Dallas Cowboys didn’t reach Super Bowl, but Jerry Jones is living his L.A. fairy tale
Super Bowl 56 is upon us.
And in case you have been living under a rock for the past month, year or 26 years, it will again occur without the Dallas Cowboys being one of its participants.
Their continued absence is even more acute this week because of the commitment the team seemingly made in 2021 to get the NFL’s title game and the personal stake team owner Jerry Jones had in it.
His football fairy tale would have had the Cowboys playing in a Super Bowl hosted at his palace in Arlington, AT&T Stadium.
But the alt version of his Hollywood script would have had the Cowboys playing for the championship in a stadium, which he helped make a reality, located just a few blocks from his birthplace.
It will be the first time the country’s most-watched sporting event has been played in the Los Angeles market since Jan. 31, 1993, when the Cowboys bludgeoned the Buffalo Bills, 52-17, in Super Bowl XXVII at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena.
That championship was the first of three Super Bowl titles in 1990s, early in the Jones era, back in the days when a generation-long drought for a dynasty would have resembled more bad fiction than reality TV.
But here we are, sitting at Year 26.
This year’s drought was extended when the San Francisco 49ers eliminated the Cowboys, 23-17, in their wild card playoff game last month.
But Sunday’s battle between the Cincinnati Bengals and Los Angeles Rams at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood wouldn’t be possible without Jones’ influence, and it will not take place without a Jones’ connection.
Born in Inglewood in 1942, Jones spent the first six years of his life four miles away in El Segundo, a city that borders Los Angeles’ biggest airport, before his father moved the family back to his home in Arkansas.
Jones always considered Southern California his second home, a status reinforced and emboldened even more by his decision to conduct Cowboys training camp in Oxnard, a seaside city 60 miles up to coast from Inglewood, for the team’s legion of fans who live in the area.
Jones was the driving force behind the NFL’s return to Los Angeles, and he used his influence and political maneuvering to help Rams owner Stan Kroenke to get enough votes to move his team from St. Louis and into the $5 billion showpiece that is SoFi Stadium.
Jones’ Cowboys played the Rams in the first game back in Los Angeles in the 2016 preseason opener at the Los Angeles Coliseum. And they returned to help open SoFi Stadium in the 2020 season opener.
And while the Cowboys aren’t in the Super Bowl, Jones will have a financial stake in the proceedings as the co-owner of Legends Hospitality, the management company that oversees the sale of naming rights, suites and concessions for SoFi Stadium.
And, of course, the money that Legends has helped Kroenke and the Rams make has fueled their coffers to fund a spending spree that allowed them to build their Super Bowl roster with superstar additions via trades or free agency. The list includes quarterback Matt Stafford, cornerback Jalen Ramsey, defensive end Von Miller and receiver Odell Beckham Jr.
Considering it all, there is no question that Jones will strut around Los Angeles this week with a sense of pride, accomplishment and rooting interest.
“There is such a romance to me for the Los Angeles Rams to be sitting there,” Jones said recently on his radio show on the 105.3 The Fan. “They are about one mile from the little house that my parents lived when I was born. I was born right there. Got a lot of relatives out there. I would like to see that fairy tale. So, I am kind of rooting for them.”
None of this would have been possible without him.
Sadly, though, it all remains possible and profitable without the Cowboys.
