During his speech at halftime, after receiving his Hall of Fame ring, Jerry Jones spoke about making the NFL better. His words seemed to be directed at Roger Goodell and other NFL owners.
“That’s what I do. That’s what I should do. That’s what I try to do, and that’s what I’m going to try and do,” Jones said.
Jones insisted after the Cowboys’ 37-9 loss to the Eagles that he only wants what is best for the league. The Cowboys owner followed by saying his beef with the NFL commissioner isn’t personal as it relates to Ezekiel Elliott’s six-game suspension. Dallas is 0-2 in the two games Elliott has missed, getting outscored 64-16.
“I’ve never addressed that in a negative way,” Jones said when asked about Goodell continuing as commissioner. “To sum it all up, what I want is I want accountability, more accountability. I want real. I’m really, unprecedented accountability to the ownership. That simple. And again, [Elliott] isn’t even an issue. That’s not even an issue. It’s unfortunate that motives are being pressed. ‘It’s all about Zeke. It’s all about that,’ which questions your motive. But Zeke is done. Zeke is over. But some of the things that make that happen are still around.”
Jones would not address whether he threatened to come after Goodell “with everything I have” as ESPN reported last week. The article also said Jones used colorful language to describe Robert Kraft and the Patriots owner’s battle with the NFL over Deflategate.
Earlier Sunday, Patriots president Jonathan Kraft said Jones advised the Patriots to take their “medicine and focus on winning football games” instead of fighting Tom Brady’s suspension.
“I guess I don’t know who the source was, and don’t know if it is true or not,” Jonathan Kraft said of Jones’ comment about his father during an interview on 98.5 The Sports Hub via Mike Reiss of ESPN. “If Jerry said that, and I don’t know that he did, Robert at the end of the day followed Jerry’s own advice. Our franchise, since the investigation started the night of the AFC championship [in 2015], has won two Super Bowls.”
Jones would not address his conversation with the Krafts but said Brady’s suspension and Elliott’s suspension were “different.”
“I don’t have any comment to that,” Jones said. “But those circumstances are so different. Just they’re different. We’re not going to write anything – a book here. They’re just different. They’re just different. That’s that. But I didn’t hear [Jonathan Kraft’s comments Sunday]. I think the world of Jonathan.”
Jones reiterated that his only battle with other owners and the NFL right now is over accountability for Goodell.
“We as owners should make that plan, and we should have the opportunity to do it,” Jones said. “Our commissioner is probably the most powerful -- relative to his constituency -- he’s the most powerful person in America. He’s been given that kind of power, so what you want to do if you want to make some positive changes is you want that power to be accountable, in my case, to the owners.”