201ccrazy, dumb move\u201d, adding:\u201cThis is a gamble The Gambler should not have taken.\u201d<\/p>\n

Every serious pundit echoed that sentiment as the Cowboys waved goodbye to a generational talent who, aged 26, is entering his prime years. That the Packers gave Parsons a four-year contract worth $188 million \u2013 the largest deal ever signed by somebody who doesn\u2019t play quarterback \u2013 sums up how he is rated around the league. At any stage in the previous 18 months, Parsons would have gladly stayed with the Cowboys for less money. But getting a deal done after his first three stellar seasons with the star on his helmet would have prevented the egomaniacal Jones from hogging the limelight during the headline-generating soap operatic wrangling. At 82, media attention remains his oxygen and his weakness.<\/p>\n

\"Dave
Charlotte Jones (third from left), chief brand officer of the Dallas Cowboys, with Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, general manager Ted Sarandos and Netflix CCO Bela Bajaria at the Premiere of America’s Team: The Gambler And His Cowboys. Photograph: Frazer Harrison\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Back in his first year owning the Cowboys, Jones shocked the NFL by trading Herschel Walker, his star running back, to the Minnesota Vikings in return for a raft of first- and second-round draft picks. Lambasted at the time for moving on the team\u2019s most potent weapon, he and Johnson used those subsequent selections to build the dynasty that dominated the 1990s. The problem is he\u2019s been desperately trying to replicate that rare alchemy ever since.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Dave Hannigan: For Rahaman Ali, brotherly love was a double-edged swordOpens in new window \u00a0]<\/p>\n

During a press conference where he tried to spin losing Parsons as a strategic long-term move, he embarrassed himself even further by repeatedly calling the player Michael rather than Micah. Whether it was an innocent mix-up of names or a deliberate insult, neither is a good look.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re the sixth-winningest team in the last 20 years,\u201d said Jones, in a bizarre and pathetic comment recently, \u201cnot counting Super Bowls in the NFL.\u201d<\/p>\n

During initial negotiations to buy the club, there was an impasse about who should pay $300,000 in closing costs for the transaction. To settle the matter, Bright whipped out a quarter and said, \u201cLet\u2019s flip for it!\u201d Always fancying a game of chance, Jones called tails. It went heads and so he wrote another cheque. Much later, the previous owner gifted his successor that same 25 cents piece glued to a block with a note reading, \u201cYou\u2019ll never know if it was a two-headed coin.\u201d<\/p>\n

All these decades later, he still doesn\u2019t know what end is up.<\/p>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trading of star player the latest evidence of Jerry Jones\u2019 questionable NFL judgment<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":87942,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[138,54,9],"class_list":["post-87941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl","tag-american-football","tag-dallas-cowboys","tag-nfl"],"yoast_head":"\nDave Hannigan: Dallas Cowboys paralysed by owner\u2019s inability to move on from 1990s heyday - NEWS USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=87941\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Dave Hannigan: Dallas Cowboys paralysed by owner\u2019s inability to move on from 1990s heyday - 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