Jerry Jones knew their first real test wasn’t the preseason or training camp. It was their visit to MetLife. But even with all the caveats, Jones had a singular promise. “I can assure you, we’re going to have a better defense than we had last year.”
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It was a big claim to make, especially two days before they took on the New York Giants, an offense that had Cam Skattebo and Jaxson Dart. It was the same story Jones had been telling all off-season. All of his work, including making off-season signings like Von Miller and bringing Christian Parker in would transform the defense.
But right from the first snap, things look shaky. Skattebo and Dart were running circles around the Dallas defense. The 28-20 loss was a brutal way to open the season. And there is a clear lesson for the Cowboys to take away from here.
And according to one former Cowboy, trading for another player isn’t the solution, especially when the problem is Jones.
“It’s the same old same old,” Terrell Owens said on Get To The Point. “I mean, Jerry Jones is really selling all these Cowboy fans, he’s selling them a fantasy, he’s selling them a dream. … He needs to relinquish some of the control that he has with the team and allow some other people to kind of step in place. That’s kind of like a sign of narcissism, in a sense. And at the end of the day, he’s not even really worried about wins and losses.”
We see where Owens is coming from. Over three decades ago, when Jones took over the Cowboys, he had a singular agreement in place with Jimmy Johnson. Jones would look at the business, while Johnson handled the football. And it worked for a while. They won two Super Bowls along the way. But when Jones would get involved with the football, things would get messy.
Take Fletcher Rudisill, for instance. Jones had met this defensive tackle at a bar. He had played at Hudson Valley Community College. And their conversation was enough to convince Jerry to send him to the 1993 training camp based on his instinct. Much as most fans would expect, it was a disaster. Johnson explained Rudisill “couldn’t jog twenty feet without stopping to vomit.”
And that has been the story of Jones’ time with the Cowboys. He turned them into a business giant, but on the field, it’s not his strategies that have worked. We’ve seen it before, when he let go of Jimmy Johnson and brought in Barry Switzer.
And we can see why Owens says this today. This was the same squad Jones hyped, the new-look Dallas defense under new coordinator Christian Parker. This side of the ball was pretty much rebuilt after finishing dead last in the previous season, with additions like Caleb Downs, Malachi Lawrence, Jalen Thompson, Cobie Durant, Dee Winters, and Rashan Gary. And yet, this side of the ball disappointed like clockwork.
Dallas struggled to stop the New York Giants as they converted 9 of 11 third downs, their best third-down performance in a game since 1978. Dallas also ranked 21st in pressure rate in Week 1 even though it blitzed at the NFL’s seventh-highest rate. In fact, New York had the possession twice during the fourth quarter; things were that bad.
It was the same old story: the Dallas offense worked overtime to try and remain competitive, but the defense upended their efforts. Dallas posted a 39.7% defensive success rate, the worst among teams playing Sunday.
And if we look back, the most recent time a Cowboys team played well on offense and defense was 2022. But even then, Jones threw away a player who turned that defense into a powerhouse: Micah Parsons. Parsons pushed the limits to show his frustration: he lay down on the training table during a preseason game in 2025, and also wore his jersey inside out.
In the aftermath of the deal, Dallas became the worst defense in the league, but what did Jones do?
He soldiered on. He promised early in the year that Dallas was going to “bust its budget” trying to rebuild this team this season. And it looked like he did; all the additions should have made the defense competitive. But as of now, this defense looks far from the version Jones has been selling fans. And even Jones knows this.
“Communication,” Jones said. “The communication aspects of it. Just being out of position. Fundamentally between the two, communication…” He added, “I was taken back that the physicalness of it wasn’t more obvious. We had some guys play hard, and we had some guys do some good things on both sides of the ball, offense and defense.”
Per The Athletic, Jones will not retire anytime soon. He says he has “work to do” in trying to beat Robert Kraft and the Patriots’ record for the most Super Bowl wins. But Jones is 83, and needs four Lombardis to tie the record at the very least. Something has got to give.
“I don’t have a succession plan, I don’t,” Jones told The Athletic. “One day I just won’t be here to toss my two cents in.”
The upcoming games will show whether Jerry Jones actually has a plan for team success or whether it becomes another big mess for the Cowboys.