I might be ready to change my sports religion!

Thought that title might get some attention.

This lifelong Dallas Cowboys fan is midway thru the stages of realizing the team he once loved is gone. There is a team that wears the same uniform locally, but it's not the same.

From 1966-1985 the Cowboys had 20 consecutive winning seasons, made playoffs 18 of those seasons, played close in 5 Super Bowls, won 2 of them. NFL Films tagged them "America's Team", and controversially they embraced it. The local sports media bragged on the Cowboy's organization - no meddling owner deciding which players to sign, being the back seat driver to the coach, then firing him about every three years.

Then came 1989 and The Curse of Jerry Jones.

Actually, Jones accidentally did the right things at first. The house needed to be cleaned, although Landry's firing was poorly executed. The Hershel Walker trade and other draft picks from being the worst in the NFL helped build them into the team of the 90's. Most significantly, Jimmy Johnson both knew how to coach and identify talent (he's good friends with Bill Belichick.)

Cowboys after their first two Super Bowl wins seemed to have a great future. But Jerry Jones was jealous of that Jimmy Johnson was the face of the Boys. So he ran him off drunkenly declaring he could win another Super Bowl with any of 500 coaches, and did only by putting the Cowboys in salary cap hell. By then the team was over the hill, with a succession of forgettable yes-men coaches.

America's Team is now Jerry's Team.

Seventeen years since their last Super Bowl, their record is .500 with exactly one playoff victory. The record easily could have been worse if they had not found Tony Romo, who while not Peyton Manning, easily much better than the other post-Aikman quarterbacks. They also would have lost a lot more games without Bill Parcells, and even then Jerry Jones did not give him a free rein on his assistant coaches, bringing in TO anyway....

At this point, the Dallas Cowboys still have the biggest fan base in the world, more than the Yankees, Manchester United, Steelers, Patriots, Packers, Lakers...multiple teams that have won multiple championships in the past seventeen years.

This reminds me of years of General Motor's mediocrity...the loyal following will give you years of grace you do not deserve, annual hype that amounts to putting whipped cream on a cow chip differently.

Jerry Jones has tried desperately for a couple of decades to single-handedly be known as the mastermind that made the Cowboys a champion, but utterly failed as an NFL General Manager. He does everything EXCEPT find a professional GM.

What is egotism and pride? To me, it's not being the center of a mediocre over-hyped team, followed for the soap opera more than the games. True pride would be delegate like the Cowboys once did, and save the grandstanding for receiving the Lombardi Trophy a few more times.

Fan base is showing cracks - more kids wear Mavericks or Rangers jerseys than Cowboys - TV ratings are not as high. In the next few years, the 50-something season ticket holders will die out. What I hope happens next is what happens to 99.9% of failing businesses - empty seats in the billion-dollar stadium, fans follow other teams, sponsors pull out, local sports stations and social media speculate if Jerry will continue to be Jerry until he dies, which if so should know his tombstone will become Texas' favorite urinal.

/rant finally over

So I'm in the process of finding another team and stop following dead cows.

 

As Jerry Jones once infamously said: "They are the pick of the Litter"

 

The team I was expecting you to recommend has a brilliant coach without much of a personality like Tom Landry, except Landry knew how to dress.

 

Tony Romo Signs Extension: How Could Jerry Jones Be so Dumb? | Bleacher Report

Even dumber is the homers flaming back on a Cowboys' forum when I echo the article asking if a fan can demand an owner have some common sense.

Reminds me of 2007 when GM die hards insisted they could remain #1 by selling only gas guzzlers - people would still have good jobs and $1.50 gas. Cowboys will bust too.