Jerry Jones has killed Dallas Cowboys fans’ hope. What can they do? | Opinion
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Cowboys fans express apathy after years of mismanagement by owner Jerry Jones.
- Trading Micah Parsons to a rival signals a new low, eroding fan trust further.
- Team value grows from spectacle, not success, which means winning isn’t the priority.
Dallas Cowboys fans have finally snapped.
Call it a hunch, but it seems like one of the cockiest fan bases in the NFL has hit rock bottom. It’s beyond anger. It’s worse — ambivalence.
Many can no longer rouse themselves to believe that this is the year the team overcomes owner Jerry Jones’ faults to make a Super Bowl run. A string of exhausting contract battles, an overpaid quarterback, a lackluster head coach hire and the trading of the team’s best player mean even the diehards now see the dents and smudges on the blue star.
Giving away linebacker Micah Parsons, one of the best pass rushers in the league, for a veteran and a couple first-round draft picks was bad enough. But sending him to the rival Green Bay Packers, the team that throttled the Cowboys in their last playoff appearance? A threshold has been crossed.
It’s the stuff of the Cleveland Browns, not “America’s Team.”
Fans have yet to play the one card that might make a difference: money.
Filling the stadium, buying Dallas Cowboys merchandise, patronizing Jones’ advertisers, even watching on TV — as long as fans stay on Captain Jerry’s rickety ship, he’ll keep crashing it into the shoal rather than surrender the conn.
It’s a big ask, of course, to give up something you love, a ritual that you’ve shared with family, one of the few connections we still have with our neighbors and even strangers. The NFL is our last nationwide bond as we fragment into tiny audiences, huddled in our homes watching a streaming program that three-quarters of the rest of the country probably hasn’t even heard of.
But how else to get through to Jones?
What we learned about Jerry Jones in Netflix’s Cowboys documentary
Ask yourself if any other team would hire Jones as a general manager, in charge of personnel and contracts, even in his prime. Now, consider whether any other team’s most important decisions are made by a guy in his 80s with a passel of other business interests.
It’s a life-consuming grind for 31 other general managers, but Jones somehow has time to make Ford commercials.
The mammoth Netflix documentary on the 1990s Cowboys features extensive interviews with Jones. Watching it proves that it’s worse than many fans think. It’s not just that he wants to be able to build credit as a guy who builds a winner (even if he never actually does).
It’s the two confessions Jones makes: What matters is the drama that keeps people tuned in. Why take contract negotiations to the brink, even when it ends up costing you more? It’s a spectacle, and if Jones doesn’t have one, he has to create one.
Dallas Cowboys’ value based on money, attention — not winning
Jones has made the team the most-valuable sports franchise in the world. Its value, a recent Dallas Morning News deep dive notes, is based on attention, not on-field success. It rattles off metrics such as social media followers, merch sales and national TV appearances. Winning? Not so much.
One of Jones’ most interesting admissions in the documentary is that he can only fully engage when things are in turmoil. His years in the oilfield, perhaps, left him with a craving for the adrenaline generated by possible failure.
Last year, the Cowboys became the NFC team with the longest streak of not reaching the conference championship game. Detroit and Washington, two long-bumbling teams, have sniffed Super Bowls recently. Perennial loser Atlanta has been to two since the Cowboys’ last appearance.
Even the team once considered the epitome of failure, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, has won championships in two different eras since the Cowboys last made the NFL’s final four.
Part of what makes the Cowboys so big is that perhaps as many people hate them as love them. Or they once did — hate has turned into pity. The Cowboys are ripe for the meme era, where mockery is the most effective form of cruelty.
There are not a lot of scientific surveys of NFL fans. But The Athletic recently asked fans whether they’re optimistic or pessimistic about their team. The Cowboys — once winners of five Super Bowls, really, you can look it up — came in third to last. Only fans of the New Orleans Saints and Indianapolis Colts feel worse about their teams.
With injuries, big-dollar contracts and rules designed to keep as many teams in the playoff mix as long as possible, dynasties are hard to come by in modern pro sports.
What fans crave in this era of parity is a sense their team does the right thing often enough that it can capitalize when the time comes. They want to know that if things break their way, the team can turn a wild card into a championship, or is at least building to that day. They want to believe there’s a chance.
Cowboys fans no longer think there is. And unless they do something about it, they’ll continue to be right.
This story was originally published September 4, 2025 at 4:53 AM.
