ARLINGTON — If you couldn’t keep up with everything Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said on Monday, good news: You’re not alone. Even reporters encircling him outside the team’s locker room after a 27-17 defeat to the Arizona Cardinals on Monday needed time to process everything that Jones said across multiple appearances.
There was one undeniable moment of truth from Jones on Monday, however — a simple sentence that couldn’t be construed for anything other than pure honesty.
“I know I’m talking in circles,” Jones said after a convoluted answer about a potential trade, “but I’m talking in circles because I’m in a highly competitive situation.”
And a highly confusing one, too, by his own doing.
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Monday was a classic example of Jones stealing the spotlight. It started when he went on Stephen A. Smith’s SiriusXM radio show and said that he had made a trade, putting social media in a craze. Questions about who the Cowboys traded for quickly turned into another question: Dd they actually make a trade? Jones didn’t answer that question by the end of the day. He even walked it back, reiterating multiple times after his team fell to 3-5-1 that no trade had been made official yet, according to league rules. He did say there was at least one trade available to him that he’s leaning toward doing, however.
To further understand the confusion of the day, digest the answer he gave before he had decided to be forthcoming about talking in circles:
“Anything is significant if it’s going to be somebody that’s going to be active in the games and on the field and that type of thing,” Jones said when asked to characterize the impact of the player he potentially has traded for, or would trade for. “We don’t want to diminish the trade, but we certainly, for what a player was going to bring to the table, for whatever happened tonight [in the game], we need that player to bring that to the table, for whatever happened tonight. But does it make sense? And more than likely it does for the one that we can do.”
All of this for a player that may or may not be on the team’s roster when the trade deadline passes Tuesday.
Reminder: Eagles general manager Howie Roseman traded for an impact pass rusher on Monday morning in Miami’s Jaelan Phillips. As of early Tuesday morning, Roseman hadn’t given any public interviews about the deal.
Monday’s media tour — that also included an announcement on ESPN for the 2027 NHL Stadium Series hockey game — also fit in with the tone of the week.
Jones drew the ire of some fans this week when he poked fun at the team’s defensive situation, saying he would rather spend a few minutes talking to The Wall Street Journal about a potential $100 billion gas breakthrough than attempting to fix that same defense.
Jones later pushed back on the notion that the quote was emblematic of a concern that some fans have with him being the team’s owner and general manager: That his interests are spread too thin to be successful at one. That his focus, as an important trade deadline nears, should only be on improving the team.
“Every day, every time I can, I’m looking for ways to give advantages to the Dallas Cowboys,” Jones said on 105.3 The Fan (KRLD-FM). “Anybody that says I don’t focus on the Cowboys is just living in the moment of frustration, and I get that. And I’m frustrated too.”
The trade talk on Monday — much ado about nothing for the moment — also opened the door for a question about the vulnerability of a potential deal. Jones was adamant that no trades are completed until both teams simultaneously submit paperwork to the league. Until then, that means a deal in place could be out of place in a moment’s notice. That’s especially true in a competitive environment like Jones insinuated he’s in.
If Jones is so worried about the deal falling apart, why would he discuss a potential deal? People around the league listen. People talk. At the very least, the team that he has a deal in place with now knows that Jones has publicly put it out to fans — hungry for change on this struggling Cowboys team, mind you — that something is coming their way tomorrow. Is he worried about losing the team he potentially, maybe, already agreed to a deal with?
“No,” Jones said. “I just don’t want another team — if I’m interested in completing it — step in and get him. I’ve had that happen several times. It happens and that’s what’s going on out here.”
Confused? That’s what happens when you listen in circles.
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