How 'bout them Cowboys? It's been a while

How ’bout them Cowboys?

When’s the last time someone has said that with any conviction?

The NFL Network’s Dynasty Week team this week is your Dallas Cowboys, which means Jimmy J. should be on at some point, holding a crumpled up a white NFC champions T-shirt and uttering those famous words.

Seems like such a long time ago.

Because it is.

More than 22 years ago.

There’s now a generation of Cowboys fans who haven’t seen America’s Team in the Super Bowl. I can drop the mike here, can’t I?

In the first X games, there were 3 appearances.

From XI to XX, 2 more.

From XXI to XXX, the final 3.

 Now there are Cowboys fans, just like fans of other teams – I’m talking to you Melo, of the Giants – that think their club can win the Super Bowl on any given year.

Their presumptuously positive outlook blinds them to any warts on their roster, any gaps that could be exploited. Up until about October or so, these bandwagons are full of easy riders, people who think their quarterback can pull out any miracle finish or their defence make that definitive stand.

Unfortunately that’s because it has happened. We’ve seen it.

And for whatever reason, this phenomena seems to only happen with despised Cowboys rivals, like the Steelers and Giants. They’re two franchises to win a championship in recent times after seasons in which they weren’t even close to being the best team, only to be smiled on by the fickle football gods, with special appearances by Santonio Holmes, David Tyree, Mario Manningham.  

This golden glow extends to NFL front offices, the ones that think that by getting a ticket to the big dance, the playoffs, that they’ll end up with the Belle of the Ball, the Lombardi Trophy.

The question then is do you hitch your wagon to a longshot or ride out the rough times until your ticket turns into a favourite.

Unfortunately, the owner and general manager of the Cowboys, Jerry Jones, who made his fortunes on discovering pockets of oil miles below the surface, isn’t going to shy away from long odds.

Just as unfortunately for Cowboys fans, long odds don’t pay off very often, which is why we’re in this stretch of 14 seasons and four playoff appearances.

This generation of fans may not be able to wrap their head around the fact that over a 20-year stretch under the troika of Tom Landry, Gild Brandt and Tex Schramm, the Cowboys missed the playoff just twice. Twice.

And most of those years, only four teams made the post-season, not six.

So when Jones announces that the team doesn’t rebuild when they have a Tony Romo, the older generation winces. Romo has the best passing stats any Cowboys quarterback has compiled but wins and losses tell a different story.

Three playoff appearances, one playoff win tells a different story.

So hitch away Jerry. Another season of mediocrity awaits.

How ’bout them Cowboys indeed.  

Philadelphia Eagles release DeSean Jackson, best news for Dallas Cowboys fans this offseason

“After careful consideration this offseason, Eagles decide to part ways with DeSean Jackson. The team informed him of his release today.”

Clearly there’s more to this story than the tweet above posted by the Philadelphia Eagles today. Whatever the reasons, Jackson, 27, coming off the best season of a six-year career that includes two Pro Bowl nods, is now a free agent.

Salary wise, Jackson was the costliest Eagle, with a $10.5 million contract, a $12.75 million cap hit. By releasing him, Philadelphia saves $6.5 million in cap space but that’s not the main consideration as the club was already $16 million under the cap.

Jackson’s release brings the end to his Eagles career but also to a strange couple of weeks where trade rumours involving Philadelphia’s No. 1 receiver were rampant, then silenced after Jackson proclaimed that he would remain an Eagle.

 Jackson’s announcement came following a meeting with head coach Chip Kelly, who saw the situation from a different perspective. While clearly specifying that the club would not trade Jackson, Kelly also clearly said he would do what was best for the team.

Nobody thought that would be this.

Whether the issue is Jackson’s relationship with Kelly, or as has been reported, his lack of commitment in the offseason or his links to gang members in his native Los Angeles, the Eagles didn’t think the speedy receiver was worth the trouble. 

Any trouble. 

The Eagles didn't even want to entertain more offers and get a draft pick in return.

Fellow receiver Jeremy Maclin compared the situation with that of Terrell Owens when he was in Philadelphia. And that was before Jackson was released.

“Whatever happens in the organization happens in the organization,” Maclin told CSNPhilly.com on Thursday.  “This was a similar situation when the Eagles decided to part ways with T.O. That’s just how the game goes sometimes. So I guess we’ll see.”

What we have seen may be the best bit of offseason news for Cowboys fans, as long he doesn’t re-sign within the division.

Jackson may be a bit of a diva and may have angled too hard for a new contract but there’s no denying he’s a playmaker. His blazing speed created a lot of space for Kelly’s offence last season, opening a lot of holes for receivers, tight ends and backs.  

The Eagles get Maclin back and though he may have surer hands, he is not the threat Jackson is. And Maclin is coming off a season-ending knee injury. Instead of lining up Jackson with Maclin and Riley Cooper, Jason Avant will step in.

Philadelphia will miss the 25 catches of 20 yards or more that Jackson hauled in last season. To compare, Dez Bryant had 14 such big plays in 2013. Jackson caught 82 balls for 1,332 yards and 9 touchdowns. If Avant comes close to those totals, I'll eat my shorts.

The Eagles dealt for Darren Sproles and he will help stretch the field horizontally but unless Philadelphia drafts a Jackson clone, the vertical threat is gone.

And for a Dallas secondary that’s coming off some serious wind burn last season, that’s welcome news after seeing Jason Hatcher and DeMarcus Ware leave. Signing defensive tackle Henry Melton was nice but much more was needed to shore up the league’s worst unit.      

No, Cowboys fans are left cheering the demise of division rivals. And this is as good as it gets these days.

The Buffalo Bills lose their greatest defender, Ralph Wilson

 Ralph Wilson was an easy target for Buffalo Bills fans.

They could pin most of the team's misfortune, freakishly somewhat more than any franchise should bear, on its one and only owner: Too cheap. Too controlling. Too old. Uninterested. Uncaring. Absentee.

Like children who often take their nurturing parents for granted, Bills fans were roused from their bleary innocence with the announcement Tuesday that Wilson passed away at the age of 95.

They came to the realization that they probably never knew what they had in Wilson.

The Bills' greatest defender was gone.

It was suddenly time to recognize and appreciate the man who afforded western New York a lifetime of professional football memories, who gave them a chance to watch Cookie Gilchrist, O.J. Simpson and the K-Gun offence, and follow the early success of two AFL championships and four soul-crushing Super Bowl defeats.

Is it better to have played in the Big Game and lost? Or not play at all. After missing the playoffs for more than a decade, that argument has been put to rest by Bills fans.

What was often unsaid was what a bittersweet experience it must have been for Wilson, one of the founding fathers of the American Football League, to see his NFL venture succeed so wildly elsewhere while the fortunes of the city where he staked his flag continued to flounder.

The man who founded his team with $25,000 and famously bailed out other owners to keep the AFL afloat watched as his team slowly became a small-market concern for a league that grew into a corporate colossus.

It would have been easy for the Michigan native to pull an Irsay or a Modell. To cash out or watch the Bills move to Jacksonville or Los Angeles, or heaven forbid, Toronto.

You can rarely blame a man for being too loyal. For Wilson, a World War II navy vet, it was a badge of honour. It's why, perhaps to the detriment of the team, management promotions were mostly handled internally. The one time in recent years when an outsider was brought in, Tom Donahoe from the Steelers, it didn't end well.

The hirings were also low cost, a fact rarely lost on the team's fans, who watched in recent years as other franchises spent lavishly on free agents while Bills players often left or were dealt away ahead of max contracts.

But the team wasn't operating on a level playing field.

It's safe to say that ancillary revenues for the Bills have been near the bottom of the league for the past 15 years, which is why the team signed a deal to play some home games in Toronto for extra cash, a poorly planned and poorly executed endeavour.

It did lead the team to flush out some signings, like Mario Williams, but further escalated fan discontent, which is why the Toronto venture was suspended for the upcoming season.

Now that Wilson's gone, the team will be run by a trust formed under his estate. Inheritance laws make it unwieldy for his heirs to pay taxes on the $870 million franchise so the team will be sold at some point in the future but a quick sale is not expected.

Bills fans have worried for years at what would happen next. Now that point is here and they realize what a magnificent provider they had in their Hall of Fame owner.

The pursuit of Jared Allen shows the difference between the champs and the Cowboys

The pursuit of free agent Jared Allen shows the distance between the Seattle Seahawks, the Dallas Cowboys and their expectations for the coming year.

The sack master defensive end, who’s coming off an 11.5 sack season in 2013, is reportedly considering three NFL teams to sign with, the champs, the Cowboys and an unnamed club. He could also pack up his ten-gallon hat and ride off into the sunset of retirement.

Seattle’s offer is reportedly for 2-years and $12 million, while no leaks have surfaced out of Dallas since the club signed Henry Melton to a one-year, $5 million deal with a club option for 3 more years for $24 million.

The Cowboys may be silent because they don’t have a free agent dime left to spend. Yes, they could mess around with their salary cap some more but it’s not like signing Allen at this stage in his career is going to turn the team into a Super Bowl contender. Even Jerry Jones has to see that.

Still. Likea wise man once said, youneverknow.

Allen was supposed to take the weekend to decide which team to sign with (Seattle would be the big favourite) but has this far remained silent. Even on his Twitter account.

But really there’s no competition, even if the Cowboys could make a competitive bid.

Here’s what Seattle offers: A quality rotation that allows Allen to rest his nearly 32-year-old legs, pass-rushing balance up and down the line that allows him to face one-on-one situations more often, more three and outs than a Mariners game with King Felix on the mound, space shuttle-launching like noise for opposing linemen during the home campaign, and oh, yeah, a chance at a ring.

Dallas? Well he was born there. More playing time. More double teams. A more natural setting for his rodeo sack dance, the pink Cadillac with the longhorns. Plus his nickname is the Rhinestone Cowboy, not the Rhinestone Seahawk. Did I mention he was born there?

And that’s without taking the monetary equation into account.

Even after signing Melton, the pressing urgency for Dallas and its 32^nd ranked defence will be generating a pass rush.

The Cowboys’ 34 sacks left them in a three-way tie for 25^th in the NFL a year ago. And 17 of those, or exactly 50 per cent, went out the door when Jason Hatcher and DeMarcus Ware left town.  

Many believe Ware was a diminished player last season and point to his career-low 6-sack total.

Yet despite elbow and quad injuries, missing three games, playing out of position at defensive end and being the lone focal point for double-teams and game planning by offensive co-ordinators, Ware, according to sportingcharts.comhttp://www.sportingcharts.com/nfl/stats/defensive-hurries/2013/ finished tied for seventh in the league in quarterback hurries with 16.

Jaren Allen tallied 9 hurries, same as Hatcher. George Selvie, who will undoubtedly have a harder time repeating his 7-sack campaign without Ware, was second on the club with 11.

Long-yardage sacks can be game changers, especially if forced fumbles are involved, but hurries often present a bigger picture of a pass rusher’s ability.

That’s because sacks is a fickle statistic.

Is a one-yard sack where a quarterback runs out of bounds the same as 15-yard loss on 3^rd down? How about when a teammate pressures the quarterback, who then takes a few steps into the unsuspecting arms of another?

Many will know that Robert Mathis led the league with 19. 5 sacks but few will realize that the Vikings’ Brian Robison led the NFL with 27 hurries. Fellow Viking DE Everson Griffen added 13 (14^th in the league), which is why Minnesota is somewhat comfortable letting Allen (tied for 40^th) go as a free agent.

If Allen is considering playing for another contract or adding to his career sack totals, then the Cowboys could offer this edge: Substantial more opportunities. The Cowboys played more than 100 defensive snaps than the Seahawks last season, and there’s little chance Dallas will be getting off the field much faster in the upcoming campaign.

 

I know where I would go if I were Allen. It rhymes with cattle. 

The Seahawks are reloading, picking and choosing their gems while the Cowboys are at the Dollar store, hoping to scape enough funds to find a bargain.

Dallas Cowboys sign Henry Melton at health-asterisk reduced price

Now there’s a free agent signing Dallas Cowboys fans can get excited about.

Defensive tackle Henry Melton, if fully recovered from last year’s knee surgery - and that's a big if, is exactly the disruptive force the team desperately needs in the middle of their wafer-thin defence.

Reunited with defensive co-ordinator Rod Marinelli, with whom the former Bear enjoyed his finest campaigns, 68 tackles, 13 sacks over the two seasons, Melton should be motivated to play well.

Melton returns to his hometown roots and is essentially on a one-year deal, worth a reported $5 million, with a club option for three more seasons worth $24 million. He's playing for his next big contract or the option on this one.

So there you have it Cowboys fans, your one and only bona-fide free agent for the upcoming season. There’s no money left for anyone else.

Melton is a bit of a medical risk, he may still miss part of training camp, but that is why the Grapevine, Tex., native comes at a discounted price.

Melton earned a Pro Bowl nod in 2012 and was franchised by the Bears in 2013, earning $8.5 million. At 27, the 6-foot-3, 295-pounder was athletic enough to play running back at Texas for his first two college seasons before switching to the defensive side of the ball. He offers size, quickness, productivity at a premium position in today's NFL.

But.

Ah, no buts today. Enjoy the signing. Adding Pro Bowl-level talent to the club can never hurt. Figuring out how to possibly add that $8 million hit in 2015 can wait for another day. As can the alleged biting incident at a Grapevine bar.

The lowdown on the Dallas Cowboys' free agent haul

Terrell McClain, Jeremy Mincey, Brandon Weeden. 

And Jerry Jones still has his wallet open. 

With any luck, the 2014 bounty will top the hallowed free agent class of 2013*: Ernie Sims, Justin Durant, Jarius Wynn and Edgar Jones. *George Selvie was part of the initial strike but was released a month later and re-signed ahead of training camp.

Underwhelmed?

This year’s signings are actually somewhat intriguing, if slotted properly.

McClain, Mincey and Weeden are career backups with a bit of upside. Solid depth. On a contending team, they’d fight for snaps. But that won’t be the case in Dallas, where they may be forced to play leading roles.

McClain and Mincey will get more snaps at defensive tackle and defensive end simply because of the Cowboys dearth of talent on that side of the ball. They're active players who could pile up career-highs in tackles and sacks, just like Selvie did in 2013.  

But they’ll do it on a horrid unit.

In NBA parlance, they’d be leading scorers on a last-place team, piling up stats because of volume shooting. With no one else to take the shots, some eventually go in, don’t they? Why hello, Andrea Bargnani.

But they’re not gamebreakers. Coaches aren’t going to spend extra film study time looking for ways to stop these M&M boys. McClain is undersized, chases the run well but is not much of a pass rusher. Mincey is the same.

Still, the Jones beat goes on. Maybe free agent visitors Henry Melton and Jared Allen can provide the veteran stopgaps the team desperately needs. But I’m not holding my breath. Not because Melton and Allen aren’t worth it, there’s just not enough salary cap gold in the coffers.

Which brings us to Weeden.

There’s no problem slotting him as your third quarterback.

Giving Weeden an opportunity to watch and learn for a couple of years may yield a decent backup quarterback down the line. Call it the JoshMcCown theory.

That’s all. He’s not the quarterback of the future. And hopefully not the present, either.

Weeden was drafted two years ago in the first round at the age of 28 by Cleveland after angling for a baseball career. After a mildly successful rookie season, he experienced a horrible sophomore campaign.

With no support from a new Browns management team that didn’t draft him, Weeden was on a short leash last season and ended up getting thoroughly outplayed by both Brian Hoyer and Jason Campbell.

Now 30, he’s just three years younger than Tony Romo, the quarterback Jones already wishes he had given more talent to win the Super Bowl with.

Weeden has much to learn and little time. To put his 23-game career arc in perspective, at the same age, Drew Bledsoe had already ceded his job to Tom Brady in New England after nine full seasons at the helm.

Weeden was presumably signed to provide another training camp arm and insurance, should Romo need more time to heal his back and backup Kyle Orton retire, an unlikely scenario given that he would have to pay the club some $3 million dollars from his signing bonus.

  

However, if Weeden were to get considerable playing time next season, due to injury or circumstance, there’s little evidence to support the theory that the team will succeed. Unless the goal is to get a higher draft slot.

More likely, Weeden will be the backup in 2015, when the club can let Orton walk.

Will he be ready then? At $623,000 a season, it's not much of a risk. Just like McClain and Mincey. But there may not be much reward either. Which is why they're so readily available.

With the Dallas Doomsday here, it's time to trade Tony Romo

Cowboys fans, this is the winter of our discontent.

First, the polar vortex just won’t leave. The miserly snowman is supposed to exit this week but he’s digging in, leaving golf sticks to get dustier and dustier.

Moreover, could it get any chillier in Big D?

DeMarcus Ware. The face of the defence for the past decade. Gone. Just like that.

Jason Hatcher. Gone. To the Redskins? That’s a double slap to the face.

Anthony Spencer. Checking out how many Benjamins the Giants want to throw at him. That’d be the triple whack.

And that talent is draining from the league’s worst defence? With no money to refill those pass-rushing needs.

We know who’s to blame. So how does owner/GM/impresario Jerry Jones right the ship? Or at least bail most of the water from the hull?

REBUILD. Say it with me, Jerry. It’s time. To. REBUILD.

 It wouldn’t take long. It potentially could be done within two years.

The hardest part would be accepting how fast the window of opportunity is closing for Tony Romo. And that the cast around the quarterback, mainly on the other side of the ball, needs a massive overhaul. One that won’t be accomplished by shuffling salary cap money around from year to year.

Love him or hate him, you have to admit Romo’s past three seasons have been the best of his career. Statistically, they’re the best three seasons of any Cowboys quarterback, Troy Aikman and Roger Staubach included.

In Romo’s first three seasons as a starter, when the team was at its best -- thanks to the input from coach Bill Parcells, Romo was credited with losing 21 fumbles. In the last three seasons, that number was down to 10.

Romo has improved his ball security and pocket awareness while still delivering the big plays and elusiveness that made him such a marked improvement over Drew Bledsoe.

Still, those last three years have delivered a 24-24 regular season mark and an 0-0 playoff resume.

If Romo were to shake off the effects of back surgery and deliver another statistically superb season in 2014, what would the team’s record be?  7-9? 8-8? 9-7?

Anyone think the upside is higher? Not with what’s looming on the defensive side of the ball.

Romo has been durable in his career, starting less than 13 games only once in the past 9 seasons -- missing 10 games in 2010 with a broken collarbone. But he has taken a lot of big shots. Those rib, hand and back injuries accumulate. Should he miss significant time in 2014, the Cowboys’ fate would be sealed.

Thus, here’s the Romo paradigm for the upcoming season: Limited upside with major risk to the downside. And would this scenario change in 2015, when his contract will account for $27.7 million in salary cap money?

 

Jones made the tough decision to part with Ware. Soon it’ll be time to move on from the last gems of the Cowboys’ Parcells era, Romo and Jason Witten. The question is not if, but when. The earlier that’s realized and accomplished, the more value they would net a franchise in severe need of an infusion of talent.

We have a problem. Houston? What can you give us? A second-rounder this year and next year’s first?  Any other offers? Done. Sign Michael Vick to a short-term deal.

Doubt there’s a market for Witten and his contract, but fish around. Seattle could use a pass-catching tight end. Then see what Gavin Escobar can do. If he’s not the heir apparent, and there was little to believe he is from last season’s snapshot, then find out now.

Trading Witten, the franchise's greatest tight end, is not done lightly, but this is the state of emergency facing the Cowboys.

Just like winter needs to release its icy grip, Jones must accept past mistakes and move on. It’s either a slow descent or a fast one: Short-term pain and a chance at a quick recovery or continued irrelevance.

Acquire as many picks as possible and carpet bomb the next couple of drafts. After all, even a blind squirrel finds some acorns.  

Cowboys vs. Steelers -- Why Pittsburgh is moving ahead, again

I used to hate the Pittsburgh Steelers. Just plain despised them.

Franco. Woose. Bradshaw. Dumb. Swann. Pretty boy. Lambert. Dirty. On and on it went. I had grudging admiration for Mean Joe but that was about it.

The Dallas Cowboys and the Steelers fought for the decade of the ’70s. For NFL fans who lived through the era, even if you didn't cheer for those teams, you chose sides and there was no in between.

In my mind, the Steelers were the brawn, the Cowboys the brains. Men in Black vs. Men in White. Terrible Towels vs. America’s Team. 

Bradshaw vs. Staubach? No contest. Give me Captain Comeback any day of the week. Steel Curtain vs. Doomsday D?  Come on.

But I’ll be damned to explain why those black-clad so-and-sos always got the bounces. The Immaculate Reception and the immaculate drop by Jackie Smith. Before The Catch was made by Dwight Clark, Swann had a few of its predecessors in Super Bowl X.

Both teams then struggled through the ’80s before Emmitt, Troy and Michael restored the shine on the star in the ’90s. They even beat the Steelers in their third and last Super Bowl. Ben Roethlisberger pulled out a couple of Super Bowls for Pittsburgh in the last decade.

Now, both teams are in the midst of similar restructuring. I still can’t believe the Steelers finished with the same 8-8 record as the Cowboys last season. Pittsburgh started 0-4 and looked every bit like one of the worst teams in the NFL. They couldn’t run, they couldn’t pass. They couldn’t stop anybody.

Yet somehow, along the way, they found their stride. They found what was working for them and stuck with it, then everything else began to come together, and they finished the season on a three-game win streak.

The Steelers have long embodied their city, its industry and its inhabitants. They’re blue collar, play tough, and put forth an honest day’s work. Their coaches have always demanded it and so do their fans.

It was a concept that was beyond my grasp when I was growing up. 

Economically, the underdogs were really the Steelers, not the Cowboys. And they had a Hall of Fame array of talent that performed its best when it mattered. I saw that when Dallas had its run in the ’90s. The only team that could stop it was itself. And it did.

This week, both historic franchises found themselves together again, at the bottom of the league in salary cap commitments, each having overburdened themselves by some $15 million.

In true Jerry Jones fashion, the Cowboys bought their way out and pushed the pain forward another year. No need to make hard decisions when you can just ask players if they want their annual salary up front. Tough negotiations? Here Tony, Do you want half your money now and the other half next season? Guaranteed?

Can you imagine Steelers GM Kevin Colbert going up to owner Art Rooney and asking for $20 million to pay players right now because he messed up? And that yeah, we may have to go through this again next offseason.

Yet that’s what Jerry Jones the GM and Jerry Jones the owner decided by reworking the contracts of Romo, Sean Lee and Orlando Scandrick and turning their salaries into signing bonuses. All three deals were less than a year old.

Now for this season, Romo’s cap hit is down to $11.7 million from some $21.7 million. Great, you say?

Guess what it’ll be in 2015? Try $27.7 million. 

And who will need new contracts that season? Dez Bryant and Tyron Smith. Right. Good luck with that.

Having not extended themselves like the Cowboys, the Steelers simply lengthened the contracts of two valuable veterans, Troy Polamalu and Heath Miller, for a reasonable two extra years and made tough decisions by cutting veteran Larry Foote, 2011 third-round draft pick Curtis Brown and tackle Levi Brown, who they traded for during the season.

Tough choices made by a very good management team. They could’ve turned to Ben Roethlisberger and asked if he wanted half his salary in a signing bonus. But the Steelers aren’t into robbing Peter to pay Paul. And forestalling the inevitable. They assess, they move on. It’s how they can right their ship in mid-season while the Cowboys are still hoping for a wind to lift their slackened sails.

 Man, how I miss the days when I used to hate the Steelers.

Disheveled in Dallas: The clear and present danger that is Jerry Jones

By a Cowboys fan from T.O., not that T.O. But I'm going to work with T.O. and only T.O.

At the epicentre of the Dallas Cowboys’ success and struggles stands owner and general manager Jerry Jones, the man who controls all aspects of the franchise, on and off the field.

Jones’ biggest strength is his unsinkable spirit. He’s eternally optimistic and armed with a fortune-hunter's will to move mountains.

It’s how he churned through the oil and gas industry to generate enough of a fortune to purchase America’s Team just as it fell on tough times.

It’s how he can put the lavish finishing touches on a $1.2-billion stadium that was supposed to cost $650 million amidst one of the worst financial crisis the U.S. has seen.

But it’s also why despite 25 years of struggling on the football side of operations, he’s not going to abdicate. Not now, and not soon.

With the passing of Al Davis, Jones is the one NFL owner who is the face of his franchise. For better and for worse.

Better because he’s a tremendously competitive man who’s willing to put any and all resources into winning a championship. He is passionate and totally invested.

It’s also why he’s not doing the franchise any favours by continuing to be the club’s Jack of all Trades. From public relations to concessions to stadium improvements to dealing with unsigned free agents, Jones has final say and is the club`s public visage

Simply put, he has too many jobs to properly accomplish the most important one for the long-term health of the franchise, the evaluation and acquisition of football talent.

 

Cowboys fans don’t need to see shots of Jerry in his owner’s box, on the sideline, in the dressing room multiple times every Sunday. They want to hear unconfirmed reports that he was in Tuscaloosa or Eugene or Ann Arbor the day before. Or that he’s in Mobile for the Senior Bowl or Orlando for the East-West Shrine game in the offseason.

Of course Cowboys scouts attend these football hotbeds but there is no substitute for seeing players with your own eyes, for talking to coaches or sources and cultivating a relationship. To better read the nuances when they say a player is a playah.

Further, he is too infatuated with players he selects or trades for, which is why he’s so generous with contracts. In a non-salary cap world, he’d be the second coming of Eddie DeBartolo Jr. But today, his club stands some $15 million over the cap and needs to release the club’s best defender, DeMarcus Ware, among others, just to get within sniffing range of the club’s annual ritual of extending player contracts.

Cowboys fans, who have seen the club’s talent level ebb like this before, in the late ’90s following the departure of Jimmy Johnson, can only hope that Jones will once again seek another respected football mind for assistance, like he did when he hired Bill Parcells.

Otherwise there’s no easy way out of this Dallas Buyers Club.

There is talent on the team. Dez Bryant, Tyron Smith and Sean Lee play premium positions and would start on any other NFL club. There's just not enough to go around. Outside of Tony Romo, Jason Witten, Brandon Carr, Orlando Scandrick, Travis Frederick and Terrence Williams, the rest of the roster is nondescript.

The success of the club hinges entirely on the health of its quarterback, who will 34-years-old and coming off back surgery when September rolls around. After eight seasons of dodging defenders, and multiple injuries to his ribs, Romo is not quite as elusive as once was and for whatever reason, whether injury or misreads by receivers, wasn't as accurate last season.

The team ranked fifth in scoring last season but that stat was misleading. In terms of yardage, the offence was middling, 16th in the league. It was opportunistic. And we don't need to delve into the league's worst defence in yards (7th worst in points allowed.) 

Three straight 8-8 seasons.

The man responsible for the present, Jones, remains responsible for its future. Jones has previously said that as an owner, he would have fired himself as general manager long ago. 

If only he would listen to his old self.

To be continued