Dallas City News

The Dallas Cowboys officially begin training camp practices on Thursday which is cause for celebration. Football is back, and in a serious way, not the ones we make up in March or May.

Before anybody stepped foot on a practice field though the powers that be from the mighty brain trust sat behind some microphones. The annual press conference preceding camp did indeed happen, despite originally being scheduled for Wednesday and then bumped to Saturday before landing on Thursday, and as you can imagine there was a lot said.

Here are the main takeaways and what you need to know.

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Jerry Jones believes that sports, football and the NFL are ambiguous

Jerry was asked about fan frustration and apathy and whether or not he believes it is to a larger degree than he has sensed recently. This was his opening sort of answer to that.

“After 35 years the one thing that’s for sure is ambiguity. Just the nature of what being a part of sports and part of football is. It’s very ambiguous. The reality of it is is that you are continually, continually dealing with much unfinished business. There’s almost no way to segment parts of the running and the evolving of the team from one year to the next.”

He spoke at great length about ambiguity and cited how the team has 14 Pro Bowlers and 12 All-Pros and noted how this contributes to the ambiguity. He said that perhaps the best thing that God gave him was a tolerance for ambiguity.

CeeDee Lamb being absent feels like “business as usual”

It took a bit but the front office finally began to talk about the contract stuff. Jerry took charge and had a bit of an opening remark:

“Was it Martin that wasn’t here last year? Correct. Pretty big deal. All buttoned up, contract and all. Wasn’t here. Has that ever happened? Of course it does. It happens all over the league. So I don’t flare when it’s happening to us. I’m aware of it, that we want to get these guys to camp. Business as usual as far as I’m concerned. I’m used to this. I can live with this.”

Jerry did indeed seem very comfortable with the situation and was so comfy that he threw things over to Stephen.

At this point Stephen Jones discussed how the Cowboys are in a “unique” situation with the contractual statues of Dak Prescott, CeeDee Lamb and Micah Parsons all up in the air. He noted that it is challenging taking care of all of these things and mentioned that there are two players on the roster who want the highest non-quarterback contracts in the league. It seems overwhelmingly clear that he was talking about CeeDee Lamb and Micah Parsons.

Stephen also noted that Parsons is at the point contractually now that Lamb was a year ago.

Jerry said “all in” again

Amazingly, Jerry Jones brought up being all in again.

“I’m all in. Sometimes being all in means you narrow. You remove the months out here that are in the future. And you narrow it down to where all we’re talking about is right now and the next playoff season. And that’s it for everybody. We’re all in. We’re all in.”

Jerry also wanted to address Dallas Cowboys fans specifically. Here is what he said.

“I know that I have had a lot of mistakes in these years. But the same guys making this decision that has the Cowboys and really got there by the skin of my teeth. And it was a miracle that I was able to pull it off. A miracle. But the same imagination, the same risk-taking, the same taking risks but being pragmatic, being inconsistent, sometime looking like you’re a Mississippi riverboat gambler and sometime looking like you’re trying to guard the national ball. Those inconstancies are how we got here. Now that is what your’e seeing going on right now. And I don’t know for sure if it’s going to work. But I am giving it everything I’ve got.”

It’s hard to have a real takeaway here. But this is what he said.

The Dallas Cowboys had the highest rate of season ticket renewal ever and it happened faster than it ever had and faster than the rest of the league

To be fair to the point, Stephen was asked specifically about whether or not they had seen apathy by way of season ticket sales. He went on to say the Cowboys had the highest rate of season ticket renewal ever and Jerry jumped in to add that it was the fastest it had ever happened before going on a long rant about how much faster it was than the rest of the NFL.

People will say that this is the bottom line for the team and while I am not about to defend bragging about this, they were truly talking about this from a point of measuring apathy. They mentioned that Cowboys fans (in their view) care a lot and that the apathy that has been shown is a result of it. This was not corporate flexing.

Jerry does not believe this will be Dak Prescott’s final season with the Cowboys

Jerry Jones was asked specifically if he believes that 2024 will be Dak Prescott’s last season with the team. He said he does not.

Jerry noted that he believes the Cowboys play better with Dak and went on to talk about the trials of spending money.

We will see if anything happens here.

The Cowboys want to expand to some two-back concepts

Cowboys PR literally had to ask the crowd if anyone had a question for Mike McCarthy if it isn’t obvious how this was going. It ultimately did happen, though.

McCarthy mentioned having Ezekiel Elliott back and noted that Dallas wants to expand to some two-back concepts in the name of flexibility and unpredictability. He also mentioned keeping Zeke’s reps in practice at a low level given his time in the league. That will allow them to see other down-roster backs.

We will see what comes of that.

Mike McCarthy really wants to focus on football

McCarthy was asked if he shares the same tolerance for ambiguity that Jerry Jones said he has relative to McCarthy being in a contract year and having to coach the team with all of the players dealing with their own similar statuses.

Here is what he opened with.

“I really view this question the same my whole tenure as a head coach… that’s part of the business of the NFL and that’s what it is. Clearly my energy and my focus and really the players and the coaching staff is not even close to what we’ve been talking about here the last 30 minutes. We’re excited and we’re energized by this opportunity here in front of us. And it starts in training camp… the contract conversations… we talked about that back in the spring and that’s really where it lies with me. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned the word contract prior to talking about it right now.”

McCarthy wants to talk about football and football only.

Jerry Jones was asked to justify staying general manager of the team and Stephen’s job with the organization

Jerry was asked rather pointedly about why he and Stephen should continue to hold their jobs with no threats to them while everyone on the Cowboys is in hot water and while other people around the NFL have to fight for their status. Tim Cowlishaw asked the question so a serious tip of the hat to him.

This was Jerry’s response:

“I think the Cowboys have had two GMs… Tex Schramm and me. Two. In the history. You look around the NFL and I’ll bet, I really haven’t studied this, but I bet you they’ve had 30. They’ve had as many sometimes as they’ve had coaches. Since the reality of it is which was from the day that we walked through the door that I knew that I was going to have to be responsible for any and everything that went on so that if that is going to be the case then I, I’m trying not to use somebody else’s comment or this way, I’m only comfortable doing it that way. I can’t delegate that. Now what that implies is that this thing is a product of me sitting up there throwing darts. That’s not the case. I like to think that the reason that I’ve enjoyed some success in my life is that I’ve had people like Mike and Stephen in my ear hard… now Stephen is my son. And then my children, we all work together. I heard a father’s prayer one time that says ‘please don’t let me be a bully because I can be, they will let me because they love me.’ And so that I lay up waking nights making sure that my ears are open and that I’m not too willfully strong. So believe you me, I listen and I get a lot of input… I’m a lot of things but I’m not slow. So I do listen to the people around me. Otherwise I wouldn’t be sitting here. I’ve had lots of input. Jimmy Johnson gave me a lot of input… now if my butt has got my mind out some place else and not on this then you have to trust me that I know how to since I’m not on top of the issue, trust it when Mike says we’re going to do it this way. Stephen says we’re going to do it this way. Trust me. That’s the way it is and it has been since we got the Dallas Cowboys.”

After this whole rant Jerry made sure to mention that if he could write a check to guarantee success for the Cowboys that he would, he really played a lot of the hits throughout the press conference.

All told that was the presser.

Time for football.