“We feel great about what we’ve been in free agency,” Jones ramped up before practically delivering the line with a knowing wink and hitting it three times, like any good comedian knows is key. “All in. All in. All in.”
Stephen Jones literally snickered into the microphone as his dad continued on his roll.
“We’re all in with these young guys coming on. And we’re all in with this draft.”
Cowboys fans were told the front office was “all in” on the offseason, and most interpreted that as a promise to be more aggressive in free agency. When the Joneses ended up spending less than every other team on veteran reinforcements, fans assumed it would become about locking in the team’s superstars- quarterback Dak Prescott, wide receiver CeeDee Lamb, and edge rusher Micah Parsons- to long-term extensions.
So far, that hasn’t happened yet, either.
Jones was asked how he would justify that inactivity to fans, and the 81-year-old got uncharacteristically testy.
“You may be working on it and not moving anything but your eyebrows. Who in the world would think that we’re not working on it? I work on it; it pops open at two in the morning sometimes. Your actual question is: why don’t you have something done an negotiated and put in the drawer? Well, we’d like to see some more leaves fall. We’d like to see some more action. It’s called option. A lot of guys need to hand it off to the first guy through the line. Another one will keep it another step, decide whether to pitch it or not, he’ll decide whether to turn upfield with it, and then he’s still got a pitch left. It’s called option quarterback. That’s working the problem. I’ve spent my life being an option quarterback, and I can go right out to the damn sideline and still leave a pitch in me… To say that you’re not working on it is not the right answer. What they differ with is your style. It’s on your mind; it’d be madness not to know that the contracts are ahead. I want to see a few more cards play, candidly. If you’ve got trouble with when the timing is around here, it’s because I’m not ready to go.”
It’s hard to say whether “I am working on it privately behind the scenes” or “I’d like to keep my options open” will drive Cowboys fans more crazy.
Jones reminded reporters more than once that the current conversation about the team’s big-money contracts is something they’ve known was coming.
“It’s called a salary cap. It is not a lack of money, under the premise. It’s not that at all. It’s a part of the rules, just like you can’t be offside or you can’t hit a guy when he’s already on he ground… And that salary cap means that if you pay [Zack] Martin more money one year, you’re going to have less to pay the next year. That’s just part of it,” Jones explained.
The billionaire reframed it in terms that maybe us common folk can better grasp.
“Sometimes you look at your account, and you’re loaded with money in there that day. But you know you’ve incurred bills that’s three times the money you have in your account. But that day, it looks like you’ve got a lot of money. You’ve got to be disciplined about spending what’s in your account if you know you’ve got all these bills out here,” he continued.
“You do understand when you’ve been operating on the credit card. And there’s no question we have been operating on the credit card. That’s how we’ve had Dak Prescott plus this great supporting cast around him for the last three or four years.”
