Dallas City News

We are approaching a week spent in Oxnard for the Dallas Cowboys and there are several buzzwords that have already become synonymous with the 2024 season.

One of them is inarguably “flare” (more on that in a little bit) but the other seems to be apathy. Through all of the press conferences, interviews and really any session behind a microphone and in front of a camera (why do we call those behind and in front if they are the same thing, effectively?) Dallas Cowboys brass has been asked if they sense the apathy that seems to be percolating among the fans of the team.

I’m not interested in writing a dissertation so I will TL;DR the apathy:

• It has been almost 30 years since the Cowboys won the Super Bowl
• Or the NFC Championship Game
• Or even appeared in it
• Their most recent playoff game was a colossal failure
• The following offseason saw them add very little
• While losing important role players
• At present time the team’s three most critical players are all in need of extensions, matters that could have been tended to over the last six or so months

Got it? Got it.

Jerry Jones does not believe fans are apathetic but frustrated

As noted the subject of apathy has come about because everywhere you turn it feels like there are one or two Cowboys fans upset with the way the team has gone about this offseason.

Some are upset about the lack of free agency acquisitions. Others are bothered by no long-term extensions for the big three. Ultimately you would be hard pressed to find someone who feels like this has all gone according to a plan that they agree with.

If you were unaware, Jerry Jones does a series of sit down interviews with the local markets in the initial days of everyone being in Oxnard. This also includes a conversation with the mothership.

Jerry sat down with Nick Harris and I highly recommend watching it in its entirety.

Here is Jerry Jones on the idea of fan apathy and why fans should have confidence that the team can win a Super Bowl:

“Well let me just say this. I think our fan base is frustrated. And I think they want to beat a Green Bay and I think they want to beat the next one that comes up. Now we were the second seed in the whole NFC and we were as healthy as any club that has been in the playoffs in many years. Not just the Cowboys, any club. We were healthy. We should have gone further. And we had a quarterback that arguably was the Most Valuable Player in the league last year. We should have gone further. Now my read from our fan base is frustration. Apathy? Not when you are so far ahead of the rest of the league. By this is league that takes every 32 clubs… we are eons ahead of other clubs when it comes to our ticket renewal, season tickets, timing of season tickets. When you look at television and you look at the teams that they watch on tv, we’re going away number one. That’s not apathy. They may be hot, they may be wanting more, but they’re not apathetic.”

Both Jerry and Stephen Jones talked about season ticket sales and the rate of renewals during the team’s opening press conference last week and that caused some eyes to roll. We noted in the recap of that presser and will again here that it was brought up specifically to combat the idea of fan apathy. This hardly feels good or cool to see as a fan, but in a literal way what Jerry is saying makes sense. Obviously no fans benefit from that, though.

Jerry also touched on a variety of other topics throughout the interview.

On wanting the team to carry motivation from last season’s playoff loss into 2024 but how to do so without ensuring a hangover, so to speak:

“Candidly, I want there to be a scar there. And I say that figuratively. But I’ve found in my life that remembering how bad it hurts helps, as long as it doesn’t limit you in terms of your productivity. I want all of the reminders to be there. I don’t want anybody to have a hangover, okay? I want everybody to be wanting, if given that opportunity… now I knew when we didn’t beat Green Bay that it was going to be almost a year before we got another chance. Now that’s a long time to stew in it. And a lot of what you’ve seen in the offseason is part of the stewing. You have to go through a lot to get where we were. We were healthy, we had our best players out there, we were ready to go and we were ready to win some more ball games than we won. I remember that here in August and I know they do, too. To me it’s productive to be reminded of a heavy disappointment.”

On how a big reason the team did not step out and add free agents was because of faith in younger players, particularly replacing exits from the likes of Tyron Smith, Tony Pollard, etc.:

“We had several younger players last year that should have played more, normally. But you had those players. We call that progress stoppers, but of course Tyron Smith is a progress but he isn’t. You want him on your team. You want Biadasz on your team. But the facts are we had a lot of players, a lot handful of players, that should have played more and can play more. They’ll get their chance this year. It’s a lot of the reason why we didn’t step out and do more in free agency because we wanted those young players to get on the field and play this year.”

Jerry was asked about the history of getting deals done with players while the team is in Oxnard and offered this:

“Well let me put it like this. What you should point to is, you can have contracts with players and that still doesn’t mean that they’re going to play under the contract. And so when somebody looks at contracts, you’ve got these contracts, you’ve got that what if.. that’s life. That’s life and I understand it. But you have to work through it and you can’t flare when it doesn’t go exactly to form. You’ve got to make an adjustment, you’ve got to sit down and work through it and work it out. Now this is a thing called pro football, NFL football and I’m not singin’ the blues because I love it. And it’s just part of the game to have to go through whether it be a Martin from last year. What you’ve got this year is you’ve got Dak Prescott, that’s last year of his contract and unlike other teams with their quarterbacks he’s in here playing. Other teams have had their quarterbacks not even come to camp with their contract. Dak’s not doing that. Speaks a lot about his leadership.”

On whether or not past contractual negotiations with Dak Prescott are helpful this time around:

“Well I think that Dak, as you would expect, is very pragmatic, he’s thoughtful and he does his business the same way with the same kind of intensity and professionalism as he does what he does out on the football field. Now as it turns out they both are some of the same. It takes both to make it go. But Dak’s… in my mind very special to deal with. I’ve dealt, over the last 35 years, I’ve dealt with a lot of agents, a lot of players and Dak’s one of the best.”

On how important it is to keep the duo of Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb together for the future:

“Well what’s exciting is how hard they worked this summer together. They spent a lot of time. Consequently I’m not at all worried about him missing a few practices here at the start of the year. We’re six months away from getting in a spot to play in that Green Bay game, so we’ve got a lot of time left. But they’ve done a lot of work together. CeeDee, when we drafted him, we were ecstatic because he had fallen to us. And he’s been that and more for the franchise. He’s a player that gives you a lot of ways to move the ball with him in the ballgame. So he’s top player and my intent is that we get something done.”

Circling back to the very first answer about apathy, I personally sort of agree with him. Again, I am not endorsing his message, but my own personal read on the situation is that people are extraordinarily frustrated. Jerry was certainly correct in mentioning how well set up the team was to achieve playoff success last season. We can have our qualms with how he goes about things, but he wasn’t on the field letting the Packers have their way around AT&T Stadium.

Ultimately the Cowboys are now in a place where a lot of people need to see in order to believe. Dak Prescott famously said last year that the pen to write history was in his hand (a very cool line) and obviously the team squandered that.

It is a new season, a new page and a new pen. Who will write what?