ARLINGTON, Texas — Jerry Jones must have thought this football thing would be as easy as that oil thing.
Tell Tom Landry, “The new owner wants to see you, bring your playbook … you can keep the fedora,” hire your old Arkansas teammate Jimmy Johnson — you used to call him Jimmy Jump-up — to replace him, draft Troy Aikman, sign off on trading Herschel Walker for a bounty, draft Emmitt Smith and in three years you’re in the playoffs, hoisting the Lombardi Trophy in years four and five. And even after you reach the erroneous conclusion that anyone could have won a Super Bowl with Jimmy Jump-up’s players, even after Jimmy Jump-up jumped out after you began meddling, Barry Switzer became that anyone in year seven.
Once a wildcatter, always a wildcatter, right Jerruh?
The Cowboys have been a gusher for you. Your entrepreneurial and marketing genius that rocked the old-guard NFL owners when you allied with Nike and Pepsi and American Express has turned a $140 million investment into the world’s most valuable franchise, worth $4.2 billion.
Once America’s Team, always America’s Team.
Alas, money sometimes can buy happiness, but it doesn’t always buy championships.
It has been 21 years since your last one, Jerry.
Now you try again to end the drought, starting Sunday against Aaron Rodgers and the Packers, with a team left for dead once Tony Romo broke a bone in his back at the end of the preseason.
With a cool, calm and collected rookie quarterback (Dak Prescott) you drafted in the fourth round.
With a phenom rookie running back (Ezekiel Elliott) you drafted with the fourth overall pick.
With a bright, classy head coach (Jason Garrett) you stood behind when so many wanted him gone.
With a Hall of Fame tight end (Jason Witten) who deserves this chance.
With an offensive line unlike any other that imposes its will on opponents.
With a gamebreaking receiver (Dez Bryant) who wants payback for his non-catch against the Packers in the 2014 playoffs.
With your favorite son quarterback (Romo) watching from the sidelines.
Seems like you dodged a bullet, Jerry, when the Packers knocked off the Giants, who were convinced they would have beaten you for a third time. We’ll never know.What we do know is it’s getting late oily for you.
You know better than anyone that since Super Bowl XXX, your Cowboys have won three playoff games. Three!
And how many times over the years have you read and heard that you should do everybody a favor and hire a general manager and stay the hell out of the football operation?
It wasn’t for lack of trying. I mean, after Chan Gailey and Dave Campo didn’t work out, you did turn to Bill Parcells, no one should have had a quarrel with that (except for maybe Harry Carson, who always has hated your team). But even the great Parcells couldn’t get you back to the Promised Land.
You were certain Wade Phillips would get you there in 2007. You were 13-3 and the NFC’s No. 1 seed and playing the divisional round at your pre-Jerry World home when Cabo Romo was intercepted in the end zone by R.W. McQuarters. You cried after that one, your sixth straight postseason defeat.
“That’s where I went to the place I used to go to when they would call and tell me that I had just lost all of my money on a dry hole,” you told Dallasnews.com.
That was your best opportunity to return to the Super Bowl.
This is your next best opportunity.
The third time you’ll be trying to scratch a seven-year itch.
Oil’s well that ends well. That’s your story, Jerry, and of course you’re sticking with it.