Jerry Jones Doesn’t Appreciate Your Tone

Jerry Jones turns down publicity with the same steely firmness of a seven-year-old confronted with a vat of Froot Loops. He is addicted to the blank stares of people listening to his gale-force bloviations, and as a result he may be the most powerful person in America, non-politics division, who most aggressively and devotedly seeks out people with cameras and microphones to record his outermost thoughts.

So when Jones snapped at the hosts of his weekly radio show—a brief aside: HE STILL DOES A WEEKLY RADIO SHOW!—on Tuesday morning for the impertinence of asking him not very pointed questions about Sunday’s game, in which his Cowboys were edged by Detroit, 47-9, people snapped to attention, or what passes for attention in this cultural moment.

This interview happened during the NFL’s semi-annual owners meetings, where the league’s reigning lizards got together to vote on Tom Brady being approved as a part owner of the Las Vegas Raiders; Brady is expected to be approved, and can already be indirectly blamed for the team’s low return in the Davante Adams trade. All that other business did not and has never stopped Jerrah from his hybrid model of yammering—the hybrid being his wind-powered gasbagging, an efficient upgrade on the former petroleum/natural gas-powered model. It was not surprising that Jones made time to talk so other people could hear him, but it was enough of a departure from the usual when Jones wheeled on typically supine hosts Shan Shariff, R.J. Choppy, and Bobby Belt over their questions about his offseason moves that it was worthy of notice.

“This is not your job,” Jones said at one point, in response to a question about Jones. “Your job isn’t to let me go over all the reasons that I did something and I’m sorry that I did it. That’s not your job. I’ll get somebody else to ask these questions. I’m not kidding. I’m not kidding you. You’re not going to figure out what the team is doing right or wrong. If you are, or any five or 10 like you, you need to come to this (NFL) meeting I’m going to today with 32 teams here, you’re geniuses. You really think you’re gonna sit here with a microphone and tell me all of the things that I’ve done wrong without going over the rights? . . . You want some conversation, you’re getting it.”

Jones rarely flares up this overtly, at least not in the media. He crushes the non-powerful less ostentatiously, to the extent that someone who runs a national conglomerate can manage that. As such, this suggests that Jones is reaching the end of his rope with this version of his empire; he remains adamant that he will not fire head coach Mike McCarthy, which suggests he is reaching the end of his rope more generally.

Then again, Jones also calmed down shortly thereafter, crediting a question about tackle Tyler Guyton not playing Sunday with “now that’s a good question. That’s a sound question. That’s some good gut meat on the bone,” and ended the 25-minute grind with a semi-cheery, “Great, guys, y’all have a good day.” So maybe the owner’s benevolence toward McCarthy will extend toward the likes of Shariff, Choppy, and Belt. Maybe he just got caught in a mood after watching the Lions run half a dozen trick plays with their offensive linemen as a nose-rubbing exercise at the end of the team’s most demonstrative loss in 14 years and the fifth most lopsided defeat in Cowboys history. Jerry is 82, and doesn’t want to spend any of his precious time explaining why he isn’t the smartest person in all of football. He’s in Atlanta with his putative peers, and wants to feel good about himself when he’s telling those 30 other billionaires and Roger Goodell what’s what and who’s who. You wouldn’t appreciate being interrupted in those circumstances, either.

But the Cowboys players need to know that they’re not just playing for their own jobs and McCarthy’s, but these three radio guys as well. That’s a lot of pressure to ladle onto the fellows as they head west to play in San Francisco a week from Sunday. It is easy to see the Cowboys as a team in crisis, especially when their owner is popping off like this, but by expanding the sense of precariousness to include people outside the roster and coaching staff, Jerry might also be creating a new opportunity. Now that’s a lot of good gut meat on the bone.