JONES REITERATES THAT WADE WON’T GO

Earlier this week, ESPN’s Chris Mortensen reported that Cowboys owner Jerry Jones won’t be firing coach Wade Phillips. On Friday, Jones said it for himself. “The coaches are in place. I’ve said that. How can I be any clearer?” Jones told media on Friday. “Look, I’ve said that our coaching staff, as far as I’m concerned, is in place. I just want to make the statement rather than answer questions, because your questions imply certain things that I don’t want to imply. “I’m saying that when I look at where we are coaching staff-wise and when I look at where we are personnel-wise, I see a team that is in place to compete for several years.” And, of course, the questions continued. “Look, can y’all not understand statements?” Jones said. “What the [expletive] is going on here? Really. I really don’t understand what is going on. The coaching staff is in place. The coaching staff is in place. The building is here. You want to ask the question, ‘What if it blows down?’” Wow. We suddenly like Mr. Jones. Not because we agree with his management of the team he has owned for nearly 20 years. (We don’t.) But because he’s willing to stick it to the folks in the media who will continue to ask the same damn question after the same damn question already has been answered. (We’ve never done that. So please don’t ask us whether we have.) The fact that Wade Phillips is safe means that, in Jones’ mind, the situation in Dallas has yet to hit bottom. Or, alternatively, he doesn’t want to buy out Phillips and pay a bunch of money to someone else -- especially if there’s a work stoppage in 2011 and Jones ends up having to pay the guy not to coach a team.