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Dallas, a real life soap opera?
by Andy Ayrton
September 22nd 2011
 
When businessman and former University of Arkansas football player Jerry Jones bought the Dallas Cowboys in 1989 he had one single goal: make the Dallas Cowboys the most successful franchise in NFL history.
 
Americas Team had been in the doldrums for a long time and the once successful drafting of endless star talent had not produced the riches it used to. Combined with consecutive losing seasons, Dallas was a flagging franchise.
 
The $160 million payout to former owner HR “Bum” Bright was thought by many to be outrageous amount as the Cowboys at the time were losing $1 million dollars a month. Due to financial problems, 13% of the franchisee was owned by the government. Later on he fired future Hall of Fame coach Tom Landry who had been there since the start, but for many fans the fedora wearing legend had let time pass by and didnt have what it took to be a competitive force in the modern NFL. They thought he should have been put out to pasture a long while back. Jones proceeded to hire former team mate and old friend Jimmy Johnson to turn around the franchise.
 
Jones also made himself the General Manager, making sure day to day running of the team was under his control, he put his sons in key positions in the company. Jerry Jones was ready to launch into the National Football League.
 
The next two seasons Dallas struggled. They had players who were too old or simply not good enough. Jones traded their only Pro Bowl player Herschel Walker to the Minnesota Vikings in one of the biggest draft deals in history, swapping him for five players and six draft picks that would become the foundations he and Jimmy Johnson worked with. They drafted a multitude of talent including three future Hall of Fame players, wide receiver Michael Irvin, running back Emmitt Smith and quarterback Troy Aikman. With these pieces in place Dallas experienced one of the fastest turnarounds in NFL history, going on to record three Super Bowls in just seven seasons and dominating the NFL. Dallas success on the field was matched by its success off the field; many exclusive marketing deals for Jerrys Cowboys made them a whole bucket of money, money which was not made available to others teams in the revenue sharing NFL. Many of those teams complained but Jerry kept on signing the deals – he wanted bigger and better and why not, everything was bigger and better in Texas.
 
Despite the success something was cracking and spilling out of the seams in Dallas. After the second Super Bowl win Jimmy Johnson resigned citing his relationship with Jones as unworkable. With Johnson walking out Jones then appointed another friend from his college days – Barry Switzer.
 
Switzer continued Jimmy Johnsons work and brought home another title to Texas Stadium. Big name stars like Deion Sanders joined the Cowboys and the placard of Americas Team shone above them once again.
 
But the following few seasons Barry Switzer faltered, then was shown the door. Jones brought in Chan Gaily who oversaw a fair three seasons, making the play-offs every year, but was soon out on his heel with no Vince Lombardi trophy to show for his efforts. Dave Campo was promoted from his position of defensive coach, but after three seasons and a disastrous 15-33 record he was dismissed from his post.
 
Jones needed to rebuild with it a big name coach: enter Bill Parcells. Two monstrous personalities were in charge of the one franchise, but despite the two huge egos Parcells and Jones knew talent and drafted the likes of Marcus Spears and Demarcus Ware, added big name free agents like Terry Glenn and Keyshaw Johnson, and gave Dallas a mixture of raw talent and veteran savvy. Yet perhaps the most glamorous position in all of sports – the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys – was what gave Parcells and Jones their biggest dilemma.
 
In 2004 starting quarterback Quincy Jones was let go due to alleged drug abuse, and Bill Parcells put in 40-year old Vinny Testaverde. He proved ineffective and was replaced the following year by former Patriot Drew Bledsoe. Still, Bledsoe was clearly a stop-gap replacement, and what was needed was a more long term leader for the team. The following season Terrell Owens hot-footed it out of Philadelphia and Jerry quickly signed up the player who once danced as a 49er on the Dallas star. Owens needed a big time quarterback to throw him the ball and keep him happy, and when Bledsoe faltered early in the season, Parcells gave the nod to fourth year backup Tony Romo.
 
Romo, a quarterback out of small Eastern Illonis University, didnt have the glamorous college career of former Cowboy legends Roger Staubach and Troy Aikman, despite winning the Walter Payton award for the best player in the second tier of collage football and been named a three time All American. He was signed as undrafted free agent, and every team had ignored him in the 2003 draft. All he did was lead the Cowboys to the playoffs in is first full season as starter – before the first of many Tony Romo inspired gaffes took place. As time expired in a playoff game against Seattle, he dropped the ball on a field goal hold which would of given the Cowboys certain victory. Many in the league pondered if Romo was Jerry Jones truly anointed franchise quarterback.
 
Parcells left before the 2007 season and Jerry signed Wade Phillips to take over. Initially Phillips was a success and with Romo enjoying a fantastic season as the full time quarterback he led the team to a franchise best 13-3 record, only to be outed from the playoffs by the eventual champion New York Giants. Many critics cited that Phillips demure personality was not suited to the larger than life characters in the Cowboys locker room and that would soon become Phillips undoing, but Jerry backed him to the hilt.
 
Around this time Jones decided that Texas Stadium was no longer grand enough, and he began planning the largest stadium ever seen. It featured the biggest capacity, the biggest video board, and the largest amount of money ever spent. Jerryland as the press had named it was going to be Jerry Jones mark on the NFL and Texas, and of course the monstrous amount of revenue the stadium would generate included an upcoming Super Bowl that would cover stadium costs. The Cowboys were now a billion dollar franchise.
 
The next two years saw mixed success but the Cowboys were at least respectable. Off field troubles blighted the team – dressing room bust ups, injuries to personnel when the Cowboys indoor training facilities collapsed and the ongoing cost of the new Cowboy stadium weighed heavily. When, in 2009, the stadium opened, it was a true feat of engineering – but problems quickly arose. The standing concourse of the stadium from which one could watch the team while buying food and drink had its capacity reduced when local fire marshals were concerned that people jostling for a view point could endanger lives. The huge video board itself was proved to be not quite high enough when Titans punter AJ Trapasso hit the screen during a pre-season game. Yet despite these problems the landmark was complete, and Jerry Jones was planning on his crowning glory: with team bursting with talent, his stadium the envy of the league and the world set to descend on Arlington for Superbowl XLV, he wanted Americas Team to be there contending for a championship.
 
But what was meant to be a dream season quickly turned into a nightmare.
 
When the supposedly-Cinderella 2010 season kicked off, expectations were high. The Cowboys, according to Forbes Magazine, were worth over $1.5 billion, passing their rivals the Washington Redskins. They were the richest sports franchise in the USA and the second in the world behind Manchester United.
 
Yet the 2010 Cowboys started 1-7. Many thought the Cowboys were not so much outplayed, more that they simply imploded. Interceptions, fumbles, blocked kicks, penalties, injuries (including a collarbone injury to Tony Romo when one of his team mates missed a key block) compounded the misery. Jones was constantly on the sidelines as ever in his twenty year tenure but he was not happy. Wade Phillips was a lame duck, his confused look on the sideline as his team was pounded time after time was not what Jerry Jones had had in mind. Phillips was finally let go and offensive coordinator and former Cowboy backup Jason Garett took over. If he could prove himself the job was his. To Garetts credit he led the team to a 5-3 record and his job for 2011 was seen as safe.
 

With the regular season nightmare out of the way at least Jerry could kickback and show the whole world the wonder of Cowboys stadium at Superbowl XLV, only that wonder didnt include sufficient temporary seats in for fans (including a granddaughter of Vince Lombardi). The stadium was four hundred seats short for the sports worlds biggest event. Investigations later blamed inept employees not getting safety permits months in advance which led to the lack of seating and the near-to-the-knuckle job of building what seats did go up. When the season ended the drama of the NFL lockout began and Jones was one of the owners who was pleading poverty and wanting to keep a lot more of his revenue from his mighty new stadium. For Jones, the Dallas Cowboys need to be larger than life and with that the extra revenue to pay for it.
 
At the start of the 2011 season, the Cowboys were seen as a team which were starting anew. Tony Romo was healthy, the team confident and with no Super Bowl hosting pressure, relaxed. Although the first game of the season was far from low profile.
 
The eyes on the world were looking on at New York City on September 11th, marking the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist bombings. A stream of red, white and blue was everywhere in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
 
Against the New York Jets on Sunday night football the Cowboys began with a bang – scoring quickly but as the game wore on that familiar Cowboy implosion was there to been seen by the whole world again. A Tony Romo turnover, a costly special team mistake, and a victory taken from them by a player who had been cut after the 2010 season. With George W. Bush in attendance, the two most powerful men in Texas watched on as the Americas Team bungled again.
 
A week later, and some semblance of order was restored as Romo and the Cowboys pulled out a last ditch win against the San Francisco 49ers. Romo emerged battered and bruised – even sustaining a punctured lung along the way – and only time will tell if the team can build on a win many thought should have been more straightforward affair.
 
For Jerry Jones failure will not be tolerated, and Garretts number will be up if Jones doesnt get the success he needs to match his corporate triumphs. Some have even suggested he should coach the team himself, though not since the days of George Halas and Paul Brown have we seen that. The question of Tony Romo the quarterback with so much talent yet who, when the chips are down, cannot consistently do what the likes of Unitas, Elway and Brady did must also be answered. That ability to will his team to victory, that last minute pass, the moment which will never be forgotten seems sometimes to be his, and at others to pass him by. Too often, the ability to seize the moment seems just beyond his grasp. At this time he is no Roger Staubach, but more of a Danny White. Talented, yes, but not someone who will be enshrined in the halls of Canton anytime soon.
 
Later in the year TNT will start showing a remake of the hit TV show Dallas all about the oil rich Ewing family, but for many Texans the real soap opera in their state was never cancelled – it just keeps getting remade. Its a soap opera about the Jones family, and it just keeps on running with Jerry at the helm, larger than life, steering Americas Team from one drama to another.