In 2024, perhaps more than any other season in recent memory, Jones has gone out of his way to make his post-game press conferences rather newsworthy by saying something or many things that simply fly in the face of reason and good-faith explanations.
For many NFL teams, a player going out of his way to confront a reporter to tell him to “talk about deez nuts,” as cornerback Trevon Diggs did after a recent game, would almost certainly be the oddest, most attention-grabbing off-field development of the entire season. Here? It made humorous headlines for a couple of days and went away. For the Cowboys this season, Diggs’ “deez nuts” comment isn’t really that near the top of the list of wildest things someone from the team has said to the media so far.
No, those all belong to the team’s owner — a man who seemingly refuses to admit he’s ever wrong and simply cannot own up to making a mistake. We are not medical or psychiatric professionals, and we do not know Jones personally, mind you, but it’s worth noting that if you look at a list of the 12 common traits of narcissists, there might be a few that ring true for Cowboys fans.
Self-importance, craving power, entitled behavior, arrogance, being preoccupied with success or money, requiring lots of attention and, our favorite, expecting praise for minimal work, even none at all — these make up half the list of traits of a narcissist. It’s not a huge stretch to suggest these traits can be detected rather easily in the wildest comments Jones has made so far in the 2024 season, one in which the team has underperformed in just about every way imaginable. .
A 2020 research study from Oregon State University found “that narcissists are very unlikely to learn from their mistakes, due in large part to their belief that they don’t make any to begin with.”
We wouldn't be the first to suggest Jones might (we did say might) be a narcissist. A 2021 survey conducted by The Athletic gathered thoughts from NFL agents about Jones.
"Jerry needs to get his ass out of the way. He's a narcissist," one agent said. "He's also a great businessman. Stay in your lane. He plays GM like a fan."
See and diagnose for yourself. Here are the craziest things Jerry Jones has said to this point in the season:
5. An Inordinate Amount of Cussing
Just before the season began longtime Cowboys beat writer Calvin Watkins published an interview with Jones for the new ALLDLLS sports site. Jones was brash and defiant, and the profanity-filled interview was clearly a sign of things to come for the 2024 season. Understandably, it was a quote in which Jones was defending himself that got the most scrutiny.“I’ve done it all. So I have an ordinate amount of confidence that fuck, if anybody can figure out how to get this shit done, I can figure out how to get it done,” Jones said. “I’ve been there every which way from Sunday, and have I busted my ass a bunch, a bunch. And there’s nobody living that’s out cutting and shooting that can’t give you a bunch of times they busted their ass. So hell no, there’s nobody that could fucking come in here and do all the contracts … and be a GM any better than I can.
“Plus, I’m where the buck stops. When it fucks up, I got to cover it. And so there you can’t give anybody enough. Can’t give. There’s nobody can do it.”
4.Running from the Truth
Remember a few weeks ago when Jones straight-up lied to everyone? It followed the loss to the Baltimore Ravens, when running back Derrick Henry, a free-agent who could’ve been added to the Cowboys roster in the offseason, annihilated the Cowboys' defense. Jones, in his special way, dismissed the idea he made a mistake by not pursuing Henry. “We couldn’t afford Derrick Henry,” Jones told inquiring reporters, who asked him why that was. “I don’t know. Why can’t you buy a mansion when you live in a different kind of house?”
The team could afford Henry, and that much is not up for debate. Even a casual fan taking a cursory look at the numbers knows it. For a person unafraid of admitting to the occasional mistake, it would have been easy to take that moment, right after the player you didn’t get decimated your team, to tip their hat and admit that one got away from them. But not Jones, and especially not this year.
3. Zeke the Prince
At this point, it’s not unreasonable to think that past-his-prime running back Ezekiel Elliott has some damning photographs of Jones in some compromising scenarios. There’s hardly any other logical reason why the problematic runner who regularly disappoints on the field continues to be on the team. That’s especially the case after Elliott was left in Dallas when his team flew to Atlanta to play the Falcons on Nov. 3. It was later reported that the discipline came as the result of Elliott being late for meetings or missing them altogether. But according to Fox 4, Jones wouldn’t hear of any Zeke slander. "Well, Zeke couldn’t make the trip," Jones explained. "He was being punished and so he just couldn’t make the trip. Wasn’t necessarily a better option. He’s a much better option because he’s back in Dallas and these two are here. We need ‘em. I’m trying to put a little humor on this thing, but I know Zeke really is the first one to recognize the discipline involved and meetings and those kind of things. Zeke is the antihesis of trouble. He’s absolutely led the way his entire career on leading the team off the field as well as on the field."
Oh, but Jones wasn't done love-bombing the player he cut from the team in 2023, only to bring him back when he was older and less effective.
“You’ve got to love somebody that plays the game as physical as he plays you. You’ve got to love somebody that practices as hard as he practices. He’s inspirational and always has been. I’ve still got pictures of Zeke running up and down in the dressing room before the game with uh, didn’t have his pads on, let’s put it like that. But motivating, motivating, and getting his horse going.”
2. That Escalated Quickly
Think back to a few weeks ago when Jones was interviewed on the team’s flagship radio station 105.3 The Fan. After taking a question about his offseason personnel decisions, Jones went on a defensive rant, saying:“That's not your job. I'll get somebody else to ask these questions. I'm not kidding. You're not going to figure it out what the team is doing right or wrong. If you are, or any five or 10 like you, you need to come to this (NFL) meeting I'm going to today with 32 teams here, you're geniuses. You really think you're gonna sit here with a microphone and tell me all of the things that I've done wrong without going over the rights?“
Jerry Jones on if AT&T Stadium should consider putting curtains in the stadium:
— Pat Doney (@PatDoneyNBC5) November 11, 2024
“Well let’s tear the damn stadium down and build another one. Are you kidding me?… Everybody has the same thing. Every team that comes in here has the same issues.”#DallasCowboys #cowboys #NFL pic.twitter.com/9sscKv1W90
1. The White Hot Intensity of a Thousand Suns
Last Sunday, during yet another humiliating loss by the Cowboys on home turf, receiver CeeDee Lamb dropped an easy touchdown pass in the end zone. On television, it was clear that the sunlight shining in from the AT&T Stadium’s west window was directly in his face. After the game, asked if the sun had blocked his vision as he was trying to catch the ball, Lamb quickly replied,“I couldn’t see the ball. Couldn’t see the ball, at all. The sun,” according to the Associated Press. When asked if he would be in favor of curtains for afternoon games, Lamb replied “Yes. One thousand percent.”In the offseason, Jones signed Lamb to a record-breaking contract. But you know what $136 million does not buy anyone, even arguably the best wide receiver in the NFL? The superpower of seeing through a blast of blinding sunlight.
Around the time that Lamb was blaming the sun for his drop, reporters were speaking to Jones. And since the topic of extreme sunlight wreaking havoc on the field at AT&T Stadium is an old one at this point, it seemed as though Jones was ready for questions about it. When reporters didn’t bring it up, he did the honors, according to CBS 11:
“By the way, we know where the sun is going to be when we flip the coin, so we do know where the damn sun is going to be in our own stadium," Jones said. "Let's just tear the damn stadium down and build another one. Are you kidding me?"
But he wasn’t done. This would all be inexplicable if it were any other owner in the NFL or even in any other of pro league. But in Jerry World, the owner speaking up, right or wrong, or even failing to make a coherent point, is rather easily explained. Take this parting shot regarding the stadium sunlight for example:
"Every team that comes in here has the same issues," Jones said. "They know where the sun is going to be. Every team has the same thing. I'm not saying (it's on McCarthy). I'm saying the world knows where the sun is. We get to know that almost a year in advance. So someone asked me about the sun. What about the sun? Where's the moon? We're fine. But everybody plays in the sun out here."
