“What a weird-ass year this is,” said Corby Davidson on 1310 The Ticket’s afternoon-drive show The Hardline.
The exasperated comment came after a two-week period that included a pair of humiliating defeats and national headlines for a Jerry Jones radio interview confrontation and another verbal altercation in which cornerback Trevon Diggs told a local sports anchor to talk about “deez nuts” in a viral video.
We almost forgot to mention the ESPN report taking aim at how the Cowboys organization tends to let the business and glamor of being “America’s Team” interfere with the on-field product. Some former Cowboys players now with other teams pointed to the fan-friendly tours of the team’s glistening practice facility as an example of how Jerry Jones’ most prized possessions aren’t the shiny Super Bowl trophies on display at the Star in Frisco, but the green dollars that he can bring in and the rapt attention that can generated.
Oh, wait! There's more. Brandon Aubrey, who sadly might be the best scoring threat on the team right now, missed practice last week, and very well could've missed the game in San Francisco, because of jury duty. By itself, that's not such a big deal, right? But add it to the pile of other goofy headlines, and it's just too much, especially for two weeks. Only the Cowboys.
Sure, Davidson is correct that the 2024 Cowboys season has presented an oddball mix of on- and off-field missteps, but really, “a weird-ass year” for the Cowboys isn’t weird at all. It’s certainly not unusual. Perhaps more than any other professional sports franchise in America, the Dallas Cowboys are as much a train wreck circus that can’t be avoided, as the club is, well, a professional football organization responsible for fielding a team for at least 18 weeks a year.
Trevon Diggs really dropped a “deez nuts” on a reporter pic.twitter.com/IOxxRQUPwO
— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) October 28, 2024
Losses, various confrontations and some off-field dramas are typically a part of almost every NFL team’s season, at least to a small degree. But no one goes as big with it all as the Cowboys do, especially when it comes to the drama. And to a stunning extent, the controversy seems manufactured, not by the media, but by Jerry Jones himself.
How many times have you, especially if you are a Cowboys fan, uttered to yourself, “Geez, only the effin’ Cowboys.” Just over the past couple of weeks, we've lost count. But we also wanted to ask some local experts about the crazy stuff that makes them say that too.
“I think mine would be, of course, the refusal to put up curtains to block the sun, since I was the first reporter to bring this to the world's attention,” said Craig Miller, co-host of The Ticket’s morning-drive show, Dunham and Miller. “It's just proof of Jerry's: A, stubbornness, and B, that he won't do ‘anything’ as he says, to help his football team win. In this case, he values aesthetics over giving his team the best environment to play a game in.”
Ben Rogers, co-host of The Ben and Skin Show on 97.1 The Eagle, agrees that the “cornea-roasting sunbeams glaring through the stadium windows like a state trooper’s blinding flashlight in the eyeballs” are ridiculous, but even that, in his opinion, takes a backseat to something else. Something else, perhaps even more shocking, that only the Cowboys would ever dream of doing.
“The most egregious example of stupid non-football things getting in the way of actual football has to be the story of DeMarvion Overshown being told that he cannot wear No. 0, his college number, because Rowdy, the obnoxious fucking mascot that no one cares about, wears #00,” Rogers said. “You can’t make this shit up. When I heard that story, part of me hoped that the league would step in and end the franchise forever for the good of humanity. It’s been hard to move on with my life since hearing that one. I’m currently seeing an elite team of therapists to talk it through.”
Dave Lane, also known as "Gen-X Davey," is Davidson's Hardline co-host. He echoes Miller's thought that Jones has long prioritized many things above winning football games.
In the golden days of the '90s Cowboys Super Bowl teams, for example, Jones made a habit of welcoming Prince Bandar bin Sultan to Cowboys games. He went so far as to take him into the locker room when players were getting ready, something that reportedly angered legendary coach Jimmy Johnson. The prince is a former Saudi ambassador to the United States who was mentioned in confidential government documents noting the possible connection between Saudi Arabia and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. His presence was yet another example of something one would likely never see in any other NFL stadium.
"If any one story encapsulates everything you need to know about Jerry [Jones], it’s the Prince Bandar one," Lane said. "The perfect money over football metaphor. One of the turning points in his relationship with Jimmy [Johnson]. We’ve finally gone from tolerating him [Jones] to tired of him because it’s become absolutely clear that he’s not serious about winning. His last 10 months are a fireable GM offense, but accountability doesn’t exist in the fantasy world Jerry has created for himself."
Kevin Turner, a Dallas sports radio veteran currently serving as producer for The Ben and Skin Show, also co-hosts the One Star Cowboys Podcast. He calls covering the team a pleasure “because it’s pretty much nonstop storylines and drama.”
Over the years, he’s had more than a front-row seat to moments that absolutely fall into the “only the Cowboys” realm. Multiple times, in fact, Jones has unexpectedly called into his radio show to compliment or admonish the hosts for the topics being discussed that day. Turner remembered a time when Jones’ mortality was the subject at hand, and the show’s staff learned from the man himself that topic needed to be off limits.
But Turner remembers the pivotal 2016 draft, the one that brought Dak Prescott and Ezekiel Elliott to the team, as being a time when he had the sort of accidental access into the inner workings he couldn't envision any other radio host ever getting with any other team.
After an interview with then-defensive coordinator Rod Marinelli on the third day of the draft, the coach invited Turner and his radio partner Jeff Cavanaugh to his office to see some old photos of legendary Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne. But Turner and Cavanaugh saw much more than some old black-and-whites while visiting the coach during a commercial break.
“I notice a projection screen up and it has the Oklahoma Sooners defense playing on the screen. There weren’t many draftable players from that defense that year, but one name I knew was defensive lineman Charles Tapper,” Turner said. “So we sprint down from his office to the broadcast set-up and immediately start going on and on about Tapper and how that might be a name the Cowboys would be interested in. … And sure enough, with the 101st pick in the draft, the Dallas Cowboys select Oklahoma defensive lineman Charles Tapper. Jeff and I looked like a couple of 'bro-stradamuses.' But seriously, what NFL team would allow a couple of young radio goofballs back in the defensive coordinator’s office an hour before the draft?”
To answer Turner's question, clearly, only the Cowboys.
