another great find...............

check out Dan Reeves in the background..............still a Cowboys fan but I will never ever forgive that Arkansas hillbilly for the way he treated Landry.

 

You know that Tom Landry as a professional never had any qualms about pushing out a veteran whose performance was equaled or bettered by a youngster. For all the love of Landry and Schramm, Jerry Jones treats players with a lot more kindness and compassion.

 

Lets put it this way............there were tons of his former players at Landrys funeral.......be willing to bet there wouldn't be near that turnout when Jerrah kicks the bucket

 

And that's precisely why the Cowboys have only won one playoff game in the last 22 or so years.

 

Are you kidding? Knowing the Jones family, they will sell tickets to the memorial service at Jerry World. If they sell enough, they will contemplate making it an annual event.

 

Look, I have been a fan and admirer of the Cowboys and Tom Landry since 1970 or so. But at the end of his run, he was no longer an elite coach and I don't see how treating Landry like he treated players no longer capable of elite performance was some unforgivable sin by Jones.

 

I agree he wasnt an elite coach the last 4 or 5 years but he never did "hire" such stalwarts of moral decorum like Greg Hardy...........its still a business and like the real world if you cant perform a younger more able body will take your place. Wonder how much "compassion" Lombardi or Royal showed when you werent getting it done.........besides why all the love for that woooooo pig sooooie Razorback?

 

No one should be an a$$ about making transitions, but Jones' problem has always been player loyalty especially when it's someone he personally chose and invested in. Honestly I think it's an ego thing more than loyalty because he has always been trying to prove he was the real genius behind the championships not JJ.

It's a business. When it's time for a change just make the change. Holding on only causes problems.

 

Amen Vol

 

Poll the 60,000 or so fans with team posters, flags, bumper stickers, jerseys, coffee cups, at home/office, and pay a ton for parking, game tickets, concessions, for years...whether they would prefer to win a game or "let the old guy stay in 'cause he's been playing his position for 10 years now..."

I'm guessing about 59,999 -1 vote to pull the old guy and win the game.

The other would either be his mother or agent.

 

Gil Brandt & Tex Schram had a team policy that if a player was fourth or fifth year and was not a starter or in some way a major contributor, you're gone!

 

They will embalm him like Lenin.

You know the whole thing about Jerry and Landry is interesting to me. I moved to Dallas in 1982 and lived there until 1994. When Jerry bought the team, Landry was being ripped on local talk shows (the Norm Hitzges show; I listened to it every morning without fail. I even heard Mel Kiper on Norms' show before he became famous and when I called the 800# to buy his magazine he answered the phone!) and the media in general. The consensus was the game had passed him by evidenced by his stubborn use of the flex defense. He went 7-9, 7-8 (strike shortened season) and 3-13 his last three years. I believe Schramm was trying to convince Tom to retire gracefully (shades of Mack?). Paul Hackett was a coach in waiting (or so we thought as fans). But then Jerry bought the team and guess what? Overnight, Tom's firing turned him from the old man who wouldn't let go to "OUR TOM!" It's almost as if Jerry did him a favor. This is not to take up for Jerry because my enmity for him goes pretty deep considering I don't even know the guy.

Speaking of Jerry... my personal opinion is this. He is an egomaniac and a pathological liar. He jerked the steering wheel away from Jimmy Johnson and the result is 22 years of failure. TWENTY TWO YEARS! There are babies who were born back then that have now graduated from college with no idea why the Dallas Cowboys were once known as America's team. They have no idea about their former legacy of sustained excellence. Jones destroyed all of that in his zeal to be known as a football man. He has failed miserably but his ego is so pathological that it doesn't affect him in the slightest. Why? Because he's a greedy sociopath who measures success solely by the acquisition of wealth. NOTHING else matters. And I believe the reason he wants the players to stand during the anthem is not because he is patriotic; instead it is because he does not want to alienate the fans. How ironic given that he doesn't care about alienating them over the teams performance on the field. But the facts are that he has somehow successfully decoupled results on the field from the entertainment value of watching the game. That is his genius. Look at the stadium! Look at the scoreboard! See and be seen! Look, it's the Cowboys! Look, it's Jerry Jones in his box! The whole thing is like a circus or a movie and the results on the scoreboard are merely a sideshow. The evidence is in the value of the team. His gift as a salesman is unparalleled.

 

I have mixed feelings about Jones. He's passionate, creative and a tremendous businessman. He's incredibly open and accessible to us through the media and he's built the finest sports venue in the world 20 miles from my house. I don't like his whoring and his ego that forced out Jimmy Johnson and has prevented Cowboys from ascending to greater heights.

 

Jerrah is a GREAT businessman, just a horrible football man.

 

it's a principle that is sound 99% of the time. Backup QB might be the only vet who isn't a regular contributor worth keeping.

 

Like the upcoming season when Colt will get $& million for holding a clipboard and telling Alex Smith that he doesn't know what he is doing.

 

Jerry bought the Cowboys (who were hemorrhaging cash) and Texas Stadium Corporation (or the lease thereof) in February 1989.

I can speak with some familiarity, because at the time I was working for a company that was part of an investment group also trying to buy the franchise. Bum Bright had bought them from Clint Murchison for pennies on the dollar after the oil/gas/real estate/savings & loan collapse of the 1980's. Bright bought a franchise that was early in it's decline, was helping to get aggy on a massive probation, spoke to Landry 3 times and attended 5 games while he was owner. What a guy.

I saw lots of balance sheets in that era, but none that indicated the fiduciary faithlessness that Bright presided over. He raped the franchise for every dime he could. Aggy is as aggy does.

When you are talking about buying America's Team, it is a pretty small circle of would be buyers. All had the "Landry" question. While the sale negotiations were going on far from public view, Bright assured ALL of the 4 serious investment groups, that before news of an impending sale went public, that he would tell Landry of the impending sale and that it was more than likely that new ownership would bring all new staff's. But that 2 of the investors very much wanted to keep Landry and Schramm as part of the organization and 1 had expressed a desire to do a re-naming (with the City of Irving's approval), to put "Tom & Alicia Landry Field" on the floor of Texas Stadium.

This was decades before coach's wives names were memorialized, and then only in NCAA Basketball, "Welcome to Nell and John Wooden Court at Historic Pauley Pavilion". But 1 prospective buyer made that offer. But Bum being Bum, the sale news was leaked, the Dallas Times Herald photo of Jerry and Jimmy eating at what happened to be the Landry's favorite restaurant was above the fold, and the proverbial fan came out.

To control the damage, Jones got on a plane, flew 200 miles to Austin, set up a meeting with Landry at the golf course and told him that he had made clear to Bright that he would only buy the team if Jimmy was his head coach. It was also made very clear that he wished Landry to remain with the Cowboys. (I have been fired from a job before. No one flew 200 miles to break the news to me).

If you think that Johnson/Landry in the Hall's of Valley Ranch would have been untenable, then that would have been a Landry issue. Do you think Fred Akers ever held any personal ill will towards David McWilliams? (And believe me the situations are far much more similar than you might think).

Personally, I have my own issues with Jerry, but they have to do with his politics/flag/anthem etc. Like MANY on this board he took student deferments during Viet Nam while 53,000 American Flags were draped over coffins for a meaningless war......my big brother being one of them. That is disrespecting the flag.

Jerry Jones stupid? Jerry Jones a hillbilly? Maybe. Jerry Jones a billionaire with the most valuable sports franchise on the planet with 3 Super Bowl Rings? Yes.

 

Very difficult to think that there has been a worse owner in US professional sports than Bright. Clueless and absolutely stripped anything of value from the Cowboys. He knew it was time for Landry to go but decided early on to let the next owner fire him. I have always thought the groups that said they wanted to keep Landry misread Bright and thought to say they would keep Landry would garner some type of edge for them. Jerry did the right thing; just in a non-classy pig people way.

As for Schramm, Jerry needed him and his knowledge of how to run a professional sports franchise. Two alpha dogs don't work (see Jones/Johnson) so it would not have worked. The unfortunate results are still being seen to this day. Johnson's teams won 3 trophies [2 as coach (would have been 3 if he would have coached another year) and 1 with Barry as coach]; Jones' teams haven't won squat.