Cowboys owner Jerry Jones wants to make this absolutely clear: He will remain the team’s general manager. Period.
(Or as Michael Irvin once said, Period. Period. Period.)
After Jones told NBC’s Bob Costas that he would have fired a general manager who had his own record as general manager, some people thought Jones was acknowledging that perhaps he should step back and give up the G.M. authority. But Jones said on 105.3 The Fan today that the Cowboys are his team, and that means he’s picking the players.
“We are not structured that way,” Jones said, via the Dallas Morning News. “We didn’t structure it that way with my ownership. There’s no way that I would be involved here and not be the final decision-maker on something as important as players, and that is a key area. That’s never been anybody’s misunderstanding. It’s been a debated thing, but it’s just not going to happen. We’ve had success doing it this way and we’re going to have success in the future doing it this way. It eliminates some very serious issues when you look around the league, as to creating an additional layer that you’re continually having decisions, making changes, doing those kinds of things.”
Jones said that when Costas asked him if Jones the owner would have fired Jones the general manager, Jones was just answering a hypothetical. He was not in any way indicating that he’s considering giving up the general manager authority. Because he isn’t.
“It’s real clear. I was asked the question, ‘If you were an owner and you had a general manager, would you make a change?’ Under those circumstances I speculated that I would probably have made a change, but that’s not our situation,” Jones said. “To change, I’d have to change myself. People don’t do that. If you’ve got the commitment and you have the investment, and I’m talking about in time, effort, all of those kind of things, you change yourself. You don’t change out and have someone else go in there and do it. And that would be misleading to begin with because no one would believe you if you hired somebody at that spot and really believe that he’s not sitting there and ultimately at what I want to do. Somebody would say, ‘Why don’t you just mentally let them go do it.’ I’m not built that way.”
And because Jones isn’t built that way, the Cowboys will continue to be built this way. With Jones doing the building.