All Dallas Cowboys miss their fans, but perhaps none more than Jerry Jones | Opinion
You could argue that nobody wants to see the restrictions surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic to end faster than Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.
Business would be the main reason, but it’s also a personality thing. ... No, not a personal thing, but a personality thing.
Jones is a people person. He likes to talk and he likes to mingle. He has called the lockdown that has stretched over most of the last year “a people-person’s hell.”
So Jones thoroughly enjoyed being back in his element for last Wednesday’s press conference, during which he announced the signing of quarterback Dak Prescott to a record-setting four-year, $160 million contract.
It was just the second time Jones had an open media briefing since the final day of the 2020 NFL Draft on April 25.
He did it virtually from his 357-foot-long, $250 million super yacht Bravo Eugenia. And he spoke virtually to when the team opened training camp on Aug. 12.
Otherwise, Jones was only heard on his weekly radio shows on the team’s flagship station, 105.3 The Fan.
There were no impromptu press briefings as Jones has been known to hold before or after practices. He was unable to hold court outside the Cowboys locker room after games.
The pandemic had shut down all of that.
Admittedly, Jones missed being able to promote the Cowboys by openly talking to the media.
The Prescott press conference was his first in-person media briefing since Feb. 29 of last year when he did his annual state of the team address at the NFL Scouting Combine on the Cowboys bus.
Outside of Prescott and his family, no one enjoyed last Wednesday’s festivities more than Jones.
From circumcising a fly to the NFL treating COVID-19 with Tylenol to wanting to shoot someone looking into his background, the loquacious Cowboys owner was in rare oratory form with his homespun tales and phrases known affectionately as Jerry-isms.
Things started out innocently with Jones being appreciative of the moment.
“It is good to be back,” Jones said in his opening preamble. “Good to be back with you and hopefully this is something that will evolve and we’ll be having many more days to get back to business as usual.”
For the most part, Jones was funny, affable, prideful and spoke matter-of-factly about the business of getting into the NFL.
“When I bought the Cowboys, apart from a lot of other things that were being said, it was very commonly said what an idiot I was for paying for what I paid for the Cowboys,” Jones said. “That’s not an exaggeration. It was firmly there. Well, I really got screwed.”
Jones said the last line with emphasis, knowing full-well he has turned his initial $140 million investment into the richest franchise in all of team sports with an estimated worth of $5.7 billion.
Jones also has no problem with the narrative that he overpaid for Prescott.
“The truth is, most anything I’ve ever been involved in that ended up being special, I overpaid for,” a smiling Jones said in response to question about Prescott’s large contract. “Any time I’ve tried to get a bargain, I got just that. It was a bargain in a lot of ways, and not up to standard. I will tell you this, if there’s a human breathing that I’ve ever met that I’m proud took advantage of me financially, I’m proud it’s the one sitting to the right.”
Jones offered a unique lesson on banking when asked if his knowledge of the expected new NFL television contracts influenced the deal.
“Picture a bank account and taking a dollar out,” Jones said. “The exercise that counts the most is putting it in. Anybody can almost take it out. So you better have in mind and better have thought of as many things as you possibly can of taking it out. It has to do with timing. It has to do with a lot of players’ contracts, but it has to do with a lot of evaluating when and how the dollars to do it are going to come in. So one of my jobs is basically to make sure it’s there when it comes out.”
And then there was this little ditty about the scrutiny on Prescott from the time he was taken in the fourth round in the 2016 NFL Draft to whether he was deserving of top quarterback money.
It left his daughter, Cowboys vice president Charlotte Jones, shaking her head in disbelief.
“I’d kill somebody if they put me through what guys go through in the draft when they look at their backgrounds and check every neighbor, every friend they ever had,” Jones said to a room full of bewildered reporters. “I’d shoot somebody if they did that to me. Dak gets that kind of scrutiny.”
Jones, who grew up in Arkansas, is known for throwing insect references into his colloquialisms. He has used the phrase “circumcise a mosquito” a number of times in the past, and Wednesday was an opportunity to replay some old material.
He brought it out again, but with a twist, when talking about understanding the future financial landscape of the NFL and where the Cowboys fit in doing the Prescott contract.
“It would be madness for anybody in the NFL not to look to the future of what financially it’s going to look like,” Jones said. “Financially, I like where we are. I like where we are. We got something we can do and we’re going to be able to do it. As you all know, if they just opened the books and let everybody spend what they wanted to spend, you know who would be the leader in the pack there. So that’s not the way it works.
“We got some guys who are circumcising the fly, so to speak. The bottom line is we got it down, we really do.”
Other teams were circumcising the fly — or getting bogged down with details — the Cowboys got the deal done because they got it down.
The 78-year old Jones, who in 2013 said a doctor told him he had the mind of a 40-year-old, ended the 80-minute press conference playing the role of a bootleg COVID-19 expert in explaining the NFL’s success in managing the pandemic.
“The NFL was a huge success,” Jones said. “Very few COVID cases, very few. Nobody got sick. Some got COVID but they took the Tylenols and went on.”
Tylenol did the trick, huh?
Dr. Anthony Fauci would probably like a word with Jones on the latter.
But Jones had a point to make about the need to return to normalcy in 2021 and he was trying to be as careful as possible.
“As it looks right now we work in a safe way,” Jones said. “Safety is a big word. Been coached up. Every other word, use safety. But the other thing, though, we’re going to be very aggressive. And our game needs team. We need associations with each other. Our components are parts of our people. The more we can be together, the better it is.”
Jones needs associations. He needs press conferences.
The better it is for us all.
This story was originally published March 12, 2021 at 10:13 AM.
