Tag Archives: Jerry Jones

local news, Sports news

Dallas Stadium? For real … ?

A mild bit of grumbling can be heard in some North Texas communities over the temporary renaming of AT&T Stadium in Arlington.

The place — known colloquially as Jerry World — was named over the weekend as a semifinal site for the 2026 World Cup soccer tournament. The locals had hoped the place would become a site for the finals. But … no dice.

FIFA, the World Cup governing body, doesn’t like to have corporate names on its venues, so it demanded they take down the name of the telecommunications giant. The new name?

Dallas Stadium!

The name has rankled some folks. I tend to agree with their hurt feelings.

The place is 30-some miles from Dallas. It’s closer to Fort Worth than to Big D. I can think of several non-corporate names one could have put on the place other than Dallas Stadium.

North Texas Stadium. D/FW Stadium. Arlington Stadium. They all come to mind. I’d even settle for Cowboys Stadium.

It just ain’t in Dallas. I get that FIFA wanted to have a name associated with the largest city in the region. That would be Dallas, with its towering skyline full of gleaming office buildings. Then again, Fort Worth has its share of cowboy glitz and glamor, too.

I should point out as well that the Dallas Cowboys, the pro football team that calls the place home, hasn’t played in Dallas since the team’s founding in 1960, when they played their home games in the Cotton Bowl. They have since moved to Irving and then to Arlington … where team owner Jerry Jones built the place now known temporarily as Dallas Stadium.

As for the grumblers, well, I’m with ’em.

local news, Sports news

Try someone new … Jerry

Jerry Jones, the egomaniacal owner of the Dallas Cowboys, won’t accept any advice from someone who in truth doesn’t really give a crap about the organization he calls “America’s Team.”

But I’m going to offer it anyway.

A Dallas man submitted a letter to the editor of the Dallas Morning News, which published it in this morning’s paper. The fan writes that the team has gone “28 long years” since it last played for an NFL championship; the team has burned through 1,484 players, six head coaches and one general manager. “Can you guess the common denominator for all these … failures?” he writes.

Sure. That’s Jones, who doubles as GM as well as the guy who signs the ample paychecks.

Jones’s ego compels him to pretend he knows something about pro football. He won’t give up the GM post to a real football pro. But he damn sure should.

The Cowboys choked this past weekend against a team described as “upstart.” The Green Bay Packers came to play tackle football. The Cowboys didn’t. There likely should be a coaching change in the Cowboys’ immediate future.

As for the GM matter, that’s up to the owner … who must decide whether to “fire” himself and then hire someone who knows how to build and maintain a professional football team.

That won’t happen. It certainly should, if only the owner’s ego would allow it.

local news, Sports news

Cowboys’ coach is out … finally!

(Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)

That went well, yes? Well, no. It didn’t.

Jason Garrett has been booted as the Dallas Cowboys head football coach. The Cowboys have told Garrett his contract won’t be renewed. He’s out of a job.

However, all of this is coming from media reports. The Cowboys’ ownership hasn’t made a formal announcement just yet.

Jumpin’ jiminy. The owner of the NFL franchise, Jerry Jones, has made a mess of it. No surprise there. The owner operates on a clumsiness quotient that has virtually no rival in the National Football League.

I won’t get into the Xs and Os of the job Garrett did. I don’t know enough about football to speak intelligently about it. He won more games than he lost. He just didn’t win any Super Bowl games during his time as coach. That’s the benchmark for success in Jerry Jones’ world. To be fair, Jones isn’t the only pro sports franchise owner who cherishes league championships.

However, I just hate that Garrett had to be called the Cowboys’ head coach while the owner/general manager was interviewing prospective successors. He didn’t deserve to be disrespected in that manner.

As for whoever dons the coach’s headset next year and beyond, I hope he’s ready to deal with an owner who thinks he enough about pro football to act as a general manager, which to my way of thinking requires a skill set a zillionaire businessman just doesn’t possess.

Sports news

Owner/GM needs to fire himself, but he won’t

The owner/general manager of the Dallas Cowboys football team is making a spectacle of himself — no surprise there! — as the media ponder his next coaching move.

Jerry Jones is the owner of the NFL team. He is likely to fire head coach Jason Garrett, whose contract expired when time ran out at the end of Sunday’s game against the Washington Redskins. The Cowboys won the game but aren’t going to the league playoffs.

Garrett is going to leave the team he has coached. Jones will find someone else.

But the owner/GM is going to make it all about him as he postures, preens and pontificates about how he intends to make the Cowboys great again. Does that sound like someone else in the news? Well, sure it does.

Jones is entitled to own the team. I don’t begrudge him that. I just wish he would be a more “conventional” pro sports team owner: sit in the shadows, pay the salaries of your executives, let a real general manager make football decisions such as hiring a coach.

The owner need not get mixed up in the middle of running a pro football team. It’s way more complicated than making all that money to buy the team in the first place.

Hmm. Does that also sound like anyone we know, too?

Sports news

Let the football gurus rebuild the team, Mr. Franchise Owner

I am going to delve into a subject about which I know nothing … which is no surprise, I guess, to critics of High Plains Blogger.

Still, here goes my foray into what I think is best for a pro football franchise that is the talk of the region where my wife and I now reside.

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones needs to give up his stint as the team’s general manager. He should hire a competent, knowledgeable football guru to make drafting decisions, make coaching staff hiring choices, run the day to day operations of arguably the most valuable pro sports franchise on Earth.

I get that it’s his team. He spent zillions to buy the Cowboys back in 1989. He fired the team’s only coach, the legendary Tom Landry. He said something at the time about getting involved with every aspect of the team, including “washing jock straps,” or some such nonsense.

The owner anointed himself the team’s GM.

To be fair, the Cowboys have won three Super Bowls since Jones bought the team. However, they’ve gone 25 years since playing in the last one. The team is struggling again this season. The coach, Jason Garrett, is likely to hit the road once the final game ends this weekend.

I happen to agree with WFAA-TV sports commentator Dale Hansen, who said this morning that the owner’s meddling in matters about which he knows not a thing is what is fundamentally wrong with the Cowboys.

Hey, he’s entitled to be the owner. It’s his money. However, he is feeding a bloated ego by being in the news constantly.

I prefer sports owners to be silent. Let them pay the salaries. Let them run the board meetings. They can make command decisions, but then have their flacks make the announcements.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2013/12/would-the-cowboys-owner-fire-himself-please/

I’ve seen and heard enough from the Cowboys’ owner and the guessing games about what he intends to do to fix the team. Just walk away from the GM job, Mr. Owner, and hire someone who knows how to run a pro football team.

Sports news

Coaching path from college to pros is strewn with casualties

(Photo by Scott Halleran/Getty Images)

The fascination in this part of the world with Urban Meyer and the thought that he might become the next Dallas Cowboys head football coach intrigues me terribly.

And not for reasons you might expect.

Jason Garrett is likely coaching his final season for the Cowboys, who have underperformed to the disappointment of the team’s fans. Let me stipulate that I am not one of those fans.

So, what about Meyer? He retired as head coach at Ohio State. Prior to that he coached the University of Florida to greatness. Prior to that he led the University of Utah to the status of being a very good football team. He won three national collegiate championships.

Does that college success translate automatically to the professional ranks? Hmm. Let’s ponder that.

Chip Kelly coached the University of Oregon and for a brief spell led the team to elite status among college football programs. He left Oregon to become head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles; he got fired. Then he became head coach of the San Francisco 49ers; he got fired again. He’s now back as a college coach at UCLA.

Bud Wilkinson led the University of Oklahoma to 47 straight wins in the early 1950s. He coached the St. Louis Cardinals of the NFL, where his success was, shall we say, less than sterling.

Dennis Erickson had a stellar college coaching career. His pro coaching career was decidedly less than stellar.

Steve Spurrier, too, had great success as a college coach. Not so much in the pros.

Nick Saban? Same thing.

To be sure, there are reverse examples. The Cowboys hired two successful college coaches, Jimmy Johnson and Barry Switzer, who managed to win Super Bowls coaching the Cowboys. The owner, Jerry Jones, fired ’em both; Johnson mouthed off to the owner and I can’t remember what got Switzer into trouble.

I would encourage my friends who are Cowboys’ fanatics to take great care in wishing Urban Meyer can be talked into donning the headphones yet again, this time for the Dallas Cowboys.

It’s one thing to throw your weight around with student-athletes. It’s quite another matter when the players you are coaching are multimillionaires who make more money each year than the guy who’s telling ’em to run wind sprints.

Sports news

They played a football game … as they should

My first reaction a decision to cancel a high school football game in the wake of the El Paso, Texas massacre was to support, if not embrace, the decision.

But then two high schools linked tragically to the slaughter of 22 victims decided to play the game. El Paso Eastwood High School played Plano Senior High School in a game hosted by the Dallas Cowboys, who let the teams play the game Thursday at their massive stadium in Arlington, Texas.

El Paso’s link to the shooting is quite obvious. Plano Senior High happens to be where the alleged gunman graduated. Thus, the linkage will bind these communities forever.

I am glad they played the game. Plano Senior High won the contest. As I watched the news video of the event this morning, though, I was struck in the heart by the fellowship and sportsmanship displayed by the student-athletes of both teams. The team members embraced prior to the game. They helped each other up during the contest. Fans from both sides cheered for the other team.

And then we saw Cowboys owner Jerry Jones greeting the El Paso Eastwood team as they entered the stadium, welcoming them to what essentially was the “home field” for their Plano Senior High opponents.

That’s why we should play these games. Sure, one team wins and the other one loses. Both communities, though, came out winners.

Sports news

How ’bout them Arlington Cowboys?

ALLEN, Texas — Something’s come over me.

I am welcoming the new year with my son, daughter-in-law and their family watching a Dallas, ‘er Arlington, Cowboys football game.

Am I now going to become a Cowboys fan who cheers wildly whenever this team scores touchdowns or prevents the other guys from scoring? Is there a new year’s resolution in the making?

Uhhh, I doubt it.

That’s not the point of this brief blog post, however.

What often interests me is why this team is still called the “Dallas” Cowboys.

The team came into existence in 1960. Its first few seasons took place in the Cotton Bowl, which is on property where they have the Texas State Fair every fall. It also is smack in the middle of Dallas.

Then the Cowboys moved to Irving in the early 1970s. Irving is a suburb between Dallas and Fort Worth.

After a few years in Irving, the Cowboys blew that stadium up and moved way over yonder to Arlington, where they play in that monstrous venue called AT&T Stadium; it’s also known more colloquially as “Jerry World” in honor of the Cowboys’ owner/general manager Jerry Jones.

I have had several friends over the years who have lived in Fort Worth. To a person they have bristled at the mention of the title “Dallas Cowboys.” It’s especially true these days, I reckon, given that Arlington sits at Fort Worth’s doorstep, about 25 miles or so west on Interstate 30 from Dallas.

One friend, who moved away from Fort Worth a number of years, refused adamantly to use the term “Dallas” when describing the NFL team. He would call ’em the “Irving Cowboys.”

I’m almost willing to bet a huge percentage of the fans who fill Jerry World on a given Sunday hail from places far from Dallas.

Does it really fit, therefore, to refer to this pro football team as being from Dallas? Just askin’, man.

Sports news

Pro sports team owners should remain hidden

2 Comments

We’ve heard the term “narcissist” tossed around during the past year or so, usually while referencing Donald J. Trump, the next president of the United States.

Trump is one of them, for sure. He might place a fairly distant second to the owner of the Dallas Cowboys, Jerry Jones.

jerry_jones_2015_2

Jones, of course, isn’t your typical sports team owner. He doubles as the Cowboys’ general manager, which means he gets to make all the critical decisions related to running the team. He doesn’t hire some high-powered GM to make those calls; Jones does it himself.

He’s got his own radio show in the Dallas area. He fairly routinely pre-empts the head coach, Jason Garrett.

Just recently he said he foments rumors about former starting quarterback Tony Romo resuming his role just to stir things up, apparently with little regard to how it might mess up the psyche of Dak Prescott, the team’s current starting QB.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/jerry-jones-says-he-fuels-qb-controversy-on-purpose/ar-AAlIJZJ

I just wish Jones would find it within himself to do what sports team owners usually do: write the checks that pay the salaries, make an occasional public appearance at sports banquets — and step away from the spotlight.

I get that he isn’t the first sports owner to make a spectacle of himself. Al Davis did it with the Oakland Raiders of the NFL; Donald Sterling managed to do so with the Los Angeles Clippers of the NBA; Georgia Frontiere of the LA Rams did, too.

I don’t “follow” the Cowboys the way a lot of Texas residents, too, let alone “worship” them.

However, I do grow weary of seeing and hearing the team’s owner.

Put a sock in it, Jerry.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2013/12/would-the-cowboys-owner-fire-himself-please/

 

medical news, Sports news

‘Dr.’ Jerry Jones issues his diagnosis on CTE

jones

Jerry Jones engenders fairly strong emotions among those who follow professional football in the United States of America.

He bought a team in 1989 and then fired the only coach the team ever had, the iconic Tom Landry. Then he decided to forgo hiring a general manager and he took over the job himself. He made some comment at the time about getting involved in “everything, including washing jock straps.” (I know it’s not a precise quote, but it’s close enough.)

How have the Dallas Cowboys done since then? Well, they’ve won some and lost some. Yes, they have won three Super Bowls since Jones took over as owner. Still, the team, it’s safe to say, has fallen far short of the expectations its brash new owner set for it.

The word on Jones ever since he bought the team, though, is that he’s not necessarily a good “football guy.” Brilliant businessman, sure.

Now he’s popping off about the effect of the sport in which he participates on a brain disorder called chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

The good “doctor” says there’s no connection between gigantic men colliding full-force into other men, knocking them senseless and then being afflicted with CTE. He calls assertions linking football to CTE “absurd.”

Jerry Jones needs to have his own head examined.

He said the National Football League lacks sufficient data to suggest the existence between CTE and the collisions that occur on the football field.

I do believe Jones is seriously — and tragically — mistaken.

Thus, I should recommend that Jones watch a brilliant PBS documentary that got the nation’s attention a couple of years ago. “Frontline” broadcast “League of Denial” that chronicles a gripping series of cases involving men whose lives were shattered by CTE.

What did these men have in common? Every one of them played competitive American football.

“Frontline” peeled the skin off a disorder that has shattered many lives. Insufficient data? It’s out there, Jerry. Really.

The NFL acknowledges it. So should the owner of the Dallas Cowboys.