Ownership has its privileges. That’s one of those things in life we can add to the inevitabilities, along with taxes, death and insurance commercials.
And over the years, the ‘‘privilege’’ Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has put on display — better said, ‘‘blessed us with’’ — has been not just one of the greatest gifts in sports that continues to keep on giving, but also insight into how other multibillionaire, old-school, mega-sports franchise owners think and feel but never allow the public to see or hopefully know.
Because, hell, that’s what they got Jerry for.
The beauty of Jerry Jones, for other owners and for us, he just DGA—.
But Jones’ latest ‘‘public engagement’’ dealing with a public platform (i.e., ‘‘media’’) for contract-negotiation leverage with his latest ‘‘franchise’’ player — four-time Pro Bowler and Lawrence Taylor comparison DE/edge rusher Micah Parsons — may have finally exposed how deep on the dark side of privilege Jones happens to actually live. Publicly spewing nonsensical and litigable reasoning while using his ownership privilege as both shield and weapon. All to make sure the public sees him as victim but still, of course, more important, owner.
When you have the privilege of having these words exit your mouth: ‘‘Y’all are getting what’s in the mind or what’s in the said. This is a good time. He’s subject matter. What it is is what it is. We’ll work through it, or we will not work through it.’’ And you say that after indicating the unmitigated and unprofessional delusion that you reached an official agreement with a player, whose agent you know, on a multiple-year deal worth more than $200 million in guaranteed money by ‘‘handshake’’ without said agent or the player’s lawyer present?
Yet you want us, the media-driven public, to believe that you actually believe, in your 36 years of football ownership, that that qualifies as a legit and binding and complete contract agreement? Bro, how collectively unintelligent, delusional, other kinds of stupid do you think we are?
The better ask, really: How privileged do you think you have become?
Feel how you will, but Jones may have (finally) hit the ‘‘gone too far’’ on the ‘‘gone too far’’ meter. You know that one where owners cross the line in the owner/player ‘‘feel good’’ space and that ‘‘I own you’’ mantra creeps up and makes everyone except the owner feel a certain reduced, owned way? Yeah, Jones is there right now. He isn’t confident Parsons will play Week 1 but still sounds intent on getting a deal done. Imperiously cold-shouldering Parsons’ trade demand. As he uses his past transgressions with Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb as examples of the process in dealing with elite players who just happen to play for the Cowboys. Without putting out there he’s the one who came out on the ‘‘L’’ side of the negotiating table by playing them the same — but less shameful — way he’s playing Parsons.
‘‘Wake me up when this is over’’ is how The Athletic phrased a headline on the topic this week. Oh, now because Jerry’s looking bad you all decide to go to sleep?
To keep this a buck, this isn’t so much about the deal getting done or getting the deal for Parsons over with (or having Parsons eventually go somewhere else, if that’s what it comes down to) or even paying Parsons the $40 million to $42 million per year ‘‘market value’’ he’s rightfully earned. No, sir. This is about, again, the process and an owner using a player to hold against the bad decisions he has come out on the short end of lately and making sure the world sees him as the one who’s in charge and never the other way around. It’s about reinforcing the ‘‘when they were kings’’ Cowboys Culture. Trademarked by Jerry. The way it were.
Gotta make ownership great again. MAGA, MOGA, all the same thing.
Pro Football Talk Live’s Michael Florio Sermon on the Mount’d the entire narrative: ‘‘At the core, it’s: ‘I’m in charge, and you’re not. I’m the boss, and you work for me. I make the rules, and you follow them. It’s my money, and I’ll give you as much or as little as I see fit. And I’ll do business the way I damn well please. And if it’s on a handshake, it’s on a handshake.’ I just think that is the core of it: It is power. It’s not money. It is power that’s at the core of this, and Jerry Jones does not want to look like he doesn’t have the power that he thinks he has.’’
Jerry needs to know that the one thing he may lose in the offals of all of this is more than just a generational player who could be irreplaceable; it’s his own credibility. The little that he had left going into this. While money and power when it comes to ownership have always trumped credibility, in this case, Jones’ loss of credibility could cost him more than all of the other questionable public player negotiations he has had in the past.
But that doesn’t even seem to be close to one of his concerns. Ownership ain’t what it used to be, but you can’t tell this owner that. For him, it’s (his) truth, (his) justice, MOGA and the Cowboys way. It never gets any more inevitable than that, does it?
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
