ATLANTA – Were you serious?
Jerry Jones, the gregarious owner of the Dallas Cowboys, did not backpedal from the latest controversy as we talked for a few minutes before he left the NFL owners meeting on Tuesday evening. Jones fueled a stir with a testy exchange on Tuesday morning with the hosts of his twice-weekly radio shows on the Cowboys’ flagship station, 105.3 The Fan, the lowlight coming when he seemingly threatened to replace the three hosts.
For real?
“I don’t know,” Jones said, standing outside his waiting SUV. “I’ll tell you what: (Dale) Hansen and Brad (Sham) had to take a leave when they went too far, one way or another.”
Hansen and Sham, media legends in the Dallas market, formed the Cowboys’ popular radio team for many years, except for the hiatus during the 1990s that was sparked when Jones became incensed by their criticism of his team.
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Now with, well, more criticism intensifying for Jones and his team – based on performance – it’s rather tough to escape the hard questions.
Jones knows better whether he admits it or not. When he conducted his typical Tuesday morning phone call two days after the Cowboys suffered another embarrassing loss on their own turf at AT&T Stadium, a 47-9 blowout courtesy of the Detroit Lions, he was more in the line of fire than embattled coach Mike McCarthy, star quarterback Dak Prescott or any of the other high-profile faces of the franchise.
Remember, the bucks stop with the team owner, in more ways than one.
“But they’re my own folks,” Jones said of the hosts, Shan Shariff, R.J. Choppy and Bobby Belt. “That’s like Brad and Dale, putting it on us, during a ballgame.”
The dust-up has, intended or not, surely raised the attention level for the radio station and crew – who can take a bow for being mentioned in the same vein as Hansen and Sham. And hey, the Cowboys are generating buzz on a bye week with this kerfuffle, which Jones probably hopes also deflects some of the scrutiny of his battered team.
Maybe this blows away and the hosts remain intact, the drama sparking intrigue for the next show. After all, the last one was riveting radio.
At one point, Jones shot back at Shariff, “What’s your damn counter?”
The 28-minute segment began with a lighthearted tone as Jones drove to the airport for the trip to Atlanta. He described himself as “sick” by the debacle on Sunday – which incidentally occurred on his 82nd birthday and included the Lions essentially toying with the Cowboys by unleashing a deep bag of trick plays – and joked that it was the perfect time to lay low and get out of town.
Yet the flow, and Jones’ responses, got heated after roughly 12 minutes. For several minutes, Jones sounded defensive when the hosts sought responses about the minimal moves by the Cowboys in the offseason, fan apathy and other related topics.
“I don’t want to demean or undermine their credibility, but we were kind of set up for taking me to the woodshed,” Jones told USA TODAY Sports. “And I wasn’t ready for that. I was going to talk about the very things they wanted to talk about, but I didn’t want it before a tribunal.
“They’re not the ones,” Jones added of the hosts. “Now the guys that are listening, my ticket holders and fans, they are the ones.”
While this episode casts light on the expectations that sports teams (and in other cases, leagues and colleges) have when it comes to content distributed via media partners that invest with rights fees, it’s rather stunning that Jones wouldn’t acknowledge that the radio hosts are essentially voices for his fan base.
Undoubtedly, he is the NFL’s most accessible owner, with a Hall of Fame bust earned to a significant degree by his business acumen and leaguewide impact that includes his ability to market his immensely popular franchise better than anyone else.
Yet even for a man who has contended that no publicity is bad publicity, he probably has more to lose than to gain from an image standpoint by getting into a spat spilling out from an interview. Sure, if the Cowboys roll on this season to become a champion, their enormous fan base would likely be forgiving. But what are the chances of that happening for the first time in decades?
In any event, even if his mood was affected by the results on the field – and that frustration is no excuse – Jones lost points when he made it personal with the hosts. Yes, make no mistake, he was demeaning. He called them “yay-hoos” and told them it wasn’t their “job” to ask a certain line of questions.
“I’ll get somebody else,” he said during the segment. “I’m not kidding.”
I thought the questions were fair – especially when considering the Cowboys haven’t advanced to an NFC title game in nearly 30 years – even if they were uncomfortable. The hosts are conduits, asking questions that the fans would. Right, Jerry?
“Not really,” he said. “They set the tone. I have fans all the time that I communicate with. They have more of a right, really, than guys that, frankly, I’m paying to put a show on.
“You and I both know what I might get criticized for when I say that,” Jones added.
Criticized for what, trying to squash freedom of speech?
“That’s never been us,” he said. “Free as a breeze here.”
Which is exactly why this episode is so bizarre. Jones has displayed some thick skin from the moment he purchased the franchise in 1989 and was unfairly vilified as the man who fired the legendary Tom Landry. Through one crisis after another for Jones and his team, in the football realm and off the field, you can’t say he wasn’t willing to stand up (with toes on the line) and face the music and otherwise explain himself.
“I go with the flow when it comes with the media,” he said.
It’s just that this time, the typically affable Jones pivoted out of character on his own show. Or maybe he let his ego get the best of him. Or both. In pondering how it went down, he mentioned the three consecutive 12-win seasons the past three years and acknowledged the big playoff losses. He was mindful of the typical calls for him to relinquish his role as the team’s general manager and defended his position – as he has for 5, 10, 20, 25 years and counting.
In the Cowboys’ structure, Jerry’s son, Stephen, the chief operating officer, and Will McClay, vice president of player personnel, are key voices of influence for the GM.
“I’ve seen a lot of general managers come and go,” Jones said, alluding to the NFL landscape. “But for our situation, I’m the best one to ultimately make the call. I’m the one that’s paying the bills.”
Which is exactly why he should be first and last in line when it comes to accountability.