Yes, Jerry Jones exaggerates, but blame the fans for buying into his zeal

At this point, there is no need to blame Jerry Jones and Stephen Jones for the unfulfilled expectations of the Dallas Cowboys since their last Super Bowl title in 1996.

Tony Romo and Dak Prescott, past and current whipping boy quarterbacks, can be absolved as well.

It’s on the fans now.

All of you.

Don’t hide now. You’ve been exposed to the opening press conference at training camp on Thursday.

Asked about the narratives of fan apathy and disgust following last season’s unconscionable and unfathomable blowout playoffs loss to the Green Bay Packers and the lack of moves in free agency, ushering in a 28th season since they were hailed as champions, the Jones family admitted the frustrations but added a caveat.

Stephen Jones said the Cowboys had the highest rate of season ticket renewal ever.

Jerry Jones jumped in and said “and the fastest” and included that the Cowboys numbers were way above the rest of the league.

“When we go to league meetings, NFL meetings, they don’t put the team name on the overall league information. So the team is anonymous,” Jerry Jones said. “But when they put up on that sheet, last month, where clubs are, in renewal, numbers of renewal, total percentage of renewal and total percentage of anything new: the Cowboys are so far ahead of the rest of them it’s unbelievable when they put that up there. That’s my answer to you how our fans are reacting of where we are today.”

So miss me with the apathy and disgust.

The Cowboys are still winning at the box office where it truly counts, proving once again that Jones remains the master salesman and marketer who could sell ice to an Eskimo.

And Jones was back selling on Thursday, delivering one liners, justifications and admitted bull hockey with his usual exaggerated zeal.

Never mind that the Cowboys are facing a season on the brink with coach Mike McCarthy, the entire coaching staff, quarterback Dak Prescott, receiver CeeDee Lamb and more than 30 players on othe final year of their contracts.

Lamb is holding out for a new contract and is not in camp.

Jones used the word ambiguity as a positive at least 20 times and said the uncertainty was the state of the NFL and a good thing for the Cowboys heading into the season.

“It is more ambiguity involved than I ever could have imagined,” Jones said. ”And there is always going to be many dangling participles out here of unfinished business. And that’s the reality of it. There will never be a time with the NFL and sports that we don’t have a lot going on that gives you reason to say that this is the time of year when you are just supposed to do football. Well, there are so many things going on at all times and more so today than when I first got involved. If I can be specific, I know we’ve been talking about what kind of offseason we’ve had, what kind of season ending we had.

“Well, the facts are, how many Pro Bowlers do we have out here? Fourteen Pro Bowlers on this field right now. And 12 All Pros. We have an outstanding team. That part works. We’ve got a lot of ambiguity in the team. I have ambiguity everyone in the things I look at and do. Maybe the best thing that God gave me was a tolerance for ambiguity. And so, that’s what you have, that’s what frustrates you. It frustrates fans, obviously, to not have closure or to not have bright lines. That’s not in my life. so I don’t ever anticipate it getting any better with the NFL and the Cowboys. Matter of fact, after we last met here last year, there’s been even more ambiguity thrown on the table. Hello, NFL, good to be with you today.”

And that was just the opening preamble.

Let’s be clear. There is no question that Jerry Jones wants to win.

He badly wants to return the Cowboys to the Super Bowl for the fans, his players and himself.

He definitely wants to rest the narrative that he can’t win without former head coach Jimmy Johnson.

And he wants it now.

“I have spent my life doing it and I dream about it every day,” Jones said. “I’m into it. I’m all in. I’m all in. Sometimes being all-in means you narrow, you remove the months out here that are in the future and you narrow it down to what we’re talking about is right now and the next playoff season and that’s it for everybody. We’re all in. We’re all in. It’s all right there.”

There is those two small words again with big-word meaning: ALL IN.

Those were Jones’ buzzwords for the offseason immediately after the loss to the Packers when he told a Star-Telegram reporter he was all-in on winning this year.

He then backtracked and said he didn’t mean to use those words in a way that they were construed.

Even at the pre-draft press conference in April, Jones said called me out and said “Clarence, you put that all-in around my neck.”

Fast forward to Thursday and Jones said this during an interview following his 48-minute opening press conference.

“We all realize that certainly I can use expressions, one liners,” Jones said. “And obviously, we need to have the background someone’s coming for, the context that was coming from. Now I really did mean that we’re gonna get it through to everybody, that it’s about winning this year. I don’t want to anything we can do to be about three years from now, two years from now. We’re gonna go all in this year, and it has dictated a lot of the decisions I’ve made in the offseason.”

Again, this is in stark contract to the fact that the Cowboys haven’t done much this offseason.

The issue is how Jones is doing it.

He is not changing his management structure.

“I think the Cowboys have had two general managers, Tex Schramm and I,” Jones said. “I think if you look around the NFL, they have had 30. I am responsible for any and everything that went on. So that if that is going to be the case, I’m only comfortable doing it that way.”

Jones’ way includes a lot of colorful words and ambiguity.

He said the Cowboys, who have gone 12-5 in each of the last three years before failing in the playoffs, will be hanging around the rim so that when they “get to that game” again they can come out with a better result.

Why haven’t the Cowboys signed Prescott or Lamb?

Jones brought up Ben Franklin and option quarterbacking.

“I can go back 100s of times and look where I should have pitched or handed it to the back rather than keep the ball,” Jones said. “I can do that with not only in the instances I’m talking about with my players, but also in my life, many times and say, “Man, I should have handed that ball off rather than keep on towards the sideline.’ My point is that’s still whatever frailties there are – and there are some – the positives have outweighed the negatives. And you have to look at it. I heard one time to use every decision the Ben Franklin method. Ben Franklin said when you’re worried and tired and can’t sleep, get up in the morning and list on one side all the positives, everything good, and then get up and take on the left side all of the negatives, everything bad. And if that positive side beats that negative side by one, you’re doing good.”

Jones offered this message to Cowboys fans that few truly understood.

But it sounded good.

“I know that I have had a lot of mistakes in these years,” Jones said. “But the same guys making this decision that has the Cowboys and really got there by the skin of my teeth. And it was a miracle that I was able to pull it off. A miracle. But the same imagination, the same risk-taking, the same taking risks but being pragmatic, being inconsistent, sometime looking like you’re a Mississippi riverboat gambler and sometime looking like you’re trying to guard the national vault. Those inconsistencies are how we got here. Now that is what you’re seeing going on right now. And I don’t know for sure if it’s going to work. But I am giving it everything I’ve got.”

And after bringing up a knat’s (hind parts) in regards to the Lamb contract talks, Jones offered this seemingly appropriate statement.

“If I’m anything I wanna say to our fans I’m good with math—I’m very good, and I can stretch a dollar because I can put a lot of energy, juice and bull (expletive) into it. And so I maximize what we’ve got to work with, I like to think as well as anybody in sports.”

Indeed he does.

And that’s why fans and season ticket holders have sold out AT&T Stadium at the fastest rate in history.

Apathetic and disillusioned or not, you are still buying Jones exaggerated zeal, a cleaner phrase than the one he used above, like nobodies business.

So stop blaming Jones or Prescott.

Blame yourselves for continuing to buy what he is selling.