Cowboys owner and G.M. Jerry Jones is a very good businessman. Whether he’s a good football executive remains up for debate.
His ultimate goal isn’t winning games. He acts like it is. And, sure, he’d rather win than lose. But the real victories come on the balance sheet, and he knows how to keep his team profitable.
By keeping it relevant.
Jones essentially admitted that he’s part carnival barker, part snake-oil salesman during a Monday appearance with Stephen A. Smith of Sirius XM.
“What you do is a little bit of my philosophy,” Jones told Smith. “Controversy. Controversy. I’m serious. I’m dead serious. Not serial killing. Not that. But controversy. The Dallas Cowboys probably have the kind of interest that we have in no small part because we stay out front and we stay controversial. When it gets slow, I stir that shit up. Fact. Fact. Fact. . . . My point I just want to be relevant. I just want you to be looking at us. . . . I don’t think that has ever kept us from scoring a touchdown, one. I don’t think it has kept us from having a football player, one. I don’t think it has ever kept us from having the financial wherewithal to get a football player.”
While it’s difficult if not impossible to draw a line between Jerry’s antics and his football team’s achievements, it’s a given that distractions don’t help. And Jerry’s creates distractions. If distractions generally are regarded as less than ideal, the stir-shit strategy definitely won’t make the on-field product better.
If anything, it will only make it worse.
But it has been successful, as it relates to the pursuit of profit. Despite no NFC Championship appearances in 30 years and counting, the Cowboys remain highly relevant on the national stage.
