Are Cowboys Really All In? Compare them to Chiefs and you’ll understand what Jerry Jones meant

ORLANDO, Fla. – Jerry Jones started painting himself into this corner in January.

The always interview-friendly Dallas Cowboys team owner used two words that started to resonate around the league halls.

He doesn’t regret it per se. But he is aware of it. He knows how they have been interpreted and he knows that that interpretation has differed from his own.

So after a quiet free agency in which the Cowboys have lost far more talented players than they’ve gained, and so far haven’t made any major additions to their existing stars, allow Jones to further explain what he meant when he said he “totally…in.”

“We can be the world champions of how it works when you don’t have that much money, but make no mistake, we’re going all in with every tool we have,” Jones said Sunday from the halls of the NFL’s annual league meetings. “We are all-in. Basically, this is rolling up our sleeves and going more all-in here than last year or the year before.

“It could impact us for another five years in some cases.”

Jones’ salary cap concerns are far from new. He and his son, executive vice president Stephen Jones, have long complained about the limited “pie” they have to offer distribute among the playersand speak of it with a frequency and tenor that seems beyond their 31 counterparts.

Sure, salary caps are coming: The Kansas City Chiefs trade star receiver Tyreek Hill is the best example in recent memory, though the trade helped Kansas City establish quarterback Patrick Mahomes, tight end Travis Kelce and defensive tackle Chris Jones as a trifecta of leaders retain. and off the field.

The Cowboys face a similar situation. Their challenge: Can they trust their core trifecta to go all the way when they’ve struggled to accomplish anything in recent postseasons?

The Cowboys trifecta doesn’t have the skin on the wall that the Chiefs do

Quarterback Dak Prescott, receiver CeeDee Lamb and edge rusher Micah Parsons threaten to provide the foundation for the Cowboys to get over the hump. They have each anchored the Cowboys’ three straight 12-5 seasons. None of them took the team beyond the divisional round of the postseason in those years; the bump that started after the 1995 season has only steadily grown since.

What formula would the Cowboys currently be running? Jones believes that if the Cowboys move forward this season, they will do so because Prescott will have risen even further from his career-best season in the 2023 regular season and the Cowboys’ defense will plug the gaping holes left by Arizona Cardinals, San Francisco 49ers and Green Bay Packers announced last season.

But Jones says he doesn’t believe handing out money is the most guaranteed route. Take 2019, when he believed he had the best offensive line in the game and a running back to match it. He gave Ezekiel Elliott a market-setting deal worth $15 million per year with $60 million guaranteed. The Cowboys would not make the playoffs for three seasons; they wouldn’t win a game for four.

Jones looks at Elliott’s deal with the benefit of hindsight and knows he would operate differently now, as he showed this month when he let Tony Pollard leave in free agency amid a running back valuation that continues to decline .

Again, he says he has no regrets about paying Elliott. But what does he regret?

“I regret not winning,” Jones said. “To be honest, I regret not winning the Super. And really, while our fans may take exception to that, where we’ve spent this money, we’ve done a pretty good job.

“We won a lot of games. That’s what happened when we spent that money the way we spent it on that. I would agree with you. Satisfying to sit here and not have made any progress in the last two or three years? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Nobody did it well enough. That our fans are getting these results and that I’m okay with that? Of course not.”

So what does Jones mean by ‘all-in’?

Getting to the heart of Jerry Jones’ cryptic comments

Fans would be wise to interpret the phrase twofold: the first principle depends on what the Cowboys have already done and the second depends on what they will do.

The Cowboys already have Prescott, Lamb and Parsons under contract through 2024. They have head coach Mike McCarthy, paired with a new defensive coordinator in Mike Zimmer, as managers are tasked with better building a supposedly talented roster to maximize its potential to realize it and win when it matters most rather than just when it matters least.

The second premise depends on the flexibility the Cowboys maintain over the next five years. McCarthy and Prescott are each expected to start in 2024 due to expiring deals. Neither Jones’ tone nor the sentiment of agents around the league suggest a belief that the Cowboys are eager to make a deal. Some have even described the Dallas negotiations or lack thereof as a case of “deal inertia.”

Does this mean Jones isn’t all in once and for all? It could be. After all, the eighty-year-old is now much less risk-averse than when he developed his reputation as a risk-taker. But also, perhaps Jones is all in on assessing whether his talent and coaching can overcome a hurdle where they have made little progress. Perhaps he is all-in on trying to discern whether none of his puzzle pieces fit or whether some can best structure the framework for new ones.

Jones said Sunday that he believes “there are probably a handful or more quarterbacks playing in the NFL who haven’t won a Super Bowl and will win a Super Bowl.” He includes Prescott in that category.

He also wants to see more evidence to support his conclusion that Prescott can do this without a full supporting cast if he makes a lot of money. Alternatively, Jones said he would be open to extending Prescott sooner if a deal left more room for the Lambs and the Parsonses of the world.

And finally, Jones has an urgent request from his coaches. If the Cowboys are going to pay them top dollar, he told them, list them accordingly. Give Lamb the bulk of the targets, lean on Prescott to pass often and send Parsons to break up more plays than not behind the line of scrimmage.

“I think it honestly has to do with better coordination between the coaching, certainly the management, but also the coaching in terms of what you get when you compare it to what you try to win games with,” Jones said. “Your strategies and who you pay really need to be coordinated differently. I know we can improve that. When I look back and we had Pro Bowlers, did we get the absolute best execution and the best chance to win and advance in the playoffs by using those Pro Bowlers who happened to represent 60% of your salaries? Did we get the most out of them to win the games?

“My biggest thing that I would say to you and that I would say to Mike, to everyone there, is, ‘If you’re going to pay for them, use them.’”