Cowboys owner Jerry Jones just gave his coach a vote of confidence, guaranteeing Jason Garrett would remain on the job next season regardless what happens in the final six weeks of the season.
But his General Manager got an even bigger endorsement Friday, and that guy’s got contractual security for decades.
“The facts are that I really do think the way things have rolled out that I’m getting to do some of the best work that I’ve done, relatively speaking in my career of these last several years,” Jones said on his weekly radio show on KRLD-FM, via Charean Williams of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Given that it was radio, and given that it was Jones, it’s impossible to tell if he had a straight face when he said it.
After winning three Super Bowls early in his reign, things have flattened out for the Cowboys.
Since 1997, they’re a clean 133-133, with one playoff win.
While he sees the criticisms of the current administration (i.e. him) as “fair,” he also didn’t dispute the notion that he’d remain his own G.M. for the next 15 to 20 years.
“Of course, I said it, and I really meant that and just think about that a minute: Why wouldn’t you?” Jones said. “One of the reasons that I to some degree have taken the risks that I have over the years and kind of had the professional life that I followed is so that I get to decide when enough is enough. God willing. So I do get to decide that.
“It’s a certain part of working for yourself if you still are standing when the time comes. So I get to really make that decision, and I want to make it in a way that I think is in the best interest of the team, franchise and really our fans. A lot of people just need to hear me say I know it’s in our best interest for us to operate the way we have. It’s unfortunate that over these last five or six years that we haven’t had a few things turn right for us at the end of the season, needing to win one of out of two games to get into the playoffs, having a healthy quarterback, all of those things.
“But we’ve been a lot closer than it seems.”
And as long as that’s good with the owner, the architect of the team apparently has a lifetime contract to keep building a team that keeps looking closer than it actually is.