Jerry Jones deserves some Halloween candy for two good football moves

Posted Thursday, Oct. 29, 2009 Comments   (0) Print Share Share Reprints
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By RANDY GALLOWAY

rgalloway@star-telegram.com

galloway My Halloween moment arrives a day early.

You know it’s stake-to-the-heart scary when it comes time to say a couple of nice football things about Jerry Jones.

But trashing my long-standing belief that it’s never best to encourage Jerry, here goes:

The biggest nonstory of the week at Valley Ranch carried the World War III headline of "Ware Strikes It Rich."

DeMarcus Ware — great player, great human being — was signed to what probably amounts to a lifetime contract with the Dallas Cowboys.

That’s not news. The how much question was news. The how much answer of $40 million in guaranteed salary didn’t surprise, but it did impress.

In the big picture, however, I can’t remember the last time, if there was a last time, when Mr. Jones failed to step up, financially, for a key player deemed vital to the cause.

(OK, Emmitt Smith, 1993, missed the first two games in a contract dispute with Jones. That’s one, but that one is also more about a delay.)

Jerry keeps his pieces. He pays. Ware was a slam dunk to be here. There are many other teams around the NFL where that’s not the case with ownership.

Obviously, bad decisions also have been made on what player should be targeted. Jones doesn’t always get that right. But that kind of failure is much better than a hip-pocket failure.

The Ware contract is one of those things that prompt some media around the NFL to proclaim Jerry as the best owner in the league. Then again, would the best owner in the league allow the Cowboys’ general manager to keep his job, based on the last 12 football years? No, and no.

Moving on, however, with the positive approach on Jones:

Got a good laugh out of some Eldorado Owens comments this week in Buffalo. Actually, I didn’t know Eldo was still in the league. The man has totally disappeared. Buffalo? Isn’t that the place where diminishing NFL careers go to finally die?

But Mr. Owens, in what apparently was a light-hearted mood, attempted to explain why he’s dropped off the football planet, and become a total zero for the Bills. Of course, the same declining skills we saw here a year ago had nothing to do with the explanation, but that’s another topic.

Laughing, Eldo said, "I’ve been looking at my stats compared to Roy E. Williams’ stats over there in Dallas, and my goal is to have better stats than him at the end of the season."

Just joking? No, not if you know Owens.

For the record, as dismal as Roy’s season is going, his stats are better than what Owens has done, based on Williams missing one game because of injury, and the Cowboys having had a bye week. Owens has played two more games than Roy with almost the same numbers.

Funny, huh, that Eldo didn’t bring up the name of Miles Austin.

When Jerry finally decided to dump the fool (thanks again, Stephen, for all you do), there was much local panic over who would replace the Owens’ "numbers" and the Owens’ "threat."

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