Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones made headlines Tuesday morning when he became angry during one of his weekly radio interviews, getting defensive when asked about the franchise’s lack of offseason moves to improve the roster.
Jones seemed to take exception with the line of questioning because he was speaking on the team’s flagship radio station, 105.3 The Fan in Dallas. Jones conducts interviews with the station on Tuesday and Friday mornings. He also takes part in a pregame interview with the station.
While attending NFL meetings Tuesday afternoon in Atlanta, Jones explained in an exclusive interview with The Athletic’s Dianna Russini why he reacted the way he did.
“I don’t know that I would go as far as (calling) the volume connotation as yelling,” Jones said. “OK? But the facts are that if I’m going to be grilled by the tribunal, I don’t need it to be by the guys I’m paying. I can take it from fans and take it from other people. I take a lot of pride in how fair and how much I try to work with the media, we’re brothers and sisters. But I was a little frustrated there today.
“We got in there as of accounting for decisions made in the offseason. OK? They might as well gone back to decisions made in 2010. My point is, and that’s from my perspective, there’s no question, I’m sure that they would have liked to have grilled me like the fans are thinking, what are you going to do about that? I get it. I get all of that. And really will go along with it.”
Jones went on to explain how his frustration stemmed from the individuals asking the questions, not necessarily the topic itself.
“The wrong ones were doing the questioning. Now, if those had been real fans sitting there or if there had been people that knew what they were talking about, football people, I might have had a different answer.”
Jones also made it clear that he has no plans of making significant changes to his coaching staff. The majority of Dallas’ coaches are on either one-year deals or are in the final year of their contracts. Coach Mike McCarthy is in the final year of his five-year deal.
The Cowboys are coming off a 47-9 loss to the Detroit Lions on Sunday at AT&T Stadium, the worst home loss in Jones’ 35 years as owner and general manager.
“Of course,” Jones said when asked about sticking with McCarthy and his coordinators. “Not even a distant thought about that. But the game is repetition. We clearly know what we did wrong. You can see that. The same guys that did it wrong have done it right many times over these past few months. So I know they can go out there and get it right.
“The point is, what do you do? What you do is go out there and do your techniques or do your effort, and do all of those things and you do it righter, and you’ll be in games that don’t get out of hand and you can win.”
Jones said he still believes in the team, which enters its bye week at 3-3.
“Of course we do,” he said. “We have great personnel. I’m proud of our personnel.”
Will Dallas try to improve the roster by making any moves before the trade deadline?
“Not thinking that,” Jones said.
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(Photo: Sam Hodde / Getty Images)
