An Open Letter To Cowboys’ Owner Jerry Jones

January 4, 2013

Cowboys Center
One Cowboys Parkway
Irving, Texas 75063-4727

Dear Mr. Jones,

As a lifelong Dallas Cowboys fan, I am sure you will not be surprised to read that I am very disappointed in what has happened to our once proud franchise. While I was pleased to read that you seem to be frustrated and angry with yet another sub par season, I can’t help but be pessimistic about whatever changes you plan on making. I believe that you truly care about winning. In your defense, I do honestly think you want for our team to be successful. My concerns are more revolved around the notion that I do not believe you know how to make our team successful. I do not question that you can find more highly-qualified people than myself to offer you suggestions. I do know that you will be hard pressed to find anyone who cares more than I do however.

Before I get started with a few simple suggestions on fixing our team, I think you need to visualize just how bad things have become. We have missed the playoffs in three straight years and four of the last five years. This dubious streak equals the third worst in our franchise history. As for the only other two times it has ever been worse, one was when we first became a team, which is acceptable. The other occurred in the two years before you took over and the first two years you owned the team. Since 1996, we have won 128 games and lost 128 games. We have only made the playoffs six seasons in that time span. We have won only one playoff game since 1997. Only five teams in the entire league have less playoff victories than we do. The Cowboys are now in the same group as teams like Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit and Kansas City. Not exactly the class of the league.

There are two things that you can do to change the culture and get the Cowboys back to being THE Cowboys. The first thing is that you need to focus on being the owner and hire someone to handle the football operations. I understand it is your team and you want to be responsible for the success that comes. Unfortunately, you are responsible for the failure as well which has been more prevalent. There is no shame in this move.

We won three Super Bowls in four years, due in large part to the fact we had a knowledgeable football guy handling these tasks. When you and Jimmy Johnson separated ways, the downward spiral began. After Barry Switzer was gifted a Super Bowl ring with Jimmy’s players, the next two coaches went 33-47 in five years. Seeing that this path was not working, you hired Bill Parcells to handle the football related activities. Parcells led us to three winning seasons in four years, while also drafting the core of the current team (Romo, Ware, Witten). When you decided to bring in Terrell Owens, undermining the concepts Coach Parcells was trying to implement, he left. Six seasons later, we have only been to the playoffs twice and one of those was the infamous meltdown at home versus the Giants.

The other move that needs to occur is to hire an offensive coordinator to give Jason Garrett a chance to focus on strictly being a coach. I do believe that there are subtle signs that show that he has the capability of being a good leader of men. I feel that he has done enough to earn one more year to get us where we want to go. I also feel like his play-calling is lacking and that his time management has cost us more than one game in his brief tenure. Every Super Bowl since 2001 has had both an offensive and defensive coordinator to go along with a head coach. We haven’t had both since the Parcells era. Jason Garrett needs help. The obvious choice is Norv Turner, since Jason Garrett has said in the past that he respects Turner and he has a history with the Cowboys.

I sincerely hope that I am right and you do care about restoring the luster to our franchise. I pray that you do not only look at the bottom line financially. Just because the Cowboys are worth the most money, doesn’t mean we are the most prosperous. We are an organization on the edge. We have the talent to become a Super Bowl caliber team yet we are close to becoming a laughing stock. The choices you make in the next year or two will shape which direction we go.

Sincerely,

Concerned Cowboys Fan