Jerry Jones on Cowboys’ turkey: ‘Adversity gives you opportunity to write hell of a story’
Jerry Jones had tears in his eyes when he spoke to the media Thursday night after the Dallas Cowboys lost 26-15 to the Buffalo Bills.
He had just left an emotional locker room full of players reeling and wondering what has happened to their once-promising season.
Jones, however, wasn’t demonstratively as upset, say, as last week after the Cowboys lost to the Patriots. Here’s a portion of what he said from the team’s official transcription service:
Jerry Jones on Jason Garrett:
“I know Jason very well. I’ve had a wonderful opportunity to spend a football life with him, so I know him very well. You know without a doubt, you’ve seen it. Nobody wants Jason to go, and I’m going to tell you this right now, he’s got my back too. This is disappointing. Before we started this game today, we said this team is going to be tough to beat. Buffalo is a good team. We certainly got the momentum, but then we got the wind taken out of us in the back part of that second quarter and we just didn’t get it back.
[The Bills] got it done, that’s all I’m saying. This is not the time for me. I’m looking ahead at another ball game and I’m looking ahead at winning four or five straight and helping write a story where they’ll talk about how it looked like you were down and out, but you got it done. I mean that. That’s the way that I’m operating. Every decision that I make over the next month will be with an eye in mind to get us in the Super Bowl now. What I’m doing is realistically saying that these guys have a makeup that we can start right now and win these games one by one and get where we might want to go. I agree its outside, but if we do that and win it one by one, we’ve got a chance to be in the right side of the playoff column.
I’ve been told all my life, adversity gives you an opportunity to really write a hell of a story about how to come back. We’ve given our chance the best foundation to turn around and have a great story.”
Jerry Jones on moving forward
“The way that I’m reacting and the decisions that I’ll make are based upon the way that I’ve always handled things or the way that I’ve evolved. And the way that I’m going to handle this is to encourage everybody to look to the possibility of winning out and end up doing something that people will right about 30 years from now. I like that story tonight as I ate my turkey.”
Jerry Jones on the Cowboys’ performance against the Bills
“Well, I saw turnovers. I saw mistakes. I saw a real momentum builder for the Bills and a deflator for us when we miss field goals right before the half. I saw us when we had great field position a couple of times and traded with them on who had the field position there and we didn’t come out on that. I saw all of that, and when you come back out it’s so important that you, if you can, establish that momentum when you come back out in the second half. We didn’t do it and they did it. We all know the technical reasons, the ratio of turnovers. Again, there’s no lack of will anywhere here. And I haven’t implied that there is a lack of will. The facts are that we thought it would be a great opportunity at home on Thanksgiving, with the nation looking at us, to look good against the Bills. When we came out and made that first drive that was exactly what I had thought about. Obviously, the Bills had a lot more to say about it. They are a good team and we knew they were a good team when they came in here.”
Jerry Jones on making a coaching change
“Well I’m just not going to make a coaching change and all of the things that you’ve talked about and many more would have to be in my thoughts for there not to be a coaching change. The real world is, it’s not impossible that we could step out here and play a game that we improve on and we have a caliber of team that has a chance to do more than just not show up in the playoffs. If we could get to the playoffs and we could get it on our side of the ledger, a home-field game, this is what we are going to have to do to get there.”
Jerry Jones on Cowboys’ approach for the final four games
“I’m going to do the same thing that I’ve always done when I get a setback. I’m going to get up in the morning and look for ways, not panic. I’m going to look for ways to improve the situation. One of them is not a coaching change. One of them is not reworking the offense or defense. Those are not alternatives for us to be ready to play over the next month and give us a chance to be what we want to be. But if we stay healthy, and other contenders might not, and all of a sudden we start gelling and we start getting some turnovers then those games will turn out differently.”
