Cowboys expectations? Jerry Jones, Mike McCarthy expect Super Bowl. ‘No bones about it.’
Any long-time Dallas Cowboys fan knows Jerry Jones is typically bubbling with optimism each training camp.
The Cowboys’ owner and general manager who turns 78 in October was on the sidelines Friday morning for his first training camp practice at The Star in Frisco. Jones, who was with son and vice president Stephen Jones and director of player personnel Will McClay, visited briefly with head coach Mike McCarthy.
Perhaps they were discussing 2020 expectations? Probably not, but both touched on the subject before and after practice.
McCarthy called any expectations besides winning a championship “nonsense.”
“If you’re not trying to win a Super Bowl, I don’t know what you’re even doing in this business,” McCarthy said during his media teleconference before practice. “I think that’s what every team starts their offseason with. The ones that don’t talk about it are probably trying to under-promise, overachieve. But I’ve always been very upfront about it with every team I’ve ever coached. We’re in this to win a championship. Make no bones about it.”
No doubt that’s where Jones’ head is, too. In fact, a Super Bowl run is precisely why Jones made the tough decision — for him personally, at least — to depart with Jason Garrett and bring in McCarthy.
“I think that it’s going to actually be as good as I can remember when we brought talent to the field,” Jones said on KRLD/105.3 The Fan after practice. “Everybody is going to be proud to be here. We’re going to be prepared. We know that we didn’t get spring with a lot of these guys to help them get better and get acclimated to the new staff and know McCarthy. We know we didn’t get that, but nobody else did either.”
Both McCarthy and Jones mentioned the challenges the pandemic poses on training camp and the coming season. Both also made a point to acknowledge that every team is dealing with the same challenges.
“It’s going to be a huge challenge to get that championship. That’s the reality of it,” McCarthy said, after detailing the pandemic-related hurdles in 2020. “But at the end of the day, we’re on Install 6, and we’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Jones compared the pandemic challenges, along with the social justice movement ignited by the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer to the challenges facing the country during World War II. Jones thinks the NFL going ahead with its season is good for the country.
“This is a real challenge the world has and we have,” he said. “And you know we talk about these social issues and we talk about the many challenges we’ve got there. Well, really at the end of the day all I am is … I just run the Dallas Cowboys. I’m serious. And I want to do that and do my part and put this show on this year and do it with a team that is hopefully one of the best.”
As always, that’s the plan every August.
This story was originally published August 21, 2020 at 3:25 PM.
