ARLINGTON, Texas – Jerry Jones turned 82 on Sunday and as birthdays go, this one might have aged him more quickly than some others. Earlier this week, Jones announced that an IndyCar race would be staged in the streets surrounding AT&T Stadium, an indication that the business of Jones and the Dallas Cowboys remains quite good. The results, though, are another story.
For the last nearly three decades of his life, Jones has proclaimed for anyone who would listen that his singular goal was to win another Super Bowl, a prize that has eluded the Cowboys since the 1995 season. Jones grows older and if Sunday was any clue, he is going to have to blow out at least one more candle while he waits.
The Cowboys were blown out 47-9 by the Detroit Lions, and it's only fair to point out that the Cowboys were decimated by injuries to their defense. With no Micah Parsons, DeMarcus Lawrence or DaRon Bland, the Cowboys didn't have much of a chance against one of the NFL's most dynamic offenses. The Lions bludgeoned them with the run, play action, trick plays, whatever Ben Johnson could pull out of his bag of tricks. And the Cowboys offense had no answer. It led to the worst home loss in Jones' ownership tenure, which dates back to 1989.
Jones' reaction was just as rare. He seemed genuinely shaken by the thoroughness of the beating, but how large the gap is between his team and one that is well beyond where the Cowboys are now.
"This was very concerning and it was very humbling," Jones said. "This was a shocker."
Injuries to great players alter seasons, of course, and unfortunately the Lions themselves might soon know that themselves. Early in the third quarter, Aidan Hutchinson, their star defensive end who has a league-leading 7.5 sacks this season – including one Sunday – left the game on a cart with a gruesome injury to his lower left leg. No replay was necessary to tell you the severity and enormity of the injury to the Defensive Player of the Year candidate. The entire Lions team surrounded Hutchinson as he lay on the ground, several Cowboys – including Dak Prescott, who finished with two interceptions – sought to comfort him as he lay on the cart.
The Lions are clearly one of the NFC's elite teams, the kind of team the Cowboys wish they were and really should be, loaded with dynamic playmakers, smart coaching and an unquantifiable edge. Hutchinson is having surgery for a fractured tibia, and the Lions will have to make up for his disruptive ability. It will not be easy, and it may cost the Lions a legitimate Super Bowl opportunity.
The injury took much of the celebration out of the huge contingent of Lions fans that had been roaring for the earlier part of the game. But it didn't diminish how badly overmatched the Cowboys were against the Lions, how lost the Cowboys offense looked, how noncompetitive the game was. The challenge for the Lions will be to hang in after Hutchinson's injury better than the Cowboys did after their injuries on Sunday. The Cowboys are in the midst of a troubling trend. In their last four home games, dating back to last season's playoff loss to the Green Bay Packers, the Cowboys have been outscored in the first half, 110-35. After going 8-0 at home last season, they are 0-3 at home in this one.
Jones seemed especially disturbed at the very evident glee the Lions were taking in the Cowboys' struggles. They ran trick plays and declared eligible players who were embroiled in a controversial play that may have cost the Lions a victory over the Cowboys last season. They brutalized the Cowboys and then rubbed their noses in it.
"The thing that was impressive, I saw a very physical bunch that was having a lot of fun at our expense," Jones said. "We won't forget it – not against Detroit. We saw how we would like to be."
It is not the injuries that threaten to do the Cowboys in, it is their lack of fight. Their first two drives moved the ball, but the first ended in a field goal, the second in an interception, continuing more bad trends. The Cowboys were 22nd in the league in red zone offense. The interception was Prescott's third red zone turnover in two games. After that, the Cowboys were punchless. Just before halftime, already trailing 20-3, the Cowboys were so desperate to generate something, that they stayed on the field for fourth-and-2 from their own 38-yard line. Prescott's pass attempt was incomplete, the Lions took over and marched, inevitably, for another touchdown.
Jones talked about changes, but only in the most ephemeral sense. A change in demeanor, in execution, in approach. Maybe he said, the change would be to just try harder. He said flatly that he was not considering making a change to the head coach, and he added he did not blame Mike McCarthy solely for the three losses this season – players, he said, would say they had something to do with it and the owner would say he had something to do with it. In a 15-minute session with reporters, Jones was mostly subdued, but his temper flared just once, when he was asked what it would take for him to evaluate making a change to the head coach in season. McCarthy is coaching on the final year of his contract.
"I haven't even considered that," Jones said. "I'm not considering that. Just so you're clear. I'm not considering that. I wouldn't be in a hypothetical in that matter – do you think I'm an idiot? Do you? OK, well I'm not going to hypothetical with you about when I'd consider a coaching change in light of the timing we're sitting here with. I'm not. At all."
Jones ruminated on how fond he is of the Ford family that owns the Lions, and he praised the job it has done in building the Lions to where they are, while adding that the Cowboys had not done such a good job. Still, Jones is certain that the Cowboys have the personnel on the roster to close the yawning gap that exists between the Cowboys and Lions and, especially on offense, to play better than they did Sunday, although he conceded that the holes on his defense certainly contributed to the overall performance. But when Jones was asked if he was shocked by how far the Cowboys are from where the Lions are, he instead turned to what could still be done with the rest of the season.
"The real question is can we close that gap in the matter of this season?" he said. "The answer is yes. I surely do."
There is no blueprint, of course, and even Jones said he did not have the answers Sunday. The how part, he said, is something the entire NFL would like to know.
Jones spent time this week with Roger Penske, the legendary auto racing team owner and businessman who is teaming with Jones to create the IndyCar Arlington Grand Prix. Penske told Jones it was a shame you can't win every race, but, of course, you can only win a fraction of them.
"If you can't take the bad, you're in the wrong business," Jones said. "This isn't the world's smallest violin at all. I've had some of the most wonderful moments, fleeting as they may be relative to the negative moments. But those serve you well. I do some of the best stuff I do, I think, when I'm on my butt."
That theory is about to get a test, because he and the Cowboys sure are.
