Jerry Jones Shares His Disappointment After the Dallas Cowboys’ Collapse
After weeks of drama, the Dallas Cowboys season reached critical mass on Sunday. Despite a promising start to the season, America’s Team slowly crumbled. Jason Garrett found himself on the hot seat, Jerry Jones alternated between frustration and optimism, and the club found itself taking one step forward and two steps back. Despite their struggles, however, the playoffs remained in reach.
On Sunday, though, the Cowboys lost to the Philadelphia Eagles, pushing them out of the playoff picture. After weeks watching the team collapse in slow motion, Jerry Jones was simply disappointed and numb when the final whistle blew.
The Dallas Cowboys race to the bottom
Coming into the 2019 season, the Dallas Cowboys looked like the class of a weak NFC East. Jason Garrett might have been a lame-duck head coach, but the team’s offense looked talented enough to paper over any cracks. After three straight wins to open the campaign, however, those holes started to become more and more apparent.
The Cowboys followed that winning run with a three-game losing streak; after that, the losses started becoming more and more frequent. Jerry Jones apparently felt that he needed to do something, and started making more and more headlines. After a Week 12 loss to the Patriots, he appeared to put his head coach on notice. He would dial the heat back in the subsequent weeks, but results didn’t change.
On Sunday, the season came to a had in Philadelphia. If the Cowboys won, they would have clinched a playoff spot; instead, they barely showed up. Dak Prescott had one of his worst games of the season, and Ezekiel Elliott only carried the ball 13 times in a drab 13-9 loss.
Jerry Jones shares his disappointment
After watching his team slowly fall off a cliff, Jerry Jones surely felt a full range of emotions. After the game, however, general disappointment ruled the day.
“When you get in this spot, you give yourself a chance to be real disappointed. We are,” the Cowboys’ owner and general manager said. “The fact that we didn’t get any [touchdowns], the fact the game turned out the way it did — they played well. Not a lot to say about anything else other than it’s very disappointing. We all expected to leave here as NFC East champs. We’re not. We’ll just go to Washington.” He would also go on to say that he was “numb” after the defeat.
Technically, the Cowboys can still make the playoffs, but the club no longer controls their own destiny. Dallas will need to win next week against the Washington Redskins and hope the Eagles lose to the New York Giants; that would put both Dallas and Philadelphia on even footing, with the former team holding the divisional record tiebreaker.
Jerry Jones can be disappointed, but he’s not a bystander
It’s understandable for anyone associated with the Dallas Cowboys to feel disappointed with the way the 2019 season has gone. Jerry Jones isn’t just an owner who watched his team fall apart, however; he’s the general manager making personnel decisions. He has the power to fix this situation during the offseason. How he reacts—and if he’s willing to cede any control, rather than hiring another yes man—will tell much more than some locker room platitudes.
Even if the Dallas Cowboys can make the playoffs, Jerry Jones should be disappointed. As the owner and general manager, he’s let things get to this point.
