IRVING, Texas – One of the more interesting things Jerry Jones said on KRLD-FM this morning was how he plans to address some of the issues with the Cowboys going forward.
“I’m going to spend a lot of time visiting with people outside of the organization that I have a lot of confidence in that will help us evaluate how to do the things that I know what our fans want to do, and that’s not be sitting here at .500,” Jones said. “There are a lot of teams that haven’t been at .500, but nobody hasn’t been at .500 and spent as much cash as I’m spending.”
Jones’ circle of trust includes former coaches and personnel people in the NFL that he turns to at different times of a season as sounding boards. It’s good to have sounding boards, but they shouldn’t be more influential than the people inside the building.
Why doesn’t Jones listen to the people who are inside the building more?
They have followed this team more closely than anybody else outside the building. They have followed the college talent more closely than anybody outside the building.
He has talented scouts. His pro department the last two years has done a great job of finding guys off the street that have helped keep the Cowboys competitive. In talking to other teams across the league there is a great respect for the Cowboys’ college scouting staff as well. The drafts the last three years have produced Dez Bryant, Sean Lee, Sean Lissemore, Tyron Smith, Bruce Carter, DeMarco Murray, Dwayne Harris, Morris Claiborne, Tyrone Crawford and James Hanna.
Jones might not believe he is doing a disservice to his staff by saying such things, but when the first person he credits for picking Murray two years ago is Barry Switzer, it’s just wrong.