Dallas City News

When you are winning in the NFL, life is relatively good. Unfortunately, the opposite holds true as well.

It is well-known that the Dallas Cowboys have not done much serious winning since before Marvin Harrison (as in Sr., not his rookie son playing for the Arizona Cardinals) was playing in the league. Their Super Bowl and NFC Championship Game appearance droughts are well-documented and serve as high points of frustration every time they fall short of those bars.

As a result of this when the team stumbles out of the gate the way that they have this season, everything tends to feel more intense. The intensity in question was originally born after the franchise’s latest playoff loss this past January and just two months after that a former player, Dalton Schultz, took it to a new level when he called the environment around the Cowboys distracting and focused on the overall brand more than anything.

The crux of Schultz’s comments was on tours of the Cowboys’ team facility that take place while the team is working, lifting weights and preparing in general. Schultz noted that this specific thing was distracting which ignited debate about them in general and whether the team (and more specifically owner, president and general manager Jerry Jones) was focused on winning more than brand and what not the way that Dalton implied.

With morale as low it has been in some time surrounding the Cowboys, the team facility tours have come under fire yet again. Former players Jayron Kearse, Dorance Armstrong, Tony Pollard, Kelvin Joseph and Dante Fowler Jr. all were quoted by ESPN in a lengthy story published on Wednesday by Kalyn Kahler. In the story Kahler went into explicit detail about the tours, what is accessible during them, the commentary that random fans had throughout the experience and much more. It is very much worth your time.

The story has a quote from former safety Jayron Kearse that references Schultz specifically where he mentions that the tours weren’t the reason why Dallas failed during his time with the team, but that they are certainly distracting.

“We have 24/7 access to the facility, and it should be a place of solitude,” said a recent former player who requested anonymity to discuss the topic freely. “I come in for extra work at night, to use the hot and cold tub, and there’s fans walking through, poking out at you.”

“You’re walking by the tour guide, and they’re pulling [the fans] to the side, and you hear them say, ‘Oh that’s CeeDee Lamb, that’s CeeDee!’” says former Dallas safety Jayron Kearse, starter on the three straight 12-win teams. “Like Dalton said, it’s kind of like you’re in a zoo and kids are going to see a lion. That’s not a reason why we didn’t get over that hump. But I just don’t think that really equates to winning. That has nothing to do with us winning the game.”

There are mentions of Jerry Jones’ defense of the tours several times throughout the story where he notes that they existed even during the team’s last Super Bowl run and that the Cowboys have been among the most successful teams (his words) in the NFL since the dawn of The Star in 2016 which elevated things like this to an entirely different level. Basically any idea of it all changing is silly.

As noted though, there were mentions of fans gawking (an aggressive word) at players, including the injured Micah Parsons. Kahler noted at the beginning of this story that it was the Saturday before the Cowboys hosted the Detroit Lions and obviously in that time Parsons was (and is still currently) dealing with a high-ankle sprain.

He could not do so privately, though.

A few minutes later, the tour guide pauses his speech while the group is stopped at the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders exhibit. “Make way for this gentleman, please.” The fans back up, and Parsons slowly hobbles past them.

“Oh my god, he’s limping,” one woman whispers.

“That looks like it’s going to be a few more weeks until he can play again,” another says.

Parsons doesn’t acknowledge the fans, nor does he look bothered by the attention. But the recent former player who requested anonymity says the tours can be exhausting because the players always have to be on, even on a Saturday afternoon when their work before the game is done.

Whether or not you would personally find any or some of this to be distracting is one thing. It should be reinforced that Kearse at the very least mentioned that while this all is a thing that it was not any sort of excuse for the team failing in the playoffs.

But consider the names mentioned up top, recent players of the team, who all spoke about this in their own words.

“I’m smiling … when I walk in the building here, I just know, like, I just have work,” said six-year Cowboys defensive end Dorance Armstrong of his new team, the Washington Commanders.

“This is more about football, just X’s and O’s,” running back Tony Pollard, who spent five seasons with the Cowboys, says about his new team, the Tennessee Titans. “I’m in a better place mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, just all around.”

“Over here [Kansas City] … the point is the football and winning championships,” says cornerback Kelvin Joseph, who was with the Cowboys for two seasons before moving to the Chiefs this offseason (He is now a member of the Colts). “There [in Dallas], it was a lot of football and like, other stuff.”

“You got real facilities here,” says defensive end Dante Fowler Jr., who spent two years in Dallas and now plays for the Commanders. “You might not see tourists coming around, but it keeps the main thing the main thing.”

It is certainly easy to say that things are all about winning with the Kansas City Chiefs, but acting like the Washington franchise has their ducks in a row in a way that the Cowboys don’t is a bit of an eyebrow-raiser. That may be a prisoner-of-the-moment sort of sentiment with the Commanders having so much success this season and the Cowboys dealing with what they are, but they are quotes from people and their experience nonetheless.

As noted earlier, The Star opened in 2016 and one player who has been around for just about all of that time is current team cornerback Jourdan Lewis. He is referenced in the piece with a quote about how in spite of anything else the team has to find a way to succeed.

“It’s just everything that’s surrounding the Cowboys,” Lewis says. “Super Bowl or bust. They’re not good this year because they lost a big one, or, they aren’t good this game because they beat this team.”

Does “everything surrounding the Cowboys” include the fans inside the facility?

“It’s Jerry’s world,” Lewis says. “That’s not our job to go out there and tell Jerry what to do with his organization. Our job is to go out there and win games, regardless of if you see [tours] as a distraction, like the media or anybody else. We got to go do our job regardless of the circumstances. So we can’t look at it like that. … He made a multibillion dollar organization like this. It’s not going to stop, so get used to it.

“Football players, we are some of the most mentally tough people in the world — supposedly. You challenge a man’s will every single snap. So if [the tours are] a problem, that’s going to carry on in other aspects of our game. So hopefully that’s not a problem.”

As you can imagine this story began to make the rounds as soon as it was published given the allegations from Schultz in the past and the current temperature of the Cowboys.

Micah Parsons seemed to disagree with any idea that the tours are a distraction.

Who agrees with him?