Jerry Jones is Living in Denial
Thu, January 5, 2012 | Post a Comment | 
Someone needs to dump a bucket of truth on his head
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is living in anticipation of the day when the team will drop a big bucket of Gatorade on his head for winning the Super Bowl. But that’s never going to happen, unless someone drops a big bucket of truth on his head first.
Greatness in one area doesn’t necessarily lead to greatness in another
No one doubts Jerry Jones genius as a business man. He bought the Dallas Cowboys for $147 million and built it into one of the most valuable franchises in all of pro sports. In addition, he has recently built the equivalent of the Roman Coliseum of professional sports stadiums. The new billion dollar Cowboy Stadium is absolutely breathtaking on many levels. Everyone loves it! He had a vision. He built the support. He got the financing. He put together the design and he got it built to glowing reviews. What he did in building the team and the stadium are two incredibly staggering achievements.
Unfortunately he’s also the Cowboy’s General Manager
Once again, after the Cowboy’s were eliminated from the playoffs Jerry Jones was asked if he was going to give up the general manager’s job and hire someone else. In his reply, you can find the exact problem with the Cowboy’s on field lack of performance and likely source of future disappointment. Jerry said “I’ve been doing the same job for 22 years and I’m going to continue.” He said, “the heat for our failures should fall on the person most responsible and that’s me. A full time owner always makes the final decisions and if we had a general manager it would only confuse and clutter up the decision making process.”
Wrong. A full time owner hires a general manager to be the one to make the final decisions on football operations. There doesn’t need to be conflict. There needs to be freedom to do the job without interference.
Reality check! Isn’t that the mark of insanity?
He’s been General Manager for 22 years. They have won 1 playoff game in 15 years. Shouldn’t he be noticing a connection? Isn’t that the mark of insanity... doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result? Isn’t that’s what Jerry Jones is doing? His insistence on remaining general manager is sabotaging and undermining all of his other tremendous efforts. Sure, the Cowboys won 3 Super Bowls 20 years ago, but what worked then isn’t working now.
Here’s what Jerry needs to hear.
No one is good at everything. No one is expected to be good at everything. Championships are won by putting teams of great people together. Your track record says you are not a great general manager. Of course you’ve had some successes but your overall record is failure. You only have 1 playoff win in the last 15 years. Every year the result is the same. High priced, highly talented teams that underachieve.
The first step in solving any problem is to accept reality. As Bill Parcel says, your record tells you who you are. Jerry, your record says you are no longer a top general manager.
He’s putting himself above the team.
It seems that he doesn’t just want the Cowboys to win the Super Bowl, he wants the glory of being the General Manager that got them there as well. He wants that glory. He wants that recognition and respect. He wants it so bad it had blinded him to what he’s doing to his team. He’s become the problem. Whenever anyone puts themselves above the team, the team always suffers. The Dallas Cowboys are suffering....defeat after defeat...year after year.