Getty Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is known for making splashy trades.
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is going viral for reasons that have little to do with football. During a lengthy ESPN piece by Don Van Natta and Seth Wickersham, the duo described the recent NFL labor negotiations and an odd anecdote featuring Jones was discussed in the story. After players turned down one of the deals the owners offered, Jones was quoted using a “farm friendship” analogy to drive home his point.
“Look, my daddy grew up on a farm in southwest Missouri,” Jones said, per ESPN. “Every so often in the spring, the wind would come from a different part of the country, and the moon would set a different way, and the owls would start f—— the chickens. The owls are f—— the chickens. It makes no sense that they turned this down, but it’s a great thing for us.”
Jones’ quote quickly made the rounds on Twitter with fans and reporters alike trying to decipher the meaning of the story. The Cowboys owner has been radio silent in recent weeks as the Dak Prescott rumors continue to heat up.
Jones Has Become Known for His ‘Jerryisms’
In perhaps the oddest way possible, Jones had a point as the deal that the players turned down would have been to their advantage by $1 billion, per ESPN. This is just one of the many examples of what have come to be known as “Jerryisms,” colloquialisms the Cowboys owner uses where the actual meaning remains unclear. The Ringer’s Bryan Curtis detailed some of his favorite “Jerryisms” in a 2017 article profiling the Cowboys owner’s unique relationship with the media.
We didn’t get a classic Jerryism like 2012’s “I want me some glory hole!” But Jones did exclaim, “We’re going to have to burn some wagons and float the Mississippi with some of the others.” He was talking about losing players to injury or suspension.
The Cowboys’ roster was so loaded, Jones boasted, that the team could take risks. “The stronger the core is, the better it can take the tor-peed-uh,” he said.
Wickersham called Jones’ most recent story of the owls and chickens his favorite anecdote from the Cowboys owner to date. The ESPN writer tweeted a list of his top five quotes from Jones over the years.
Jerry Jones Quotes in Our Stories, ranked
5. “Gotta have big balls.”
4. “I’m the ranking owner here.”
3. “Your bread and butter is going to get both of us thrown out on the street!”
2. “This is a pimple on a baby’s a–.”
1a. “Kraft is a p—- compared to what I’m going to do!”
1. [Jones’ story to NFL owners referenced above]
All Eyes Are on Jerry & Dak This Offseason
On a more serious note, Jones is the focus of the Cowboys offseason just as much as any player given the team’s ongoing negotiations with Prescott. Jones has said on multiple occasions he wants Prescott to be the Cowboys quarterback long-term but a deal has yet to be completed. During a January interview on Dallas 105.3 The Fan, Jones claimed that Prescott enters the offseason with all the leverage.
“I don’t know how you could have any more leverage,” Jones noted, via 247Sports. “His evolving into an NFL quarterback has been nothing short of a perfect picture. He has great ability in my mind to win games. He’s talented. He certainly has experience. And so, he has all the things, as substantiated by what we’ve offered Dak. You wouldn’t be offering Dak what’s been offered him in the past had you not thought he was very special.”
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