Cowboys owner needs new approach
Colin Wilson
The Daily Times
Published January 22, 2009
If Cowboys fans are waking up Sunday wondering why their team isn’t playing, they should look straight to the top of their organization.
Jerry Jones’ team model of throwing money at talented-but-selfish players hasn’t produced results for any NFL team, especially Dallas.
Acquisitions of Adam “Pacman” Jones and Terrell Owens haven’t put the Cowboys any closer to the Super Bowl than they were when Quincy Carter was throwing the ball to Keyshawn Johnson, and the latter was a lot cheaper.
If Ol’Jerry wants to see how an organization should be run, he just needs to watch the Super Bowl on Feb. 1.
It hurts to say this as a life-long Cleveland Browns fan, but the Pittsburgh Steelers are the anti-Cowboys. They’re one of the NFL’s model franchises.
The Rooney family, the team’s ownership, has hired three coaches in the last 40 years. That’s it.
Those three coaches have combined to win the AFC seven times, the Super Bowl five times and their division 19 times.
The Steelers have made the playoffs six times in the last eight seasons and have won nine playoff games since the Cowboys last won a single playoff game.
What am I getting at, you ask?
Jones could learn a thing or two from those towel-wavers in Pittsburgh. His flashy style needs an upgrade from how things were in the mid-1990s. He can’t outspend other teams for players now because of the salary cap.
If you look at the last eight teams to win the Super Bowl, they did it with toughness and teamwork.
The Cowboys showed us they don’twork well as a team when all their receivers made like some 7th-graders and formed cliques. And they showed us how tough they were in the final game of the season when they laid down and got steamrolled against Philadelphia.
The Steelers don’t ever let one player be bigger than the team.
Think of guys like Joey Porter, Kevin Greene, Jason Gildon, Plaxico Burress, Chris Hope, Chad Brown and Antwaan Randle El. One thing they all have in common is that the Steelers let them walk when they wanted to be superstars and their careers were never as good as they were in Pittsburgh.
The sum of a team’s parts should never be as great as the team itself. That’s usually a formula for underacheivement.
Usually, to accomplish what the Steelers have done, you need a good general manager. Jones has gone from one of the best GMs in the league in the pre-salary cap era to being Al Davis-like.
The hiring of Wade Phillips is still one of the bigger head-scratchers in his tenure. Phillips has proven to have no fire and even less ability to win a playoff game, which the Cowboys sorely need.
Phillips was a very good defensive coordinator, but his head coaching style hasn’t worked anywhere.
Pittsburgh’s Mike Tomlin could be called a player’s coach like Phillips, but unlike Phillips, he exhibits some emotion.
Tomlin, a 36-year-old coaching prodigy, doesn’t mope around the sideline while his team bickers. He’s in on the action, and always answers for his team’s performance, usually with a calculated fist pump.
Pittsburgh and Dallas have won the same amount of Super Bowls, but the big difference is the Steelers have contended almost every year in the modern era of football. Dallas has not.
If Jerry Jones really wants to win, he should make like the Rooneys do and get out of the way and let qualified football people make football decisions.
The Daily Times
Published January 22, 2009
If Cowboys fans are waking up Sunday wondering why their team isn’t playing, they should look straight to the top of their organization.
Jerry Jones’ team model of throwing money at talented-but-selfish players hasn’t produced results for any NFL team, especially Dallas.
Acquisitions of Adam “Pacman” Jones and Terrell Owens haven’t put the Cowboys any closer to the Super Bowl than they were when Quincy Carter was throwing the ball to Keyshawn Johnson, and the latter was a lot cheaper.
If Ol’Jerry wants to see how an organization should be run, he just needs to watch the Super Bowl on Feb. 1.
It hurts to say this as a life-long Cleveland Browns fan, but the Pittsburgh Steelers are the anti-Cowboys. They’re one of the NFL’s model franchises.
The Rooney family, the team’s ownership, has hired three coaches in the last 40 years. That’s it.
Those three coaches have combined to win the AFC seven times, the Super Bowl five times and their division 19 times.
The Steelers have made the playoffs six times in the last eight seasons and have won nine playoff games since the Cowboys last won a single playoff game.
What am I getting at, you ask?
Jones could learn a thing or two from those towel-wavers in Pittsburgh. His flashy style needs an upgrade from how things were in the mid-1990s. He can’t outspend other teams for players now because of the salary cap.
If you look at the last eight teams to win the Super Bowl, they did it with toughness and teamwork.
The Cowboys showed us they don’twork well as a team when all their receivers made like some 7th-graders and formed cliques. And they showed us how tough they were in the final game of the season when they laid down and got steamrolled against Philadelphia.
The Steelers don’t ever let one player be bigger than the team.
Think of guys like Joey Porter, Kevin Greene, Jason Gildon, Plaxico Burress, Chris Hope, Chad Brown and Antwaan Randle El. One thing they all have in common is that the Steelers let them walk when they wanted to be superstars and their careers were never as good as they were in Pittsburgh.
The sum of a team’s parts should never be as great as the team itself. That’s usually a formula for underacheivement.
Usually, to accomplish what the Steelers have done, you need a good general manager. Jones has gone from one of the best GMs in the league in the pre-salary cap era to being Al Davis-like.
The hiring of Wade Phillips is still one of the bigger head-scratchers in his tenure. Phillips has proven to have no fire and even less ability to win a playoff game, which the Cowboys sorely need.
Phillips was a very good defensive coordinator, but his head coaching style hasn’t worked anywhere.
Pittsburgh’s Mike Tomlin could be called a player’s coach like Phillips, but unlike Phillips, he exhibits some emotion.
Tomlin, a 36-year-old coaching prodigy, doesn’t mope around the sideline while his team bickers. He’s in on the action, and always answers for his team’s performance, usually with a calculated fist pump.
Pittsburgh and Dallas have won the same amount of Super Bowls, but the big difference is the Steelers have contended almost every year in the modern era of football. Dallas has not.
If Jerry Jones really wants to win, he should make like the Rooneys do and get out of the way and let qualified football people make football decisions.
posted by The Gryphon at 7:58 AM
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