Hint? Jerry Jones says, ‘You don’t have to have a rushing champion to win a Super Bowl’

There is no question that Cowboys owner Jerry Jones loves his players.

But when it comes to contract negotiations, he has not been shy about taking the gloves off, while also using the media to send a message.

So consider his latest salvo with holdout running back Ezekiel Elliott, who is training in Cabo San Lucas in a contract dispute while his teammates are in training camp in Oxnard, Calif.

“You don’t have to have a rushing champion to win a Super Bowl,” Jones said in an interview with CBS 11 Sports Sunday night. “That’s one of the dilemmas at running back is that the league knows that you can win Super Bowls and not have the Emmitt Smith back there or not have Zeke back there.

“Consequently, when we are looking at putting Zeke’s contract in place, we’ve got to realize that the ultimate goal is to win the Super Bowl. So, you’ve got to do all of the things along with having Zeke that allow you to have other players so that you can win the Super Bowl.”

Part of Elliott’s argument for a new contract is his importance to the offense as the NFL’s leading rusher in two of the last three seasons.

The last NFL rushing champ to win a Super Bowl was Terrell Davis with the Broncos in 1998.

Of course, what’s also true is that the Cowboys have never been to or won a Super Bowl without a rushing champion since Jones bought the team in 1989.

Smith became the first rushing champion to ever lead his team to the Super Bowl in 1992. He held out in a contract dispute for the 1993 season, missing the first two games - two losses by the Cowboys - before Jones signed him to the richest contract for a running back at the time.

He repeated as rushing champion in 1993 and the Cowboys repeated as Super Bowl champs.

He again led the league in rushing in 1995 in leading the Cowboys to their third Super Bowl title in the decade.

History has shown that teams in the NFL don’t need a rushing title to win a Super Bowl, but that has not been Jones’ experience in Dallas.

More to the point, the Cowboys can’t invest a fourth-overall pick in a running back, build their offense around said running back, watch him win two rushing titles as the focal point of the attack, while helping you 32 games and two division titles and then say you don’t need him, you can win without him.

This story was originally published July 30, 2019 at 9:41 AM.