Jerry Jones says Cowboys are ‘all in’ for 2024, but hedges on quarterback Dak Prescott’s future
.jpg "Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is")
Do the Dallas Cowboys really get it?
They know the fans are angry, disillusioned and many have lost faith in the franchise.
With the early exit from the playoffs against Green Bay, it’s now going on 29 years of postseason failures since their last Super Bowl title in 1995. And it’s three straight flame outs in the postseason following 12-5 regular seasons under coach Mike McCarthy.
The Cowboys are starting the process of building anew for 2024 with huge questions about the futures McCarthy and quarterback Dak Prescott, who are both heading into the final years of their contract.
Speaking to the media at the Senior Bowl on Tuesday, executive vice president Stephen Jones gave an honest assessment of Cowboys fan fatigue.
“There’s no way they’re going to explicitly trust you until you get it done,” Stephen Jones said. “Until we compete at that level and we get the job done, there’s going to be doubt. And rightfully so.”
Speaking for 30 minutes before Stephen Jones, owner Jerry Jones said the Cowboys “laid an egg” in the 48-32 loss to Green Bay Packers in the wild card game in what he contends was unconscionable and the biggest playoff disappointment of his career.
He said accountability starts with him and changes will be made as a result.
“You can start here and go all the way down the line,” Jerry Jones said. ”That was a bad day for us. And (it) manifests and created a lot of scrutiny on days long before that, and long after that. That’s what kind of day it was. So it’ll be an impactful day. We’ll do things that honor the fact that we didn’t play well against the Packers.”
By the same taken, Jerry Jones said the biggest changes the team needs to make to make sure they break through in the playoffs was the stop the run and to run the ball better.
And while he was angry, there was never a question in his mind about McCarthy returning.
“I thought we made a pretty good move four years ago when we hired Mike McCarthy,” Jerry Jones said. “And he’s had some great in season success. Now he’s come up short three times on advancing us in the playoff. Okay, but I liked the fact that he’s hanging around and around. And I like what the team has done to hang around the rim. So I think what the answer that I would have is that I’m aware that we’re hanging around around we’re not getting the ball in but we’ve been hanging around the rim. Let’s don’t discount hanging around the rim.”
Jones said the decision to keep McCarthy was pretty compelling because of the Cowboys have the second-most wins over the last three years than any time in the league.
“We need to benefit from of what he’s done well, and we’re better off riding with it than we would be by changing or obviously, I would have changed.”
“This is one I’m very comfortable with. It was just overwhelmingly the right decision to have the continuity that Mike brings”
Jones is comfortable, but is anyone confident things will be different in 2024?
Believing they will finally get the job down and how they do it is up for conjecture, especially with the team roughly $19 million over the 2024 salary cap and currently limited on how they can move with Prescott having a $59 million cap hit in the final season of his contract.
A year ago, at the Senior Bowl, both Jones’ were adamant and unequivocal about the team’s plan to sign Prescott a long-term contract extension and keep him with the franchise for years to come.
Stephen Jones said he wanted Prescott to be the team’s quarterback for another decade.
This year, at the Senior Bowl, the Cowboys declined to talk specifics about their plans for a Prescott contract extension before 2024.
In addition to possibly needing to do an extension to lower his cap figure so they can sign other players, the Cowboys are chancing Prescott possibly walking away as a free agent in 2025 if they don’t get something done. He has a no-trade clause and a clause which prevents the team from using the franchise tag on him.
Jerry Jones continued to use the buzz word of taking a “holistic approach” to the team’s salary cap situation while looping decisions on receiver CeeDee Lamb, edge rusher Micah Parsons and other free agents in with Prescott.
When pressed on why there appeared to be some iffiness on Prescott, who has a 2-5 record in the playoffs, compared to last year, Jerry Jones responded.
“I’m unequivocal about it right now,” Jones said. “We’ve got a lot of contract work to do. Okay, I’m unequivocal about all of the contracts. I can be unequivocal about all the contracts. But we’re gonna have to adjust all contracts are to get as many of the very players that you could ask me about singly under the contract. The facts are that it’s obvious who your top players are. It’s obvious who the players we want back would be. That’s obvious. It very obvious here in my mind. And so anything I’ve said, like last year, I said we see a picture of him going forward for many years, that’s alive and well. Yes, we sure do but we’ve got a lot of contracts to address.”
Prescott’ contract is a point of conjecture because of his salary cap hit. So when asked point blank if he wanted to get an extension done with Prescott, Jerry Jones said, “I don’t even want to answer the question. Okay. I would let everybody say you can just assume that. You can just assume that right there. What I’m really saying is I’m not going to be discussing any part of it because it looks like that’s an issue. Okay, when it’s not. It’s the entire thing and the balancing of the entire thing.”
“You’ve got to look at everything. We’ve got to see how much we can get onto the cap. So it’s a holistic approach, more so than any year that we’ve had.”
And then Jerry Jones offered this confusing statement to seemingly confirm his commitment to Prescott.
“Dak has done nothing to change my mind about any promise for the future,” Jerry ones said. “I think I’ve said in the deal that we will go as far as Dak takes us in the playoffs. Remember that. We will go as far as Dak takes us. And that is how far we went.
“So my point is, that’s doesn’t change a thing. We’ll go as far as Dak takes us.”
That’s not very encouraging to Cowboys fans as Prescott’s play in the loss to Packers has many wondering if he can get it done in the playoffs.
So what should Cowboys fans feel good about?
In what has the makings of a make-or-break year for McCarthy and Prescott in 2024, the Cowboys plan to go all in on the roster in their salary moves and free agency to put finally put a winner on the field.
In the past, they have focused on serving two masters by trying to win now while also building for the future and have come up woefully short.
“I would anticipate with looking ahead at our key contracts that we’d like to address we will be all in,” Jerry Jones said. “I would anticipate we will be all in at the end of this year. We will push the hell out of it.”
We will be going all in. Yes, I would say that you will see us this coming year not build it for the future. It’s the best way I’ve ever said. That ought to answer a lot of questions.”
Do you believe?
