BY JIM REEVES
Special to the Star-Telegram
Editor’s note: The following is an excerpt from “Dallas Cowboys: The Legends of America’s Team,” by Jim Reeves.
Jerry Jones has made himself a student, “right down to the fine hairs,” of Cowboys history, how the franchise evolved, learning from Tex Schramm and Tom Landry and Gil Brandt.
“I look back at my own experiences, my own mistakes, and obviously there are plenty of those,” Jones said. “I second-guess all the ones that I can point directly to that didn’t turn out right. There’s an old adage called the Ben Franklin way of making decisions. Ben Franklin used to take two sides of a pad. He’d put down all the pros on one side and put down all the cons on the other. Literally, if the pros outnumbered the cons, he’d go that way. Now, I can’t sit down with any decision I make and not have that ledger there, and there are some I wish I had back.”
One of those is the way Jones’ Cowboys’ ownership began, with his handling of the Landry firing and how it left such a bitter taste with fans, some of whom still haven’t forgiven him. If it’s any consolation, he doesn’t blame them. He’s not sure he has forgiven himself, either.
“I’ll go back to Day One,” Jones said of his regrets. “I got in a big hurry to switch [coaching] staffs when I bought the team. I got in a big hurry to bring Jimmy in and make the change with Coach Landry. I got in a big hurry to do that because we were trying to get — and I’m not blaming anybody — but the college staffs were being put together and Jimmy [Johnson] really wanted to bring [Dave] Wannstedt and his Miami college staff to Dallas. If we didn’t get it done real quick, we were running out of the time to be able to have flexibility because coaches were making commitments at the college level.
“When I announced the purchase, it was too fast to come behind that, that quick, with a coaching change of Coach Landry. It was just too fast. Not necessarily fast by the year, I’m not going that far. We should have announced the purchase of the team and then the coaching change later, whether it be weeks, months, whatever, but not the same night. Too fast.”
In retrospect, Jones now admits he should have let former owner Bum Bright handle the distasteful job of firing Landry. Bright wanted to do it. At the time, Jones felt it was his responsibility.
“Contrary to appearances, I had such respect for Coach Landry and for those coaches. Not just coaches, those coaches,” Jones said. “[Making the change at that time] created a perception that I didn’t [respect them], when in fact, it was just the opposite.
“When you look at the times, and how bad the financial times were in the country, to come in and make that financial commitment, you shouldn’t necessarily have been Darth Vader [to Cowboys fans]. I mean, you shouldn’t have been. But I helped that along.”
Five years later, Jones stumbled over his ego again, this time when he couldn’t, or wouldn’t find common ground with former college roommate Jimmy Johnson, despite the fact that the two had just won back-to-back Super Bowls together. Both were stubborn. Neither would back down.
“If I had it to do over again, I would have been more tolerant [regarding] my reasons for changing Jimmy,” Jones admitted. “I would have been more tolerant of anything I did that influenced that decision. I’m not saying I totally influenced the decision at all. There were two of us. But my part of it. And that’s not because we didn’t have success [after Jimmy] because I view the success that we had with Barry [Switzer] as very successful. That was a harder job than people give him credit for.
“If I had [splitting with Jimmy] to do over again, I would have accepted that role of, ‘Let’s see how much we can make this work out.’ The concerns I had, and the acute situation we were in, I was afraid it would blow up during the year.”
In the first year post-Jimmy, the Cowboys lost to San Francisco in the NFC Championship Game in 1994, then capped a tumultuous 1995 season with a win in Super Bowl XXX against Pittsburgh in Phoenix. But were there more Super Bowls to be won if Johnson had stayed? That’s a question that haunts Cowboys fans, but not necessarily Jones.
“We had a heck of a team the next year and really by rights, you’d have to say we were the best or right there at the best, in the NFL,” Jones pointed out. “So we didn’t leave that year on the table. You can say, well, you should have won it, but that’s cutting hairs. We won it the next year (1995).
“Jimmy was never, ever, ever going to be a 10-year guy. He was never going to be a 15-year guy. He was never going to be a Coach Landry for the next 29 years. He was never that. He would never have been that.”
Read more here: Jerry Jones recalls his Cowboys regrets, including Tom Landry’s exit | The Star-Telegram
Special to the Star-Telegram
Editor’s note: The following is an excerpt from “Dallas Cowboys: The Legends of America’s Team,” by Jim Reeves.
Jerry Jones has made himself a student, “right down to the fine hairs,” of Cowboys history, how the franchise evolved, learning from Tex Schramm and Tom Landry and Gil Brandt.
“I look back at my own experiences, my own mistakes, and obviously there are plenty of those,” Jones said. “I second-guess all the ones that I can point directly to that didn’t turn out right. There’s an old adage called the Ben Franklin way of making decisions. Ben Franklin used to take two sides of a pad. He’d put down all the pros on one side and put down all the cons on the other. Literally, if the pros outnumbered the cons, he’d go that way. Now, I can’t sit down with any decision I make and not have that ledger there, and there are some I wish I had back.”
One of those is the way Jones’ Cowboys’ ownership began, with his handling of the Landry firing and how it left such a bitter taste with fans, some of whom still haven’t forgiven him. If it’s any consolation, he doesn’t blame them. He’s not sure he has forgiven himself, either.
“I’ll go back to Day One,” Jones said of his regrets. “I got in a big hurry to switch [coaching] staffs when I bought the team. I got in a big hurry to bring Jimmy in and make the change with Coach Landry. I got in a big hurry to do that because we were trying to get — and I’m not blaming anybody — but the college staffs were being put together and Jimmy [Johnson] really wanted to bring [Dave] Wannstedt and his Miami college staff to Dallas. If we didn’t get it done real quick, we were running out of the time to be able to have flexibility because coaches were making commitments at the college level.
“When I announced the purchase, it was too fast to come behind that, that quick, with a coaching change of Coach Landry. It was just too fast. Not necessarily fast by the year, I’m not going that far. We should have announced the purchase of the team and then the coaching change later, whether it be weeks, months, whatever, but not the same night. Too fast.”
In retrospect, Jones now admits he should have let former owner Bum Bright handle the distasteful job of firing Landry. Bright wanted to do it. At the time, Jones felt it was his responsibility.
“Contrary to appearances, I had such respect for Coach Landry and for those coaches. Not just coaches, those coaches,” Jones said. “[Making the change at that time] created a perception that I didn’t [respect them], when in fact, it was just the opposite.
“When you look at the times, and how bad the financial times were in the country, to come in and make that financial commitment, you shouldn’t necessarily have been Darth Vader [to Cowboys fans]. I mean, you shouldn’t have been. But I helped that along.”
Five years later, Jones stumbled over his ego again, this time when he couldn’t, or wouldn’t find common ground with former college roommate Jimmy Johnson, despite the fact that the two had just won back-to-back Super Bowls together. Both were stubborn. Neither would back down.
“If I had it to do over again, I would have been more tolerant [regarding] my reasons for changing Jimmy,” Jones admitted. “I would have been more tolerant of anything I did that influenced that decision. I’m not saying I totally influenced the decision at all. There were two of us. But my part of it. And that’s not because we didn’t have success [after Jimmy] because I view the success that we had with Barry [Switzer] as very successful. That was a harder job than people give him credit for.
“If I had [splitting with Jimmy] to do over again, I would have accepted that role of, ‘Let’s see how much we can make this work out.’ The concerns I had, and the acute situation we were in, I was afraid it would blow up during the year.”
In the first year post-Jimmy, the Cowboys lost to San Francisco in the NFC Championship Game in 1994, then capped a tumultuous 1995 season with a win in Super Bowl XXX against Pittsburgh in Phoenix. But were there more Super Bowls to be won if Johnson had stayed? That’s a question that haunts Cowboys fans, but not necessarily Jones.
“We had a heck of a team the next year and really by rights, you’d have to say we were the best or right there at the best, in the NFL,” Jones pointed out. “So we didn’t leave that year on the table. You can say, well, you should have won it, but that’s cutting hairs. We won it the next year (1995).
“Jimmy was never, ever, ever going to be a 10-year guy. He was never going to be a 15-year guy. He was never going to be a Coach Landry for the next 29 years. He was never that. He would never have been that.”
Read more here: Jerry Jones recalls his Cowboys regrets, including Tom Landry’s exit | The Star-Telegram
