Dispelling the Latest Jerry Jones Gripe

Dallas Cowboys fans will believe anything about Jerry Jones.

The local media has set a narrative that Jerry Jones is some meddling, wildcatting hillbilly from Arkansas whose hands-on approach to the Dallas Cowboys would even make Al Davis come out the crypt to say, “Back off.” I’m not sure why that is. Frankly, I think it’s because Jerry Jones is an Arkie and was co-captain of the 1964 National Championship team that beat the Longhorns 14-13 in Austin. Texans sometimes can be as arrogant and parochial as New Yorkers and the French. Whatever the case, the Dallas-Fort Worth mediots (media + idiot) have cast Jerry Jones as the Metroplex sports Nixon upon whom we can place all of the Dallas Cowboys’ woes.

The latest shoddily constructed mediot horror house with statistics as laughable as Hunt’s Ketchup substituting for fake blood is that Jerry Jones is a “perfect” 120-120 since 1997. Naturally, some fans are as frantic with the dissemination of this “fact” like Jean-Paul Marat lambasting the Constituent Assembly during the French Revolution. You know, if somehow they, who know the least, keep screaming the loudest, Randy Galloway will invite them over for a barbecue dinner and then they can pitch their magnum opus on how the green in the Cowboys’ silver pants is a disgrace to the franchise.

All of the mediots’ condemnations predicate upon the framing bias, which is where the media wants the audience only to look inside the boundaries of a particular story. Nowhere else are they shown to look. Remember when the latest scare was when we hadn’t won a playoff game since 1996 and they would lump us in with Buffalo, Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Kansas City? The mediots would intentionally omit the immutable fact the franchise had, not only the most playoff appearances, but the most recent playoff appearances of that bunch. Instead, all you heard was: Jerry Jones hasn’t won a playoff game since 1996! Pay attention; this way to the egress! That’s the framing bias.

The comical sanctimony of their using the framing bias is how they’ll say you’re living in the past if you mention Jerry Jones’ three Super Bowl victories, as though those were stripped away like Joe Paterno’s victories at Penn State. How’s choosing 1997 as the starting point to come up with this symmetrical yet facile statistic of 120-120 not living in the past? Do you understand what I’m saying to you or not? How is it that the three Super Bowls don’t count? What was it about 1997 that was so significant that we have to start from there?

I’ll tell you what. From 1994, when Jerry was in full control, to 1996, the Cowboys were 34-14 and won a Super Bowl. Even if the mediots went back by one season, it would screw up their arithmetic like Ryan Tannehill naming who is in the NFC East. They picked 1997 because it fits their agenda, not because it’s especially significant to this franchise.

The mediots hold up franchises like the Saints and the 49ers as examples of what the Cowboys ought to be. Yet the same prevaricators wouldn’t dare go back to 1997 for the records with those respective teams. The Saints are 122-118 since 1997. The 49ers are 116-124 since 1997. Doesn’t that undo the significance of what our record has been since 1997? Doesn’t that show that it only matters what you’ve accomplished now or poised to accomplish soon rather than what’s done?

What would these schmucks have written back in their 1970 season previews? Oh, those Dallas Cowboys, despite going to two NFL Championships, are a paltry 67-65-6 since their inception ten seasons ago. I’m sure Skip Bayless and Randy Galloway while both were at the Dallas Morning News at the conclusion of the 1988 season mentioned how the Cowboys were 48-47 since 1983.

It really is a trash statistic and obtuse in measuring the current Dallas Cowboys.

As a realist, I define the real demarcation for this team as 2005. It’s when the Cowboys finally converted to a 3-4 defense and began to tap into their potential under Bill Parcells. It’s when the current nucleus of this team, Romo, Witten, and Ware, started to emerge as significant talent and later leaders. Since 2005, the Dallas Cowboys have been 65-47. In the same span, the Eagles have been 62-50, the Ravens 68-44, and the Packers 62-50. Only the Ravens have gone to the postseason more times than we have out of that group.

Please don’t take this article to be a complete absolution of Jerry Jones’ failures since 1994. Between hiring Barry Switzer, blowing the remaining ‘90s drafts, trading for Joey Galloway, and then Roy Williams, Jerry Jones committed his own fair share of sins. But he’s also done some mighty historical things that have added luster to the Star. There are about a thousand Eagles fans who would give one of their kidneys – or rip out one of yours – just to have one of our three Super Bowls accrued under Jerry Jones’ “meddling” ownership. If Jerry Jones had bought the San Diego Chargers, as he badly wanted to do in 1967, he would be a demigod. Only in Dallas can he do no right, like the AC/DC song “Spellbound,” despite having done something right three times over.

The same microcephalics will fawn Bill Parcells like God sent him down like James Miller to the Hollyfield/Bowe bout. I think Parcells did something with the New York Giants back before Dan Quayle tried to spell “potato,” and then later with the New England Patriots back when The Family Channel was still on the air. But those accomplishments are enough for the Tuna to rest upon for all time, even though he has since done nothing. Since 1997, a Bill Parcells coached/GM-ed franchise has only won one playoff game and has gone 103-105.

Do you see the double standard? Why do Bill Parcells’ accomplishments back when Johnny Carson was still on the air count but Jerry Jones’ accomplishments don’t?

Anyone who reveres that 120-120 statistic knows as much about football as they do about cooking Chef Boyardee ravioli. You have to be suffering from cranial rectosis to think these 2012 Dallas Cowboys are identical to the 1997 Dallas Cowboys. Even if you think there’s still rough surrounded by diamonds on the Cowboys roster, Jason Garrett runs a much different operation than Barry Switzer did. Barry Switzer was a guy who thought “accountability” was a synonym for tallying numbers, unlike Jason Garrett who uses it with his team

When the 2012 Dallas Cowboys kick the Giants’ bloody bums this Wednesday night and go 121-120 since 1997, somehow I don’t think the mediots will care much more about their statistic more doctored than Joan Rivers’ face.