It's been 16 cold winters since Troy Aikman led the Cowboys to victory in Super Bowl XXX, but you wouldn't know it from the amount of attention annually heaped upon a team that's won just two playoff games since.
Some believe the issues in Dallas begin and end with Jerry Jones, the team's owner who doubles as general manager and remains involved with every major and minor transaction associated with a roster filled with talent but unable to regain dominance in the NFC East.
Jones' position as GM is unusual in the NFL, where owners range from hyper-involved to distant, almost ghostlike.
"The facts are that I've spent 22 years doing this exactly the same way," Jones said Tuesday on KRLD-FM, via ESPN Dallas. "I've made a lot of changes from year to year as time goes along, but frankly, I know that when we do not have the kind of success, when we don't have expectations lived up to, the one that should get the most heat is the one that ultimately makes the decisions, period, with the Dallas Cowboys. And that's me."
Jones is willing to accept the heat and floated the theory that his role as GM actually has spared fans from a turnstile of other men who might have attempted the role in Dallas, only to be shown the door as frequently as the coach (no less than five since Barry Switzer won the team's last Super Bowl).
"The thing you've got to realize is that when you have an owner that is full time as the owner, then you create a situation where you have as much turnover at GM as you do at coaching level," Jones said. "And I think that just deters from the mix."
However the Dallas faithful feels about Jones (and that's probably a complex tangle of emotions by now) he remains as hungry for another CowboysSuper Bowl as anyone directly or indirectly attached to the team -- and, like it or not, he's here to stay.
