Cowboys’ Jerry Jones defends role, but isn’t ready to go Super Bowl-or-bust on this team

Published 10:37 pm Monday, July 21, 2025

OXNARD, Calif. — Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones thinks this Cowboys’ season and this Cowboys’ training camp have a chance to be different, but they already are. As I mentioned in my question at Monday‘s news conference — a question that produced a six-minute answer from the Cowboys’ owner-president-general manager — this is the first time the club has gone to camp as the one with the longest NFC championship game drought (29 seasons) since Jones bought the Cowboys in 1989.

In fact, it’s the first time in the history of the franchise it has happened. Even in those early years as a 1960 expansion team, there were always others like the Pittsburgh Steelers or San Francisco 49ers who had gone longer since playing in an NFL title game. So it’s a record of sorts, not the kind you strive for, nor one that you expect to follow winning three Super Bowls after the 1992-93-95 seasons. The players and coaches who produced those championships are long gone, some of them for 30 years or more (in Jimmy Johnson’s case), but Jerry Jones and Stephen Jones remain on hand, seated beside Brian Schottenheimer who becomes the seventh head coach to try and guide the Cowboys where the club’s first three coaches (Tom Landry, Johnson, Barry Switzer) led them eight times in 26 years.

“I’ve spent 29 years looking up and not looking back, I really have,’’ Jerry said. “This thing has had some great peaks since 1989. But, like football, they are few and far between.’’

It’s more like “long time gone” in the Cowboys’ case. The NFC team with the second longest NFC title game drought is Chicago at 14 years. That was during the Jason Garrett Era for Dallas but you have to plow back through Wade Phillips, Bill Parcells, Dave Campo and Chan Gailey’s hires to find any memorable playoff success under Jones.

“If I sat around and dwelled on the past, especially the negatives of the past, I couldn’t even get out the front door. And so I do not think about it. I work, in my case, on what I can do different in that mirror, how I can change some things that I think will help. I don’t apologize at all for the fact I’ve got the passion to be in the spot I’m in, or that I have the background or that I have the qualifications. What I say to the mirror is, ‘Change this, act better there, do a better job there.’

“Now we didn’t do well at quarterback last year because Dak [Prescott] got hurt. And we didn’t block them up very good, either pass protect or open the holes up there. I think we’re going to do better. If we’ve got that, the one thing I’m optimistic about is the guy sitting right over there because the minute the season was over, we wanted him to have the most influence on the offense and the most influence of getting the best out of that,’’ Jerry said.

The guy right over there was Schottenheimer, who, predictably, watched for more than eight minutes before getting his first question Monday. It’s an early reminder that the head coach in Dallas gets well compensated and can have an impact on games, but the face of the franchise is the guy who has now made nine head coaching changes in 36 years. In some respects, that’s not a ton but then Garrett sticking around for 9 1/2 seasons and two playoff wins raised the average significantly.

The new coach spoke optimistically, confidently about where last year’s 7-10 club is headed, even though some might guess the last-place Giants have done a better job closing ground on Dallas than the Cowboys have in gaining on Washington or especially the Super Bowl champs in Philadelphia.

“When we win a Super Bowl, my dad will get a ring, I can promise you that,’’ Schottenheimer said. His father, Marty, had 200 regular-season wins with Cleveland, Kansas City, Washington and San Diego — more than any other coach that didn’t get to a Super Bowl among all those from the Super Bowl era.

When, not if. He may need more than the average run of four years that Jerry has established for Cowboys’ coaches, but who knows? If the Cowboys were to lead the league in fewest games missed due to injury, how high can the ceiling be? In July, when the Southern California weather is cool enough to bring out jackets and long pants, anything must seem possible to those invested and involved.

We know that’s the case with Jerry although he doesn’t jump out there and talk Super Bowls. Not any more, not with this squad, anyway.

“Everybody in this room should know I’ve got to live more in today than I’ve ever had to because that old time’s running out,’’ the Cowboys’ 82-year-old owner said. “That‘s just the fact. That’s just what it is. I paid too high a price for doing what I’m doing, and I’m ready to do it again, ready to walk up there and get that trophy, if we could possibly get it.

“It doesn’t daunt me at all to sit up here and face the music because this isn’t music. And I know you know I don’t cut my throat every time someone writes something bad about me. I’m excited to be out here and see what this camp could mean. We’ve done some things with our players and personnel that could really give us a chance to shock the hell out of them and be better than most people think.’’

Shocking people is generally the ”charge’’ signal that a losing team is likely to sound rather than one with immediate Super Bowl aspirations. Admittedly on the clock (just like the rest of us), Jerry has chosen to tread lightly for now.

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