Mike Freeman’s 10-Point Stance: Success a Complicated Concept for Jerry Jones

Money, power and texting standoffs. Just another week in the NFL offseason.

1. 20 Years without a Title, and Still the Cowboys Are No. 1

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones will go into the Hall of Fame. He will go because no owner, maybe in the history of sports, has done what Jones has when it comes to building a franchise. He has created a football ATM, one of the great gold mines professional sports has ever seen. 

The latest Forbes ranking of most valuable sports franchises has the Cowboys again on top. They are worth $4 billion. Four. Freaking. Billion.

As Charean Williams of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram wrote, Jones often talks about how when he bought the Cowboys 27 years ago, they were losing $1 million a month. In the past, I’ve heard the same thing from Jones. He’s extraordinarily proud of the financial turnaround he has engineered, as he should be. Jones spent about $100 million to both purchase the team and obtain the leasing rights to Texas Stadium, as Williams pointed out. Of that total, almost $80 million came directly from Jones.

Now, there are few franchises in any sport that pump out cash like the Cowboys. They’re a monster, which is why Forbes ranked them No. 1 ahead of Spanish soccer powers Real Madrid and Barcelona.

“I would say that I would trade it for some first downs,” Jones told the Star-Telegram about the ranking.

The Forbes ranking shows, again, the duality that is Jerry Jones and the Cowboys. He’s made the team into a financial success story, but the team hasn’t won a Super Bowl since 1995, when Barry Switzer led Dallas to a title with a core of players assembled largely by Jimmy Johnson, who left two seasons before.

Back in the glory years of the Jones era, he was always the money guy and Johnson was the football guy. What Jones has not been able to do since is find that Jimmy-like football guy. Johnson is another Hall of Famer (or rather he should be and one day likely will be) who didn’t care about the financial aspect, just football.

The Forbes ranking also demonstrates just how hard it is to win, despite making mounds of cash. In football, one has nothing to do with the other. It’s all about drafting smartly, making intelligent free-agent signings and finding the right head coach. Jones has been sporadic, at best, at those three things.

This year has a good chance to be different. Dallas has the potential to make a deep playoff run, maybe even to the Super Bowl. Tony Romo is healthy again, the Dallas defense will be markedly better and the team may have the best running game in football. This could finally be Jones’ post-Jimmy Johnson year.

This could be the season that Jones becomes known for more than just overflowing checking accounts.

But for now—right now—Jones’ legacy remains one of the cash king. He’s been a moneymaker and a longtime NFL power broker. That is why he will get into the Hall of Fame and deservedly so.

Yet in terms of winning games and championships, Jones’ Cowboys have been remarkably mediocre. That might change this season. It will need to change if Jones’ legacy as football man is come close to that of his record as a businessman.

2. An Outstanding Book from Two NFL Brothers

Geoff Schwartz, in a powerful and at times emotional book about life in and out of football, writes about an instance of bigotry that caught me by …

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