OXNARD, Calif. — Dallas Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones turns 80 in October. Jones’ team has gone 26 seasons without a Super Bowl, and he expresses urgency when he meets with the coaches.
“I told them I have a birthday here real quick and I don’t have time to have a rough time,” Jones said at the team’s opening training camp news conference Tuesday. “It’s not on my agenda.”
While that may sound like a Super Bowl message or bust, Jones wouldn’t go that far in determining a successful 2022.
“Well, I need to win it. I need to win it, but I’ll be honest with you, there are degrees. I want to be fair to everyone involved,” Jones said. “We need to be in the playoffs. We need to be viable in the playoffs to make it a successful season.”
Jones said he feels better about the Cowboys, who haven’t made consecutive playoff appearances since 2006-07 and haven’t made consecutive appearances under the same head coach since 1998-99 (Chan Gailey), opening the training camp in 2022 than last July.
The Cowboys went 12-5 last season and won the NFC East but lost in the wild-card round of the playoffs to the San Francisco 49ers.
In the off-season, they traded amari cooper to Cleveland Browns, released right tackle La’el Collins and lost the pass-rusher Randy Gregory to the Denver Broncos in free agency without making big-name or high-cost additions.
“I knew we were going to have adjustments with this team this year. You always do,” Jones said. “But I knew we had a couple of our best financial opportunities last year. And before we started the season last year, I knew we were going to make some adjustments with our players this year. We had it in place.” pretty good and in my mind I made a great career out of it. We were disappointed, but we made a run out of it.”
Why do you think Dallas is in a better position this summer?
His first mention was Mike McCarthy, who is entering the third year of a five-year contract he signed in 2020, and Jones endorsed his coach once again.
“I’ll say it one more time, this guy is sitting here. The staff that he has. I like the staff,” Jones said. “And frankly, I like the composition of the players a year after they were on this team last year. And I like the new players that we brought in. You say it’s hard to have a rookie. A rookie has trouble doing that kind of We are just now seeing that one has a great impact on Micah [Parsons]. I know it can happen. Does that happen often? No, but can you get the players to come in and be really impressive? That’s possible. We have a couple of chances for that.”
The Cowboys have more than $20 million in salary-cap space, which ranks near the top of the league.
“We have some dry powder if we want to use it,” executive vice president Stephen Jones said.
However, a good chunk of that money is currently going to wide receivers. Cee Dee Lamb and corner Trevon Diggsthat he may sign contract extensions for the first time in 2023, as well as a few other players, including right tackle Terence Steele. With the way the quarterback market has skyrocketed since Dak Prescott signed a four-year, $160 million deal in 2021, Stephen Jones said the team could also consider extending the quarterback’s contract.
While the franchise is in its longest Super Bowl drought, Jerry Jones believes the team has had “three or four” chances in recent years to win a championship. In 2007 and 2016, the Cowboys had the best record in the NFC only to lose in the divisional round. In 2014, they lost in the divisional round of the playoffs to McCarthy’s Green Bay Packers. And then there was last year.
“I can live with the fact that we’ve been closer than the zeros we’ve got here the last few years that you’re talking about,” Jerry Jones said. “That sustains me. That’s food for me. That keeps me going. It’s not a loser you’re talking to, even though it sounds like one. What you have is someone who wants to go again and feels like we have the tools.” win it… We won 12 games last year. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t feel a little good about those 12 games. I understand where our fans are. They should understand where I am. That’s not enough, but it’s enough to go again.”