Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones touches on ‘all-in’ comment, Dak Prescott, and more

Jerry Jones addressed his all-in commentary and much more from the NFL Combine in Indianapolis.

These are the exact words that Jerry Jones said from the Senior Bowl on January 30th.

“I would anticipate — with looking ahead at our key contracts that we’d like to address — we will be all in. I would anticipate we will be all in at the end of this year. So when you say is there any thought…we will push the hell out of it.”

“It will be going all in on different people than you’ve done in the past. We will be going all in. We’ve seen some things out of some of the players that we want to be all in on. Yes, I would say that you will see us this coming year not build it for the future. It’s the best way I’ve ever said. And that ought to answer a lot of questions.”

The playoff loss to the Green Bay Packers was just over two weeks old at the time. Fans were unruly. People wanted change, significant change at that. Sensing a need to appease his fans, the Dallas Cowboys owner, president and general manager offered a promise.

With free agency now a week and a half way, the Cowboys are/were facing the reality of needing to live up to said promise. Perhaps aware that no behavior that is commonly associated with “all-in” verbiage in the world of sports, Stephen Jones did his best to provide some cover on the topic while speaking at the NFL Combine this week.

But that was/is Stephen. Until Jerry Jones spoke again there remained the faintest of possibilities that this offseason might be the one where Dallas decides to pry themselves from the wall in the gym to get on the floor and finally dance. Hope as they say, is a dangerous thing.

Jerry Jones finally did speak and did so on Friday night, perhaps in an appropriately-timed Friday evening news dump. This is admittedly an assumption, but Jerry is accusing people of making them when it comes to his comments from a month ago. According to Jerry, going all-in can mean different things to different people.

There were so many people, this author included, hesitant to trust Jerry’s proclamation. Our hands have been burned by the stove too many times, Lucy always pulls the ball away… but once again hope can be a cruel thing in the world of sports.

As you can see Jerry offered a lot of empty talk in defense of his own statement, par for the course when it comes to things like this. It is impossible to prove that the original statement was only ever said for the sole purpose of keeping the proverbial hope alive and prolonging the consequences in ways that we have all done in our own lives, but it is hard to think anything else when reading all of this.

For what it is worth Jerry touched on a couple of other notable subjects in this session. He obviously mentioned the quarterback position and he noted that while he does not know how it is going to happen (in terms of a would-be extension) that Dak Prescott is going to be the team’s quarterback.

The logical assumption is that the Cowboys will extend Prescott and make him the highest-paid player in the NFL. But as indicated up above, assuming anything with this franchise is something that you have to do at your own risk.

Speaking of the franchise culture, that very thing has been questioned as of late. Stephen Jones was asked if Dallas has a culture issue and so was Jerry. He was specifically asked if he felt like the players have a sense of entitlement.

The Cowboys brought in a new defensive coordinator in Mike Zimmer who has a reputation of being quite the disciplinarian which would suggest that they feel like something along the lines of what he can provide is necessary. That is admittedly a bit of a leap, but to be fair the team got smoked in the playoffs and is having people come for them from all sorts of directions.

Also in addition to all of the rumblings about players that came out on Friday, Jerry touched on the status of Leighton Vander Esch.

It seems that matters are in Vander Esch’s hands right now. All the best to him in whatever decision he makes.

So there you have it, the annual Jerry Jones information dump from the NFL Combine.

How riveting.