Getty Cowboys owner/GM Jerry Jones
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones not-so-subtly acknowledged the painfully obvious truth he continues not-so-subtly resigning himself to.
In discussing the Cowboys’ lack of activity at Tuesday’s trade deadline (which was not for a lack of effort), Jones confessed to essentially turning the page on 2020, as any such deal would have been consummated for the long term.
“It just didn’t work,” he said Friday on 105.3 The Fan. “We actually got into the weeds on two or three of them. Worked at it a little bit but saw that it wasn’t going to work. They were more in the nature of the future, not so much as it would relate to what we’re doing in the next eight games here.”
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Jones did not divulge details regarding the apparent trade talks, except to say, per Bleacher Report, that “two of the proposals included sending players to another organization and the other involved bringing a player to Dallas.”
The 2-6 Cowboys, down to their fourth starting quarterback, have lost three straight games, their inexplicable playoff hopes weakened in last week’s loss to the Eagles. But the Joneses have waffled between win-now and waving the white flag — Stephen campaigning for the former and Jerry the latter.
The front office publicly protected two untouchable assets from their current injury-ravaged roster: wide receiver Michael Gallup and linebacker Aldon Smith. They were comfortable shedding dead weight elsewhere, trading defensive end Everson Griffen and cutting nose tackle Dontari Poe and defensive back Daryl Worley. The Cowboys also acquired NT Eli Ankou from the Houston Texans, a move purportedly made with the future in mind.
“[He’s a] big, strong man that I think is going to give us some depth on the inside. And I’m hopeful that he’s able to contribute sooner than later,” defensive coordinator Mike Nolan said Friday of Ankou, via the Dallas Morning News.
Once Dak Prescott was lost to a season-ending ankle injury, the air was let out of the Cowboys’ 2020 hype balloon. Now facing the prospect of thrusting Garrett Gilbert under center against the NFL’s only undefeated team, and staring directly down the barrel of 2-7, not even the ultimate showman himself — Jerry Jones — can ignore the bigger picture burned into his retinas.
Now no longer matters. Later does.
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Jones Confronts Prospect of Cowboys Tanking Season
There are no “Losing For Lawrence” or “Failing For Fields” missives in Dallas — purposely throwing the season for a top college prospect, also known as “tanking.” But if the moribund Cowboys spend the remainder of the year evaluating their young talent and just so happen to land a better draft pick in the process?
So be it, says Jerry.
“The more people you have on the field in a sport, the less you get into driving the car, relative to certainly effort. You can erase that from an individual player’s performance. Tanking has nothing to do with the performance of a player or coach. The performance of getting better. The performance of the things you do to try to win the ballgame, in my mind,” Jones explained Tuesday on 105.3 The Fan. “Could you make a decision to play a younger player more, or a player that you’re going to be pretty firm that you’re going to be going forward with contract wise than a different situation, and the answer is, I can see that, yeah.
“I can see making sure that you get these guys those reps. The only way to have and get better in the NFL is (to get) reps. And game reps are precious and hard to come by. You don’t get them by just that issue, if you’re sitting there competing for a championship. So I think young players should be doing it anyway. Candidly, you may be playing those players out there anyway. I don’t see it as bright a line. Maybe, you’d say, ‘Jones, you’ve never seen anything bright-lined in your life.’ And, maybe, that’s right. The point is, I don’t see bright lines with any part of that definition.”
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