Jerry Jones is the most involved owner in the NFL.
The Dallas Cowboys chief’s footprints are all over his beloved franchise and AT&T Stadium is commonly known as Jerry’s World.
When things are going right – and Jones is always quick to point out he owns the sixth-winningest team over the last two decades – he can take on the plaudits.
But the problem with being so hands-on is there is nowhere else to point the finger when disaster strikes.
And that is exactly where we’re at in 2024 – Jerry’s World is collapsing, literally and figuratively.
The Cowboys have a far better shot at the No. 1 pick than the playoffs, haven’t won a single game at home, and newly-paid quarterback Dak Prescott is out for the season.
With a roster looking desperately short on both sides of the ball, under-fire coach in the last year of his contract, and a piece of the stadium’s roof falling down, the wheels have truly come off in Dallas.
There are plenty of areas to address but Shannon Sharpe singled out one problem that is unique to the Cowboys.
Jones is a huge fan of allowing fans all-access tours of The Star – his state-of-the-art training facility.
They run 24/7, sell around 500,000 tickets a year, and raise almost $10million.
Players receive 48 per cent of that thanks to the football-related income revenue share agreement and you won’t find anybody on the Cowboys’ current roster complaining.
“Not one time,” Jones told ESPN when asked if he had ever had a complaint. “But the most important thing is it wouldn’t make any difference. Period. Because overall, they’re swimming against the stream.”
Sharpe thinks Jones’ perception is limited as he is surrounded by people too afraid to give him their honest thoughts.
“You can’t tell him nothing,” he said on his Nightcap podcast.
“It’s hard to tell a man that’s worth that amount of money something. A lot of times you have yes men around you because they tell you what you want to hear, not what you need to know. Nobody is telling Jerry, ‘Actually, honestly, dad, honestly, Jerry, you doing a doing a terrible job.’
“What do you say? Nobody has told him. Remember we were talking about the tours that come through when the players are there.
“He said nobody ever told me that it was a problem. Yeah, like somebody gonna tell you, ‘Jerry, What the hell are you doing? It’s a problem.’”
“Especially during football season acting like it’s a goddamn museum,” commented co-host Chad Johnson.
“It is. That’s that’s how he treats it,” replied Sharpe.
Former Cowboys have spoken out about Jones’ tours – the only ones in the NFL with anything near that level of access.
Dalton Schultz – who had five catches for 33 yards in the Houston Texans‘ Week 11 rout of the Cowboys – told created an entire news Pat McAfee the facility was ‘like a zoo’ because fans tapped on the glass walls of the gym while players were working out.
“You’re walking by the tour guide, and they’re pulling [the fans] to the side, and you hear them say, ‘Oh that’s CeeDee Lamb, that’s CeeDee!’” former Dallas safety Jayron Kearse explained.
“Like Dalton said, it’s kind of like you’re in a zoo and kids are going to see a lion. That’s not a reason why we didn’t get over that hump.
“But I just don’t think that really equates to winning. That has nothing to do with us winning the game.”
“I’m smiling, when I walk in the building here, I just know, like, I just have work,” said six-year Cowboys defensive end Dorance Armstrong after joining the Washington Commanders.
“You got real facilities here,” added Commanders defensive end Dante Fowler Jr after two years in Dallas. “You might not see tourists coming around, but it keeps the main thing the main thing.”
“This is more about football, just X’s and O’s,” added Tennessee Titans running back Tony Pollard, who left the Cowboys over the offseason.
“I’m in a better place mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, just all around.”
“You’re on your way to eat lunch and you’re running into tours,” Kearse told ESPN. “You’re on your way to meetings, you’re running into tours.
“We’re here for football, it’s our job to come in and be able to focus whether we’re in the weight room, or our coach is teaching us something in the meeting room, where you have 30 to 35 people walking by, looking through the glass while you’re in meetings.
“We get all the top-of-the-line things throughout the day, the hot tub and the training room.
“But it’s just a whole bunch of other things that come along with it. It’s all about the brand, that star, which I think supersedes trying to win at the highest level.”
Unfortunately for any current Cowboys who want some privacy, it’s Jerry’s World and they’re just living in it.
And if there are any changes to the tours, which currently contain 20 or 30 people, they are going to get bigger. Much bigger.
“I’d love to see cameras in the tour going to 20 million people while the people were making the tours and hearing the same thing,” Jones told ESPN.
“And then while they’re coming down the hall, I’d love to see a coach talking to a player as he walked away from a meeting, talking about a player walking right through.”
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