Wilder's Whole World: Jerry Jones: It’s time to sell the team.

The continuing debacle that is the Dallas Cowboys enters its 26th year with yet another inexplicable failure. The current incarnation of the football team’s reasons has been discussed and dissected by people smarter than me, but the only solution I see is for you to give up ownership and sell the team.

Sure, this sounds drastic – IS drastic – but we as fans are entering our second quarter century of futility with our professional football team. In my opinion, there is nothing that can fix this broken organization. So, letting someone else, with a different voice and demeanor and philosophy, fix it is the only solution.

Yes, it is admirable that you put your all into this icon of a sports franchise including all of your money if I am to believe the stories of 1989. It is a great story of the man who believed, but it is your beliefs and methods that have strapped this team from moving forward and returning to the ‘glory days’ of old. Some may balk at my attempts of explanation, but here goes my best effort to show your path/pattern.

You came in and made this team your own, which is fine. (Yes, I didn’t like the Tom Landry firing, but this problem goes much deeper.) You bought the team; you had the right to do it your way, but ah, there is the rub, as master Shakespeare would say. You wanted to be all involved: “Socks and Jocks” and all that. You picked the right coach in Jimmy Johnson for the beginning, but it was him and the Hershel Walker trade that allowed you to win three Super Bowls in four years.

You wanted credit where there may have been some, but you wanted the lion’s share. This ultimately caused friction between you and Johnson. You famously said that ‘there are 500 coaches who could do what Jimmy did.’ Well, there maybe was one, but he did it with Jimmy’s team; and Neil O’Donnell threw it right to Larry Brown (twice) in the Super Bowl. It helps to have that kind of luck with the best team.

Have any of your ‘500 coaches’ won the Super Bowl since? Have the Cowboys even gotten to the conference championship game? Yeah, I didn’t think so…

Of course, we have watched you build your investment into the world’s most valuable sports franchise. You are worth billions! But your football team is no closer to the ‘glory hole’ than it was that last time in 1996. In fact, it looks further away than ever before. Your business acumen has done wonders for the organization, but it hasn’t helped the team do any better. Your great deals with Pepsi and the stadiums have garnered you power and money, but have they gotten you a single trophy to hoist overhead?

It is that philosophy that permeates the entire franchise, the entire organization, the entire group of people involved with the Dallas Cowboys. It is more important for the one man to do well than it is for the group (team) to do well. If the one man does his ‘business’ right, he will be rewarded. You have pounded this idea in everyone’s head since the beginning, why didn’t you think the actual football players in the organization would get that message as well?

It hasn’t been about the team for a long time. It always is and always will be about how much money you can make and how much power you can amass as an individual. Maybe, there is some ‘how much glory’ you can get, but really, that’s not important as the other two. Work hard and you can make it! You can be on top of the heap! You can be there all alone because there is no room for any team at the top.

The Naming Rights for the stadium, the Standing Room Only tickets (Really? You don’t have a seat, but you can pay for the privilege of BEING in the stadium during a game!!!), all the deals for rights of this or that—none of them have anything to do with the players or the team. A bright, shining example is the concept of winning the weak Eastern Division this season and therefore, getting a home playoff game. Please re-listen to your comments-not one word about the team; only praise for what you will be able to do with the stadium and the higher number of spectators in attendance. Only praise for the money and power you hold…I’m serious—please listen to that interview again; and tell me I’m wrong.

Your thought process isn’t conducive for the success of a team; only for individuals. This is the great lesson you have not learned. You just assumed that it would trickle down to the team. Your football background as a player would be enough to fill in the gaps. But with the emphasis on business for all these years, there is only one outcome—and we see it at the end of every season: 26 of them so far.

You are in control; every new coach knows it and more importantly, the players know it, too. This may even be secondary, but it is there. The atmosphere is one of YOU; and your philosophies that tell each player that they are to only be for themselves; not to be a team. They can only ‘make it’ if they only do for themselves. Forget the man sitting next to you in the locker room; you just ‘get’ yours at whatever the cost. No team survives in that atmosphere; no franchise survives in that environment.

Jerry, it’s time for you to step into the RV or get on the yacht or climb aboard the airplane; and ride off into the sunset. Sure, Stephen and Stephen, Jr won’t like it, as they have their lives set, but it’s the right thing to do…

For the franchise, for the fans, and finally, for the team…

Dwayne Wilder is a Sherman native who currently lives in Denison. Wilder’s Whole World is his commentary about life in Texoma and the world. Wilder can be reached at cmandad17@gmail.com. The views and opinions expressed here are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of Texoma Marketing and Media Group.

This article originally appeared on Herald Democrat: Wilder's Whole World: Jerry Jones: It’s time to sell the team.