Jerry Jones I Dont to Play Denver Again September 2017
This commodity originally appeared in the September 2017 issue of Texas Monthly with the headline "Why the 'Boys Are Back."
It was the fourth quarter of Dak Prescott and Ezekiel Elliott's first NFL playoff game. They were on their habitation field in mid-January, and their team was displaying uncommon resilience against Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers. The 'Boys had fallen behind 21–3 in the second quarter, and the fans at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, instead of descending into all too familiar fits of despair, simply waited for the team to evidence to the national audition what had begun to dawn on them early in the pre-season: this team was something special.
The Cowboys responded. Down by 8 points in the 4th, the defense executed a perfect blitz confronting the elusive Rodgers, with journeyman prophylactic Barry Church dragging 1 of the game's all-time quarterbacks to the basis. Back on offense, the Cowboys' rookie quarterback, Prescott, played with the poise of a veteran, leading an eleven-play, 80-k march downfield. Elliott, the rookie running dorsum who led the league in yards last year, brought the brawl inside the 10 past pulling a spin movement that left massive Green Bay linebacker Clay Matthews wrapping his arms around a deject of dust. To cap information technology off, Prescott hit Dez Bryant for the receiver's second touchdown of the game. The quarterback rushed up the middle on the 2-indicate effort to necktie a game the Cowboys had trailed by xviii points some thirty minutes earlier.
The fairy tale ending, alas, was not meant to be. The Packers reclaimed a iii-point pb. The Cowboys ripped off a six-play bulldoze in 58 seconds and tied the game again. But then, with 35 seconds on the clock, Rodgers drove into field-goal range by striking his tight end with 3 seconds to play to set up a game-winning kick for the Packers.
The Cowboys have been no stranger to heartbreak in recent years, but equally heartbreaking playoff losses become, this was perhaps the most encouraging ane in NFL history. "That'southward i of those losses where you go into the off-season and you tin't wait for the next flavor to begin," says Bob Sturm, a host of the Bob and Dan radio show on KTCK, in Dallas. "It put the balance of the league on notice." Here was the Cowboys team of the future: a team whose fundamental components were all under contract through the terminate of the decade, a team that, it was piece of cake to believe, would only get better and better.
If you time-traveled back to 2001 (when this magazine ran a cover story that asked, "Is Jerry Jones the Devil?") and told a lifelong fan that the Dallas Cowboys might be the best-run organization in the NFL, it would sound most as unlikely equally the words "University Award winner Matthew McConaughey" or "President Donald Trump." And still, the Cowboys, who oasis't exactly earned the title "America's Squad" in more a decade, are all of a sudden looking the part again.
Or maybe not and then suddenly. A closer look reveals a few primal turning points that led the Cowboys to go non simply 1 of the NFL'southward nearly promising teams but among its well-nigh solidly constructed. Even more surprising: mayhap the almost important engineer of those moments goes past the last proper noun Jones—but it's not contempo Hall of Fame inductee Jerry.
May 8, 2014: Drafting Zack Martin Over Johnny Manziel
On May eight, 2014, the Dallas Cowboys held the sixteenth pick in the NFL draft. After months of speculation about what would happen with Johnny Manziel, the most intriguing prospect of the typhoon form, the boom-or-bust quarterback was nevertheless on the board. Quarterback-hungry teams like the Houston Texans, the Tennessee Titans, the Minnesota Vikings, and the Oakland Raiders had all snatched upward future Pro Bowlers at other positions, leaving the Texas A&Chiliad superstar waiting every bit he watched his opportunities dwindle in the showtime round.
And and so information technology was the Cowboys' plough to pick. Jerry Jones had, in the buildup to the draft, flirted with the idea of drafting Manziel to be the squad's quarterback of the future behind Tony Romo. It would take been a archetype Jerry choice: a splashy, headline-grabbing star with Texas ties and the potential to be a ratings-dominating superstar for the next decade plus—but too the sort of loftier-risk/high-reward prospect that was the definition of a luxury pick for a squad with a quarterback every bit talented equally Romo under center.
Jerry wanted Manziel. The balance of the Cowboys forepart office did not. So Jerry'southward son, executive vice president Stephen Jones, who in recent years had stepped into the sort of general management role that Jerry had never trusted to i of his hires, had made his dad a deal. The squad'south defense wasn't a cohesive unit, and there were sure-matter defensive prospects similar linebackers Ryan Shazier and Anthony Barr and defensive tackle Aaron Donald in the draft form. Jerry agreed that if 1 of those players was yet available when the Cowboys were on the clock, they'd leave Johnny Football still waiting—and and so Stephen pushed even further. He wanted Zack Martin, a guard from Notre Dame, before Manziel too.
Sure plenty, the defensive players the Joneses coveted were gone by the time they picked. It came down to Manziel or Martin: the flashiest role player in years, at the game's flashiest position, or a dependable interior offensive lineman who, if he excelled on the field, would rarely have his name spoken aloud by announcers, who'd be marveling at what ball carriers did in the holes he'd create.
Jerry looked around the Cowboys' typhoon room, hoping to find someone who would back up the idea of taking Manziel—and did not find anyone. On goggle box, the broadcasters speculated every bit to what was happening behind the scenes. Manziel Mania author Jim Paring reported that Jerry had had the A&M passer'south draft card in his paw when Stephen told him that Martin was the consensus choice.
"Son, I hope you're happy," the elder Jones had said, according to Sports Illustrated. "But let me tell y'all something: you don't get to own the Cowboys, you don't become to exercise special things in life, past making major decisions going right downwards the middle. And that was correct downwardly the middle."
It may take been. Merely it was also a movement that would help the Cowboys find an identity that wasn't tied to having one marquee proper noun and winning the hype cycle during the off-season. Instead, the team'due south identity was built in the trenches. Martin, who's now entering his fourth year, is a iii-fourth dimension Pro Bowler and ii-time All-Pro, the anchor of the about feared—if, paradoxically, anonymous—of any position group on any team in the league. Manziel, of form, is almost certainly out of the NFL for proficient.
Behind Martin—too as tackle Tyron Smith and centre Travis Frederick, two other first-circular picks on the offensive line—Cowboys rushers who might have been ordinary elsewhere have turned into stars. Rushers who might have been stars on other teams, meanwhile, could become legends.
March 12, 2015: Letting DeMarco Murray Walk
Rushing behind Martin and the rest of the Cowboys offensive line in 2014, DeMarco Murray etched his name into Cowboys lore. Murray, a 3rd-circular draft pick in 2011, had spent his start iii seasons struggling with injuries, simply with the revamped Cowboys line doing his blocking, he started shattering NFL records in 2014. He rushed for more than 100 yards in each of the first viii games of the flavor and broke a tape that the great Jim Brown had held since 1958. He scored xiii touchdowns and rushed for more than 1,800 yards through the grade of the season, more than than Emmitt Smith, Tony Dorsett, or Herschel Walker e'er did.
With Murray in the backfield, the Cowboys' star began rising in the NFL. Since the 1999 season, the Cowboys had posted a win-loss record of 120-120 and won simply 2 playoff games, simply a promising roster was finally taking shape. Cowboys fans thrilled at the thought of Murray playing the Emmitt Smith part in an crime built around the "triplets" strategy of the mid-nineties glory days, with Dez Bryant as the Michael Irvin–like wideout and Tony Romo playing Troy Aikman.
Just Murray was budgeted gratuitous agency. The pressure on the Cowboys' front office to proceed him was immense. Fans loved him. He was a big character in the locker room, who ate breakfast every forenoon with the squad's running backs motorcoach, the 2 poring over various defensive fronts. NFL columnists published stories with headlines like "Dallas Cowboys must re-sign DeMarco Murray on multi-year deal."
The Cowboys resisted the force per unit area, confident that with their offensive line doing the blocking, Murray wasn't irreplaceable. Murray tested free bureau and ended up inking a five-year, $42 million deal with the curvation-rival Philadelphia Eagles. Fans were apoplectic. Michael Irvin, who's never been known to be a harsh critic of the Jones family, told Dallas sports talk radio station 105.3 that the move was "poor controlling on the Cowboys' part, on many unlike levels"—affecting everything from the team's performance in the backfield to the chemistry in the locker room.
Stephen, for his role, explained the squad's controlling process to the Associated Printing. Rather than returning to the triplets philosophy, he said, "We accept to develop [and] construction a football squad with the salary cap. Yous can't pay a top receiver, a top quarterback, a meridian pass rusher, a peak left tackle. Yous've got to make hard decisions."
Instead of paying Murray top dollar, the Cowboys signed Darren McFadden, a 2008 draft bust out of the University of Arkansas, alma mater for both Jerry and Stephen Jones. Rushing backside Martin and the offensive line, McFadden posted a solid 1,000-yard season. So, of form, when the 2016 draft came, the team jumped at the opportunity to build from the ground up with a younger, healthier, more effective—and cheaper—back than Murray, signing Ezekiel Elliott to a four-yr, $25 million deal, after taking him with the fourth choice overall.
Elliott's impact was immediate. He rushed for over ane,600 yards and fifteen touchdowns and was selected as outset-squad All Pro (though he spent the off-season nether investigation by the NFL). But it turns out that the most significant choice the Cowboys made in the 2016 draft wasn't the prized running back. It was a quaternary-round selection who would enter training military camp on the chimera to make the squad.
Baronial 27, 2016: Discovering Dak Prescott
The 3rd preseason game of 2016, against the Seattle Seahawks, was the one in which fans would go to see how much rust Romo had shaken off after playing in only four games the previous season. Starters unremarkably make brief appearances in the commencement two preseason games, but game 3 is considered a wearing apparel rehearsal for the year to come. A minute and a half into the game, facing second and seven from the 39-thou line, Romo's—and the Cowboys'—fortunes shifted forever. Scrambling against the rush, Romo escaped the pocket and was tackled awkwardly from behind by defensive finish Cliff Avril. He would attempt only four more than passes in his NFL career.
Even before they lost Romo, the Cowboys had known that the 36-twelvemonth-old veteran with a history of injuries wasn't a certain bet, and so they'd brought in vii quarterbacks for predraft visits. They weren't planning on needing a starter (and they didn't know that fill-in Kellen Moore would interruption his ankle). During the draft, the Joneses watched as the prospects slipped off the board one subsequently some other: Jared Goff and Carson Wentz before the Cowboys even made a selection; Paxton Lynch after the Denver Broncos outbid Dallas in a merchandise with the Seahawks in the first round; Christian Hackenberg, Jacoby Brissett, and Connor Cook earlier Dallas selected in the fourth circular. That left the frustrated Cowboys taking defensive end Charles Tapper with the team's first option in the 4th round and then selecting a QB out of Mississippi State named Dak Prescott with the 135th selection at the end of that round. He was the first quarterback drafted by the Cowboys since 2009.
NFL talking heads praised the Prescott choice. He had the potential to develop into a starter, they said—if he sat behind Romo for a few seasons. NFL.com annotator Gil Brandt, who worked in the Cowboys' front part from 1960 until Jones bought the team, in 1989, summed upwards the measured optimism on Twitter, comparison Prescott to a better Tim Tebow and noting, "He has [a] chance to eventually supersede Romo."
With Romo out, Moore out, and no experienced backup on the market, the team was Prescott's. And what happened next was the sort of surprise that turns kids with a budding involvement in the game into lifelong fans.
Prescott had some jitters to work out in the team'south flavor opener. He passed for 227 yards and no touchdowns in a 20–19 loss to the New York Giants. It would be the only loss Prescott would know in the next three months. He went on a tear through the NFL, quickly evolving into the sort of special player that every squad that took a quarterback ahead of Prescott in the draft dreamed they'd end up with. He scored his first touchdownwardly on the ground against Washington in calendar week two, then threw for ane and rushed i in against the Chicago Bears in week three. He didn't throw an interception until calendar week six, when the Packers picked him off in a game that too saw him throw three touchdowns on his mode to a xxx–16 triumph. He put up three touchdowns again in weeks viii, nine, and eleven.
Eventually Romo was healthy. Eventually it didn't thing. The Cowboys had gotten lucky that a talented quarterback like Prescott had lasted until the 4th circular of the typhoon, and when circumstances led the team to put its faith in an unproven, untested rookie, it found the new face up of the franchise.
Just it wasn't all luck. Prescott, in fact, had been the quarterback the Cowboys had met with more than times than any other before the draft. As a advantage for looking beyond the obvious, the team concluded up with a quarterback who could brand stars out of sleeper receivers similar Cole Beasley and Terrance Williams and who could maximize the potential of the receiver who would find himself the old hand amid a rapidly changing team: Dez Bryant.
July 15, 2015: Re-Signing Dez Bryant
Prescott was taking showtime-team reps at quarterback during Cowboys training army camp in 2016, which meant that his go-to target during drills was All-Pro receiver Dez Bryant; at 27 years old, he was the rare veteran starter whose career was still ascending. As they worked through the two-minute drill, Prescott executed a play from the 42 and striking Bryant on a short camber pattern, after which the receiver was supposed to immediately go down so that Prescott could speedily re-set, spike the brawl to stop the clock, and then watch the field goal squad put up what, during a live-game situation, would be a winning boot. But Bryant saw an opportunity to score and burst toward the finish zone. It didn't piece of work. If it had been an bodily game, the Cowboys would take lost.
Prescott, a rookie with cipher accomplishments in the NFL, approached the megastar. "You are the baddest man on the field, the best histrion on the team," he said, according to Bleacher Report. "But you take to listen to me. I told y'all that you lot had to go downward. Look what just happened. We have the best kicker in the league."
Bryant, who had a reputation as a hothead, rose to the occasion—or mayhap responded to something he saw in Prescott. "I got you lot, human being," he told the rookie. "It won't happen over again."
There were times, before in his career, when information technology appeared that Bryant might not make it this far with the Cowboys. Despite his clear talent, he was but the twenty-fourth option in the 2010 draft, thanks to what scouts and the media decried as "character concerns"—questions nigh a potential NCAA rules violation and about his childhood friends. Ii years after going pro, he was charged with misdemeanor assault after constabulary reported that he struck his mother during an argument (the accuse was dropped later on Bryant agreed to seek counseling). He had a tendency to shout at teammates during frustrating moments in games. In 2014, as he sought a new contract with the Cowboys, stories circulated in the media about the number of times that the constabulary had been called to his house.
In previous years,the Cowboys had had a trend to learn big-proper name talent from other teams, rather than develop it internally. They signed star cornerback Brandon Carr on a free-agent deal after he left Kansas City, shipped off a bounty of draft picks to Detroit for wide receiver Roy Williams, and risked the squad'south chemistry by bringing in notoriously loftier-maintenance receiver Terrell Owens. Moves like that rarely piece of work in the NFL, but teams make them all the time in the promise that they know more than about a player than the team that was willing to allow him walk.
Building a team through the typhoon is much more effective than building through free agency, though. The teams that are perennially successful, like the Patriots and the Packers, tend to spend their gratis-agency dollars on their own stars. The Cowboys embraced this philosophy when it came to Bryant. Early in the 2015 off-season, they utilized an NFL rule called the franchise tag, which gives teams a window of fourth dimension to make a deal to keep 1 of their stars who's entering free agency, without that player getting offers from other teams. Subsequently several months of haggling, hours before the deadline to sign a long-term contract, Stephen and Jerry Jones flew to New York to meet with Bryant's representation, a squad that included Jay-Z and NFL "alpha agent" Tom Condon. With minutes to go, they signed a 5-year bargain. Bryant, then 26 years old, would be playing through his prime as a Cowboy.
What's more, Prescott'southward contract won't come up until 2020, and Elliott's won't exist due until 2021. Disallowment complications with Zack Martin, whose contract comes upwards after the 2018 flavor, the Cowboys' roster of stars is immature enough that the team can remain in an enviable situation for the side by side half decade or more. The entire philosophy of the team seems to have changed since the lost years of the late nineties and early aughts. "They've settled into something that's based on analytics, on growing through the typhoon, managing the cap, and paying merely the players you produce," Sturm says. "They've gone from a squad that was trying to figure out what the all-time teams were doing to a squad that other teams are looking at and saying, 'How are the Cowboys doing this? Allow's try to copy them.' And that's a massive deviation over the concluding decade."
Likewise this: the triplets are dorsum, in the unlikely course of Prescott, Bryant, and Elliott. It'south a trio that no annotator—or, for that affair, Cowboys exec—could have fatigued up on paper. Just information technology's a direct result of the new thinking in the front office. Fans used to wonder if Jerry Jones was the devil—merely his son seems to be working miracles.
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Source: https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/dallas-cowboys-comeback/
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