An innocuous Stephen Jones’ quote taken out of context in a social media post by SiriusXM NFL Radio prompted a Twitter-fed firestorm. It put a target on the backs of Jones, Sean Lee and Travis Frederick by former Cowboys receiver Dez Bryant.
Jones actually told SiriusXM, "[Dak Prescott] has got to trust the system, which at times last year, there was pressure, with Dez in his ear and to some degree Jason [Witten] in his ear. Those great players want the ball.” But the initial Twitter post from the official SiriusXM account read, “Dak is working on his game and accuracy. He has to trust the system. I think that was tough last year with @DezBryant in his ear.”
That set off Bryant, causing Jones to feel the need to clarify his comment after practice.
“You’ve got great players like Dez and Witten,” Jones said. “They want the ball. Everybody sees it. It’s on every team. The great players, the great receivers, the guys who catch the ball want the ball. They let their quarterback know that sometime. I was a quarterback. I understand that. Certainly in no way was it intended to be negative.”
Lee and Frederick denied having anything to do with Bryant’s release, though Lee pushed back.
Jones was nothing but positive about Bryant in his post-practice comments, calling him a “fierce competitor” and saying Bryant “did a great job for the Cowboys for eight years.”
The Cowboys, though, can’t wait for Bryant to get a job so he moves on.
“He knows what we think of him,” Jones said. “Obviously, these are tough times in terms how this has turned out. Dez is thinking about his future and certainly [this is] not easy on anybody. We all know. No one knows more about what I think of Dez than me, and [Jones’ comment] certainly wasn’t intended to be negative.”