On Friday, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones tried to reverse the perception/reality that he deliberately underspends on coaches. His explanation regarding the willingness to spend included an important admission.
“I have been trying to lure very successful coaches away from the teams they were on,” Jones said on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas.
Unless he was referring to college coaches (or high-school coaches), that’s tampering. Period. End of discussion.
It could be false — an effort to bolster the idea that, yes, he’s willing to spend. Still, the effort to put out the frugality fire he started on Tuesday by ridiculously claiming there’s no correlation between coaching pay and winning included a nonchalant concession that he has tried to pry NFL coaches away from their current teams, in blatant violation of the rules.
Will the NFL look into this one? Probably not. Because the league office surely realizes, as the rest of us do, that Jerry was simply saying whatever he had to say to lessen the impact of the accidental truth he told on Tuesday regarding a deliberate reluctance to do whatever he needs to do to make his team as good as it can be.
Cowboys Clips
The Colts ruled out cornerback Justin Walley (knee) and linebacker Akeem Davis-Gaither (knee) ahead of Sunday’s game against the Cowboys.
Walley injured his knee during the Week 7 game against the Vikings and has not practiced or played since. Davis-Gaither did not practice this week.
Rookie linebacker CJ Allen will wear the green dot, coach Shane Steichen said, with a rotation of other linebackers slotted next to Allen.
The Colts added safety AJ Haulcy (ankle) to the injury report Friday, and he is listed as questionable. He was limited in practice Friday.
Offensive tackle Jalen Travis (thumb/hamstring) is also questionable. Travis was a full participant in practice all week.
The Cowboys ruled out linebacker Malachi Lawrence (ankle) and wide receiver Kavontae Turpin (ribs). Defensive end Jonathan Bullard (calf), tight end Jake Ferguson (ankle), linebacker Marist Liufau (forearm), linebacker DeMarvion Overshown (hamstring, back), wide receiver George Pickens (hamstring), cornerback Joey Porter (ankle) and tight end Luke Schoonmaker (groin) are questionable.
Cowboys safety Caleb Downs is set to play against the Colts on Sunday.
Downs moved up to full practice on Friday and has no injury designation for Sunday, which means he’s cleared concussion protocol and will not be sidelined by an ankle injury. Safety P.J. Locke is also without a designation after his own trip through the protocol.
Wide receiver George Pickens (hamstring) remained limited in practice and is listed as questionable. Cornerback Joey Porter Jr. (ankle), tight end Luke Schoonmaker (groin), tight end Jake Ferguson (ankle), and linebacker DeMarvion Overshown (hamstring, back) are also listed as questionable, Defensive tackle Jonathan Bullard (calf) and linebacker Marist Liufau (forearm) are both listed as questionable to be activated from injured reserve.
Linebacker Malachi Lawrence (ankle) and wide receiver KaVontae Turpin (ribs) have both been ruled out.
Jerry Jones is trying to put the toothpaste back in the glory hole.
On Tuesday, Jones made a nonsensical case for the notion that there’s “zero correlation” between coaching pay and wins. On Friday, Jones argued that he’s willing to pay for coaches — notwithstanding his unmistakable claim that there’s no connection between paying big money to coaches and getting big results.
“No one will ever know if I’ve ever been interested in somebody that at the time was known to have, let’s say, a substantive financial marketplace,” Jones said in his latest appearance on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas. “No one will ever know. Well, the facts are I have been out there, and I have been trying to lure very successful coaches away from the teams they were on. And knew full well that I was going to pay them for all their success. . . . It is absolutely ridiculous, and I actually grin when somebody says, ‘Jerry’s not willing to pay the money to get the right kind of coach out there. . . .’ I have five wells that cost more than any coach I know of, each one of them, in the NFL.”
He can grin all he wants. But he said what he said. And now he’s saying something different because the reaction was universal.
There’s absolutely a connection between paying for a good coach and reaping the rewards of having one.
Pointing to his oil wells is gaslighting. Jones personally doesn’t see the benefit in paying a lot of money for an accomplished coach. So he’d rather treat the pursuit of a good coach like prospecting, searching for a low-rent coach who generates penthouse results.
The other factor is the power that flows from signing a coach to a market-level deal. Enough power to ignore Jones and to coach the team as he sees fit, confident that Jerry won’t fire him and risk owing the full buyout.
So why did Jerry react the way he did? He needs the fans to think he’s “all in” when it comes to chasing a championship (or, at a minimum, the franchise’s first berth in the NFC Championship in 31 years and counting). The moment fans realize that it’s all bluster and carnival barking and penny pinching is the moment they’ll stop going to Cowboys games and start looking for another team to support.
Tuesday’s comments were far too revealing. And, for loyal fans who give their time, money, and emotion to the Cowboys, far too damning regarding the manner in which the General Manager who can’t be fired is mismanaging the team.
The Cowboys downgraded cornerback Joey Porter Jr. to a limited participant in Thursday’s practice.
Porter, who has had an ankle injury since Week 6, was a full participant on Wednesday.
Porter played less than 50 percent of the defensive snaps in two of the three games he’s played since. He played 36 snaps in Week 6 against the Packers, 51 in Week 7 against the Eagles and 36 in Week 8 against the Cardinals.
The Cowboys added linebacker DeMarvion Overshown to the practice report with back and hamstring injuries. He was limited.
Defensive back Caleb Downs (concussion/ankle) and safety P.J. Locke III (concussion) returned to limited work after missing Wednesday.
Offensive tackle Broderick Jones (personal), outside linebacker Von Miller (rest) and linebacker Dee Winters (calf) were upgraded to full participants. Jones and Miller missed Wednesday’s session, and Winters was limited.
Tight end Jake Ferguson (ankle), outside linebacker Malachi Lawrence (ankle) and wide receiver KaVontae Turpin (ribs) did not practice a second consecutive day.
Wide receiver George Pickens (hamstring), tight end Luke Schoonmaker (groin) and left guard Tyler Smith (ankle) remained limited.
The Cowboys’ injury report has 16 names, with five players sitting out Wednesday’s practice with injuries.
Defensive back Caleb Downs did not practice with a concussion and an ankle injury. He left Sunday’s game with a head injury.
Downs, a first-round rookie, has played 509 defensive snaps — 92 percent — and 45 on special teams. He has totaled 52 tackles, a sack, a pass defensed and two forced fumbles.
Tight end Jake Ferguson (ankle), offensive tackle Broderick Jones (personal), outside linebacker Malachi Lawrence (ankle), safety P.J. Locke (concussion), outside linebacker Von Miller (rest) and wide receiver KaVontae Turpin (ribs) did not practice.
Wide receiver George Pickens (hamstring), tight end Luke Schoonmaker (groin), left guard Tyler Smith (ankle) and linebacker Dee Winters (calf) were limited.
Defensive tackle Jonathan Bullard (calf), defensive tackle Kenny Clark (back), outside linebacker Marist Liufau (forearm), cornerback Joey Porter Jr. (ankle) and offensive tackle Drew Shelton (hamstring) were full participants.
Appearing Tuesday on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas, Cowboys owner and G.M. Jerry Jones made a clunky case for the absence of a correlation between coaching pay and wins.
When he makes his second weekly visit of the team’s flagship station, he should be asked this question: Would you want Andy Reid, Sean Payton, John Harbaugh, Sean McVay, or Kyle Shanahan to be the Cowboys’ head coach?
They’re the five highest-paid coaches in the league. And any team that doesn’t have an objectively great coach would absolutely want one of those five.
Because they win. In 2026, their combined record is 25-11-1. They have six Super Bowl trophies, and 11 Super Bowl appearances.
They’re highly compensated because they win. Which makes them worthy of high compensation.
It’s obvious. And it’s insulting to the intelligence of anyone with reasonable cognitive skills (which barely qualifies me to be insulted) for Jerry to insist that there’s “zero correlation” between coaching pay and wins.
So what’s really going on here? At one level, he’s being cheap when it comes to a budgetary line item that has no salary cap, or salary floor. At another level, he likely doesn’t want to have a true alpha whose W-2 would allow him to take over the team, and to minimize the outsized influence of anyone named Jones.
Whatever the case, Jones’s strategy to treat a coaching search like an exercise in wildcatting ignores the fact that he can afford to pay for a high-functioning oil well. But he doesn’t want to spend the money — and he doesn’t want to give the coach the power that comes from being highly paid.
Through it all, the Cowboys haven’t been to the NFC Championship since 1995. And there’s definitely a correlation between Jerry’s approach to hiring coaches and the continuation of “this ‘drought’ that people say we’re in.”
Jerry Jones has said that the size of the check he would write to guarantee another Super Bowl win would be “embarrassing.”
Yes, it would be embarrassingly small.
Jones, when it comes to the resources he is willing to invest in the team, is cheap. He won’t fire coaches who have buyouts. And he won’t pay top dollar for new coaches.
The owner and G.M. of the Cowboys defended his approach during his latest visit to 105.3 The Fan in Dallas by making the nonsensical claim that there’s no connection between coaching pay and winning.
“In the NFL, this is after years of looking at all the teams and all the coaches, there is no — there is zero correlation between how much you pay a coach, or how many coaches you have, as to winning,” Jones said. “There is no correlation. And that’s a random sample of years and all 32 teams involved. So put that in your hopper and smoke it.”
He’s just wrong. Hiring a proven coach, and paying him accordingly, can change everything. We’ve seen it, time and again.
Andy Reid instantly turned the Chiefs into consistent contenders, and three-time Super Bowl winners. Sean Payton has made the Broncos into an annual contender, positioning him to become the first coach to win a Super Bowl for two different teams. Most recently, John Harbaugh has immediately changed everything for the Giants.
Harbaugh’s success will result in his former rival, Mike Tomlin, fending off teams willing to pay him upwards of $30 million per year to swap out his earpiece and microphone on the NBC sideline set for the Sony headset along the white stripe.
Jones prefers to speculate, when it comes to coaches. In lieu of paying for a coach who has proven that he can win, Jones wants to roll the dice on an unproven commodity in the hopes of maximizing the return on his investment.
“You can be pretty creative in hiring your coaches,” Jones said. “You can be creative sometime when you don’t even know you’re hiring the coaches. And so I’ve had some good experience of hiring people who have never been in the NFL. I’ve had some experience of hiring young coaches, older coaches, and so, of course, you constantly remind me, as you should, of what my record is. And I understand that. But I also know that the next time you throw the pick, if you were the old California gold miner, you may hit the Comstock Lode. And then it is gloryhole.”
“Creative” is another way of saying “cheap.” Buy low, and reap the benefit when the less expensive option yields results. And stick with him until his contract expires, to avoid having to pay two coaches at the same time.
It would be different if there truly was no correlation between quality (and cost) of coach and winning. But there ABSOLUTELY is a connection.
Still, Jerry prefers to dig through the bargain bin in search of an abandoned Botticelli. His own twist on “if you have to ask you can’t afford it” is “if you have to ask I don’t want it.”
It’s no surprise. In the early days of the salary cap, members of the media often pointed out that there’s no cap on coaching pay. In time, the NFL realized, “Oh shit, there’s no cap on coaching pay.”
That has led to what some believe is an effort to collectively keep coaching pay from growing at the rate that it should. And some in league circles are convinced that Jerry Jones is the ringleader of what is, as a practical matter, an effort to collude.
Even if he’s not going to pay top-of-market money for a coach, the higher the market goes, the more expensive it gets across the board. The rising tide, in other words, raises all dinghies. And Jerry would much rather spend his money on his aircraft carrier that has been retrofitted into a luxury hotel.
That’s his prerogative. But Cowboys fans — who fork over their money and who devote their time and attention to watching games on TV and consuming Cowboys content — should understand what’s going on. Jerry Jones is pinching pennies when it comes to paying coaches. As a result, he’s often getting what he isn’t paying for.
His mindset is highly relevant to the looming wreckage of the 2026 season. If coach Brian Schottenheimer has guaranteed money left on his contract for 2027, he will not be fired. And if Jones can avoid owing Schottenheimer a buyout, Jones will resist joining the pursuit of Tomlin, who admitted on the most recent edition of Football Night in America that he grew up a fan of the Cowboys.
Actually, that could make Jerry think that deep-seated rooting interest will give him a chance at hiring Tomlin on the cheap. Because cheap does as cheap is. And, when it comes to his team (and specifically to his coaches), Jerry Jones is cheap.
The 3-5 Cowboys have plenty of problems. During the first of his two weekly radio spots on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas, owner and G.M. Jerry Jones mentioned one specific thing that he’d like to see change.
Regarding receiver George Pickens, Jones said this, via Jon Machota of The Athletic: “He needs the ball coming his way more.”
Through eight games, Pickens has 62 targets. In Week 8 against the Cardinals, Pickens had the ball thrown in his direction only four times. Against the Eagles in Week 7, Pickens had six targets.
He has 39 catches for 533 yards and two touchdowns in 2026. That projects to 83 catches for 1,132 yards and 8.5 touchdowns.
In 2025, Pickens finished with 93 receptions, 1,429 yards, and nine scores.
Hovering over the situation is the decision the Cowboys will have to make after the season. He’s making $27.298 million under the franchise tag; they could tag him again next year, at $32.758 million. Which is still nearly $10 million behind the top of the receiver market.
There’s another option, now that the Cowboys are fading in the race for the NFC East title. They could make Pickens available in trade.
Would a contender offer a second-round pick for him? The Chiefs are currently desperate for help at receiver; they’re interested (we’re told) in Jaguars receiver Brian Thomas Jr. and Colts receiver Josh Downs. If the Chiefs are in on Pickens, other teams in the AFC (like the Bills) should be thinking about it, too.
If the Cowboys were to decide to make a move, they could stockpile a pick or two — and save $15.17 million in cash and cap space. For now, who knows? The Cowboys seem to be deluding themselves into thinking they’re still contenders.
Unless that’s just part of the annual effort to keep their fans coughing up cash for tickets and merch. Which continues to work very well, relative to the on-field production.
For 31 years, and counting.
The day after an embarrassing home loss to the Cardinals — who have never lost at AT&T Stadium — many of the Cowboys’ players skipped a session with the media covering the team.
“The Cowboys just had locker room availability, but majority of roster left the facility before we got in there,” Jon Machota of The Athletic said. “No players were interviewed. Can’t say I remember that happening before.”
There’s an explanation, as there often is. Via Joseph Hoyt of the Dallas Morning News, the “player programs ended earlier than scheduled, which is why the locker room was almost empty during media availability.”
Making players available in the locker room is one of the basic weekly obligations for all teams. Whatever the reason, it’s likely few were inclined to say anything about Sunday’s game.
Especially since the Cowboys blew a 14-point lead at home for the first time in franchise history. Against a two-win team that has inexplicably owned the Cowboys in recent years.
