For months, Jerry Jones was silent.
The COVID-19 pandemic shook the historically unforgivable offseason schedule of the NFL. The stock market fueled fears and a brief oil price war – hammering Jones’ energy company, Comstock Resources – but rebounded aggressively under massive government stimulus. Social protest and a reason for support for the Black Lives Matter movement circulated across parts of America, including prominent involvement of a handful of Dallas Cowboys players.
Within the whole, the NFL’s most lucrative franchise was about his business, making headlines with additions, subtractions and a leading quarterback expansion that never came.
Along the way, questions were asked: Where has Jerry Jones been? Why does he not speak? And at what point will he weigh in on the manly number of questions that have been raised since the NFL draft?
Jones Cowboys team owner Jerry Jones went 109 days in a turbulent time for the NFL and the country without addressing the media, although there were enough things the ‘shadow commissioner’ could have tackled at that time. (Tony Gutierrez / AP)
That time finally came early this week, after a seemingly unusual 109 consecutive days without Jones feeling an open session with the media. And if you listened closely on Wednesday, there was an important indication as to why that stretch might have come about. One that suggests that Jones is still calibrating his compass about what he unmistakably sees as a complicated place for himself – reaching deep into his roster of players, while instead extending to his relationship with President Donald Trump and parts of the fan page of the Cowboys.
Jerry Jones was grabbed left as the NFL went in a new direction
Here’s the colliding space Jerry Jones is living in right now:
Can he embrace peaceful protests if he has been steadfast against players kneeling during the national anthem?
Can he be an undisputed supporter of law enforcement, despite his players talking about differences in community policing?
As the NFL’s most powerful franchise owner, can he remain a staple of the league’s public image at a time when the league itself is re-adapting to how it looks in the world (and vice versa)?
That’s what the Cowboys owner packs. His world and his competition set off in a direction that had taken him. And it took 109 days before he was ready to talk about it. Well, it will take another month before one of us gets the legitimate coordinates on the GPS of “Where Is Jerry Now”.
This is exactly what Jones made for himself, thanks to decades of being one of the primary filters that ran every piece of league business. You do not deserve the title of “Shadow Commissioner” by keeping your nose out of league affairs. That’s a title that comes from installing yourself in the middle of everything that matters in the NFL – to the point where Jones says something substantive about a league problem producing national headlines.
Expanding to China? More international games? Problems with collective bargaining? National television negotiations? Are teams moving to Los Angeles? Embrace gambling princesses as a form of income? Launching a Las Vegas franchise?
As and when Jones spoke on those topics (as an endless stream of others), his words immediately became a story that shaped the emerging narrative significantly.
Story goes on
Is that the only reason? Probably not. Certainly there was some element of the Roof Prescott expansion negotiations going on. And Jones certainly wanted to support the league’s “one vote” mandate on all things related to COVID-19 (as long as that vote was somewhat positively related). There was also the pressing question of how he planned to fill parts of AT&T Stadium with fans during a pandemic.
I have little doubt that everything played a part in Jones’ long silence. But I have even less doubt that Jones was blinded by the sudden and somewhat astonishing “we were wrong” of the video cover competition over peaceful protests – which was encouraged by a group of players who drove the NFL to support give for the movement Black Lives Matter.
Has Jerry Jones’ position on kneeling during a national anthem changed?
If you want to know why the NFL shadow commissioner took 109 days to tackle one of the most important offseasons in league history, maybe it’s because in the midst of the tumult, the league decided to change without him. And worse, the NFL did it without his permission. A realization like that takes some calibration.
This is the state where we find Jerry Jones right now, suddenly we’re trying to spread a needle between his company, his players, his fan base and his president. And do it without guarantee that the rest of the NFL will fill in behind him.
That’s how you end Wednesday with a dialogue that looks different from the past, but also ambiguous and open-ended. Where Jones talks about dealing with things with “grace” and “listening” and states “that was then … this is now,” still clings to the need to make decisions in the coming days.
‘That was then, two years ago. This is now, ”Jones told reporters about his past stance of protesters during the national anthem. “We have had very, very sensitive times. I do not want to share that we are also in a very different sensitive time embraced by the challenge and the war, literally, with [COVID-19]. ”
“These are very sensitive times,” Jones continued. ‘I have nothing to prove where I stand with the flag and where the Cowboys stand. I have nothing to prove regarding my players and my support of our players. What I want to show and want us all to be part of a word is called grace. Grace. Not only grace in our actions, but grace in our understanding of where they come from. … I will have mercy. I have had grace. Many of you have written and criticized me because I have too much grace and understanding regarding our players, and I probably have. And I will have mercy on the people who are sensitive to our flag. Somewhere in between like the weeks – when we meet with our team while we discuss with the team – there is somewhere in between how we will handle it. “
Four of those words – “somewhere in between” – are an abyss deep enough to sink a continent. They could mean something to Jones again that requires his players to stand with their “toes on the line” to the owner of the Cowboys, who takes a page from other franchises and makes no spectacle of fighting over what his players of purpose are to do. And there’s always the possibility that the equation will change for Jones as time and criticism set, just as it did after he knelt down with players in 2017 and then made sure it would not be repeated again under Trump’s harsh criticism.
Related
