Inside the Jerry Jones Media Bubble: Is He Winning or Losing the Narrative in Dallas?

0:00Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. I'm your host Sheil Kapadia here with the Ringers, Bryan Curtis. You know him from the Press Box, one of my personal go-to podcasts on the Ringer Podcast Network. Bryan was at Packers Cowboys on Sunday night. And so we thought let's talk to him about the Jerry Jones media bubble, what it's like to cover Jerry Jones, what we learned about Jerry Jones from this whole Micah Parsons situation. Brian, you're still in Fort Worth. What has been like the dominant sports talk radio conversation since since that tie on Sunday night? It's the greatest tie of all of our lifetimes.

0:38I mean, that's that's my headline. You know, listen to sports radio here in Dallas. It's it's optimism, honestly, because I don't know how many people thought the Cowboys are going to win that game. A and B, if you look at this Cowboys season, I think the thing that scared you was that games like this would be 40 to seven, not 40, 40. And so the, the idea that the Cowboys have a live offense with CD lamb hurt with two offensive linemen hurt, not bad. Not bad. Yeah. They put up, they have a top five offense by every, so they're going to be entertaining. We know that. And we'll see how many games they win in the NFC.

1:14We're going to take a break. We come back and we talk about the Jerry Jones media bubble. I've got so many questions for Brian Curtis about his Sunday night experience. This is the Ringer NFL show presented by FanDuel and the NFL is officially back. So if you're going to be in it, be in it with FanDuel. They've got the goods, futures, live betting, SGPs, your way bets, all of it. The app's clean, it's fast. And yeah, when you win, you get paid instantly, which is nice because Sunday patience doesn't exist. So get your bets in, build something bold and make every game feel bigger. Download the FanDuel app or head to fanduel.com slash ringer NFL to get started.

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3:39All right, we're back here on the Ringer NFL show. So Brian, let's start here. Take me through like just the Jerry Jones press scrum because I've never done this. Maybe this should be on my bucket list. But for those who don't know, NFL owners generally address the media like one, two, maybe three times a year if you're lucky. But Jerry Jones is different and he addresses the media after every single game. So take me through the process. You're in the press box watching the game end in a tie. And then what happens as you make your way to Jerry Jones? And what is that scrum actually like? Shield, this is one of the seven wonders of the sports writing world.

4:16Truly, everybody's in the press box. You race for the elevator, in this case, a freight elevator last night. So just imagine I'll see sports writers crowded into a freight elevator, go down to the bottom level of AT &T Stadium, and you walk to the Cowboys locker room. Now, as you say, in every other team in America, you are waiting to get into the locker room to talk to the actual players. but with the Cowboys, Jerry Jones walks out of the locker room and addresses the media before any of his players and coaches talk. That's the Jerry thing. I go first. You might have played coach in the game, but I'm actually first.

4:52And he had a funny comment last night with, I'm not going to be here very long. And we're all like, yeah, right. And sure enough, he did 20 minutes. And it was at least the third time he talked last week. You know, I mean, this is, you're talking about three times a year. No, Jerry talked three times this week. and it's just this huge scrum of people. I mean, just imagine bright lights, bright camera lights. And by the way, this is the Dallas Cowboys recording this as much as it is like TV cameras locally. The Dallas Cowboys record these Jerry sessions and post them on YouTube. That's the thing that happens.

5:24I was behind Jerry. You can actually see pictures of me in a few of the clips and I'm, you know, holding my phone over, you know, trying to get over his shoulders so I can hear him because Jerry is not a super loud guy. And I can kind of see, you know, like his sweaty brow and his big blue suit. And, you know, and I'm looking at his lip. I was like, is that a little scab up there? I mean, we were just as close as you could possibly be to a billionaire. And then he's just talking about everything. He's talking about Micah Parson. He's talking about the feud. He's talking about whether he thinks ties should be a thing in the NFL going forward.

5:56I mean, you can ask him anything. Now, what are the vibes from the reporters who are there every week during these? Because, listen, why I like the press box so much is because Brian loves the media, but Brian likes to make fun of the media just like I do. You know, this is, I think this is why we like each other, but are they rolling their eyes? Are they like, ah, you know, we're doing this again. Are they like appreciative of the content? Are they like, this is the, you know, 40th time I've done this in the last five years or whatever. What's just sort of the mood of the other reporters? Cause usually it's like I said, it's a big thing if you're covering a team and the owner talks, it's like, oh, I've been saving these questions for all year.

6:34But with Jerry, it's just totally different. it's interesting shield they're actually enjoying it and rolling their eyes at the same time and they're rolling them right in front of jerry they're not really trying to hide it you know famously he came to his uh press conference after trading micah parsons and called him michael several times during that press conference he called him marco last night and immediately everybody starts giggling and jerry realizes that you know i you know you just got to give me a few on these you got to forgive me sometimes i mess up the names my michael sound like Micah.

7:04And, you know, everybody's just laughing. Like, it's almost like you're talking to somebody in a bar rather than talking to a billionaire in a formal, you know, interview setting, talking to one of those powerful people in the NFL by any measure. So, you know, what do reporters think? They love it. They get the guy. You'd always rather have material than not. Yeah. You know, I've heard you talk about this on the press box, just like how you, you know, I think there was a Joe Biden comparison, but just like Jerry Jones is 82 years old. What is sort of the balance, like the media's responsibility, if there is any of that sort of like, hey, let's give him a little bit of grace.

7:43You know, he is 82 years old. So what he got the person's name wrong versus like, let's we're here to report what he's actually saying. And he is in charge of this football team. Like, how do you think writers who cover him every day or even you, how do you sort of balance balance that? That's what's tricky because he defeats a lot of that skepticism by just giving them so much material. How could you possibly be mad? How could you really ask, you know, truly probing questions? Not why did you trade Micah Parsons, but how much do you know about schematic football? You, the general manager of the Dallas Cowboys.

8:17And to me, what we don't know a lot about when it comes to Jerry is his decision-making process. He can get up there and talk about Micah Parsons and why he didn't, why he did this and why he did that. But what's Jerry like behind the scenes when he says he wanted to stop the run? How does he talk about stopping the run in the 2025 NFL? What does he know about Kenny Clark, the Packers defensive tackle he traded for? Right. That level of depth. If we were talking about a president, United States, we'd want to know the questions they were asking in meetings. And to me, that's the great unanswered question about Jerry Jones.

8:53You know, like Cowboys are kind of like the Bengals or the Cardinals, and they're very much a family organization. They just happen to be the Cowboys. So they're worth 10 billion more than those teams. But the decision-making is really the same. And I feel like we just don't know much about it. Yeah, it's a great question. And you look at it, it's not like they have been, no, they haven't won the Super Bowl, but I was just looking earlier today. The last 10 years, they've got the seventh most wins in the NFL. So it's, you know, they're drafting guys like Dak Prescott and Micah, like some, you know, I know Will McClay gets a lot of credit and there are people behind the scenes, but you're right.

9:26How is that information conveyed to him? Does he have his own opinions? Is it just, I trust these people? All those things are kind of an unknown here. I wanted to ask you about how Jones' commitment to taking care of the media has helped or hurt him. Because I always look at some of this stuff with the media, and you know it as well as I do. I look at some players, and I'm like, if I were a player's agent, when they were going to the NFL, I would say, learn the reporter's names, shake their hands, smile. If they tell you something about themselves, like bring it back up. And guess what? When you have that big fumble in the fourth quarter or that big missed tackle, they are going to show you more grace than they would if you were just a jerk.

10:08And I feel like Jerry Jones is kind of that to the nth degree. I mean, I remember, Brian, one time I was covering an Eagles-Cowboys game in Dallas and there was some weather event. I can't remember. It was a tornado storm, whatever. And I'm packing up my stuff at 1 a.m. in the press box and I'm going to leave. And the woman there says like, is asking me, you know, where am I going? And I'm like, yeah, I'm just going to get an Uber back to the hotel. And she's like, we have someone who can drive you. And I'm like, really? I've been in like a lot of NFL press boxes. And she's like, yeah, hold on.

10:37Just wait here. Guy comes over, drives me and my friend. We go in his pickup truck. He works, you know, for the Dallas Cowboys and he drives us back to our hotel. There's this like level of hospitality. And that story always resonates in my mind. And I just wondered, Jerry has been accessible. He's been open. He believes in the power of the media, the power of access. How has this kind of helped or hurt him over the years and specifically maybe in recent years? Well, it's interesting. My favorite Jerry story is 2018. I was working for the ringer and I wanted to interview him and he agreed to do an interview.

11:09And so I flew down to Dallas. I am ushered into his office by the Cowboys PR guy who goes, you two know each other, right? And leaves. And I am alone with Jerry Jones in his office. Nobody's recording the conversation, but me. Nobody's listening to the questions. Nobody's stepping in to be like, okay, that's enough of that. Just me and him. And this is the honest to God truth, Sheil. Over an hour later, I ran out of questions and Jerry Jones walked me to the elevator. That's the thing that you talk about a hospitality. This is the billionaire owner of the Cowboys who literally doing it himself.

11:45So what does that bought him? Tons of goodwill, including with people like me, because I'm happy to get mad at Jerry Jones, but I do remember experiences like that. I bet other sports writers are the same way. I think it's caused a ton of headaches around the organization because players and coaches are constantly answering for things that Jerry Jones said. Like it's very, very common after Cowboys game, Jerry talks first and then guess what? They walk in and they ask Brian Schottenheimer, hey, Jerry Jones just said this. What is your response? Which is reporters being reporters. So, you know, you know how much football coaches, a quarterback like Dak Prescott loves to just have everything locked down.

12:20Just imagine if you have this guy, this wildly quotable guy who loves attention, who wants to make headlines talking all the time. And you've got to respond to that. That's a challenge that doesn't exist in any other franchise. Yeah, no doubt about it. All right, let's take a break. Come back. I want to talk to you about sort of the local perception and the national perception of Jerry Jones. And then just kind of get into where is he a villain? Where is he at this point with both Cowboys fans and also nationally? This episode is brought to you by NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV. NFL Sundays are back and you won't want to miss the action.

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13:38This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, campaigns slow down, insights get buried, and opportunities get missed. That's why Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. To learn more, check out Accenture.com slash Spotify. All right, we're back on the Ringer NFL show. So yeah, I want to talk about like the Dallas bubble and the national media because you wrote a great column on the Ringer today and there was something that really stood out.

14:23You know, you talked about Bobby Belt who does radio for 105.3, the fan in Dallas. And he said, I don't think anybody was pro Jerry from this trade, but they definitely just thought there were two bad guys. And that surprised me as someone who's been mostly ripping the Cowboys, for this and saying, I can't imagine what it would be like to be a Cowboys fan if they just had Micah Parsons with that offense. Maybe they're an interesting team, but that was a different angle from it. What did you make of that when he told you that? And do you agree? It really surprised me too, because from afar, there's one villain in the Micah trade and that's Jerry.

14:59But I'd say the psychology of the Dallas sports fan is very interesting. It's not like they're not mad at Jerry. They're just always mad at Jerry. And I think there's a little fatigue in being mad at Jerry. I mean, you know, at some point I see sports writers here do the same thing every year. And especially after this Micah trade, they get mad. They just, you know, go after him on the radio day after day. And then they say, well, we now have to cover the team. Like you can't do a hundred days in a row of being mad at Jerry. That just, you run out of material. Micah, as you know there were just enough things in the air and those what i call now they tell us stories that came out after the trade where it's like oh you know he was laying on a training table and you know one day he didn't wear his jersey to practice or he tied it around his neck there's just enough of that and i think also remember this too with the dallas sports fan micah parsons requested a trade now people like you and i we're very much in the player empowerment era we just understand that as i think a negotiating tactic we understand players have a lot of agency in their lives now, if you're a hardcore Dallas Cowboys fan, you might not feel that way.

16:05And that might've been a bigger thing to you than it might've been to us nationally. Yeah, no, that's, um, you're right. Whenever there's a player who it's like, this player doesn't want to be here. There's usually at least a segment of the fan base that's like, he doesn't, you know, he doesn't want to be here. Get rid of him. We'll find somebody who does want to be here. So that's, uh, that's always something to keep an eye on. Um, I wanted to give you, so here's my take on Jerry Jones as just, I'm not there. I haven't covered him closely. My take has been he likes attention. He likes the Cowboys being in the headlines.

16:35He likes himself being in the headlines. He cares about branding and media coverage and attention and publicity. And then from a football perspective, he wants to do things his way. Like you said, family business, old fashioned. And he wants to win, but it's not like I will change everything in the pursuit of trying to win a Super Bowl. It's like, I want to win, but I want to do it my way. In terms of that description, that's how I view Jerry Jones. If someone was just like, hey, you cover the NFL. What do you think of him? That's what I'd say. What am I right about? What am I wrong about there?

17:08I think you're pretty much 100 % right. He's not going to change anything that gives him any less agency in the process of putting together the Dallas Cowboys. So what happens when you have somebody who's not a football expert running the team as a GM? Well, they do stuff. And then if it works, they do it again. You know, my favorite one of these is Tyler Smith. That was such a wild number one draft pick a couple of years ago. People like me were like, really? The guy who led college football in penalties? You took him in the first round? What? He turns into an all-pro stud guard. So then a couple of years later, at the end of the first round again, they're like, oh, we'll just take a left tackle at the end of the first round.

17:41We'll just plug him in at left tackle. The odds of that working again are pretty wild. But to me, it's just very basic with them. It works. They tried it again. You know, there's not this larger, you know, higher plane of franchise building like you see in a place like Philly. It just doesn't exist in Dallas. I don't I don't believe they have a plan. That's the thing. And, you know, it's like if you if you put me in charge of an NFL team, I bet I get hit on some number one picks just by reading people like you. Like, I'd be smart enough to do that. But would I understand football at a level I could actually execute a strategy year after year?

18:13No. And they can't. That's that that's that to me is the major drawback with him. I think that's right. Yeah, they've done such a mostly, maybe not every year, but they've got a lot of players there that they have drafted where it's like, wow, that's a pretty good pick for where you got this guy. But then it's after that, like you said, what is the plan to build around Jack Prescott and CeeDee Lamb and Micah Parsons? And they've won a lot of games, but they haven't been able to get over the hump. So you said there's Jones fatigue in Dallas. Is he a villain? Is it like, is it fatigue? Is it like, all right, you know, he's kind of like this annoying, you know, uncle or neighbor or something.

18:53And like, all right, I don't agree with how he does business, but you know what? It's not that like, is he a villain locally? I don't, is he a villain nationally? I don't even know. It feels like that's almost too far to how people view him. I think he's simultaneously a villain here in Dallas and also just a wildly popular celebrity figure at the same time. there's a local radio station here they basically the equivalent of wip but for dallas and they've actually banned the phrase jerry the owner should fire jerry the gm because people have been saying it since i lived here in the 90s like that's just and again i just he is a villain he absolutely is people are so pissed off about the micah thing but you just you just run out of steam eventually like he did the he does the thing you don't like well guess what he's still running the team he's not changing it.

19:44He's not giving up power. And so what do you do? You know, if you're a Cowboys fan, that puts you in a weird corner because if you root against them, he's not going to fire himself. You know, if they get one in 16 this year, or sorry, excuse me, one 15 and one, he's not going to fire Jerry, the GM, right? He's not going to do it. So there's nothing to root for. It's not like, you know, Mike McCarthy, like, okay, if they lose enough games, I'll get rid of him. You just have to sort of hope that somehow half accidentally he does the right thing. And that's a really weird place for a sports fan to be in.

20:16That's the hardest thing in professional sports is when you don't trust ownership because everything else, the coach, the GM, the star, it's like there, it doesn't feel like there's a light at the end of the tunnel, but it's like, all right, eventually this era is going to be over and I'm going to have the next era and I'll be able to root for them. And he's not even like, I'm not comparing him to Daniel Snyder, but that's what I always thought about Washington. It was like, there's nothing to root for here unless there's something so bad, which there ended up being that he has to sell the team, you're out of luck until that happens.

20:45Like, you know, football franchises, it's a good business to be in. You know, owners don't just give those teams away once you get one. And so there's nothing really to root for when you're in that situation. And just imagine if the owner is also the president, general manager, as it is here. Like that, again, there's no comp for us there in the NFL. All right. Last thing I wanted to ask you about. I thought that the Parson situation was different because with guys like Dak and CeeDee Lamb. There was a lot of drama and I just, and he didn't, but eventually you're like, he's not going to let them leave.

21:16He didn't let them leave. They're still part of the organization. But Parsons ended up being different where I was on here, you know, and we launched the pod going, everybody settled down. And Michael Parsons is going to sign, you know, a day before the opener and he's going to be a part of the Dallas Cowboys. So when we kind of zoom out to how we cover Jerry Jones and how we cover the Cowboys and they're a content machine. I actually think now we have to take, there's going to be kind of more content because now you kind of have to just say, everything's in play. If they traded the guy who was maybe one of the five most valuable non-quarterbacks in the NFL, then we can do a segment on, Hey, what if they do this?

21:53What if they do this? So how do you think the Parsons situation, if at all changed how we cover Jones or the content machine or the media machine, or however you want to phrase it? It's hard to process because, as you point out, Jerry loves to pay his stars. He loves to keep stars around. It's a very unusual thing for him to do to get rid of a player like this. But I go back to his press conference after he traded Michael, quote unquote, Parsons. He said something really interesting. He said, you know, those draft picks I got from Green Bay, I might turn around and actually trade those for other players to help the Cowboys immediately.

22:25I might not even make it to 26 and 27 in the draft. And that was an ingenious Jerry move because if you want attention, well, all of a sudden people go, oh, you know, he could trade that next week. Right. He could he could go get some veteran player. And he actually got asked about that very fact on the radio this week. So that's again, you know, how how has it changed the way we cover him? Well, we just have to actually pay more attention to him, which is exactly what he wants. I just had a vision of myself like three weeks from now. All right. Trade deadlines coming up. Listen, Jerry's got those two picks.

22:58Cowboys are still in the mix. Could they trade for an edge rusher here? Did you, now you were at the game. Did you happen to catch the Jason Garrett, Jerry Jones pregame interview, Brian? Has this made the group chats or anything? I just saw a little bit of it. Tell me what the dynamic was like. Yeah, so it's about four or five minutes and it's Jason Garrett, Maria Taylor, and Jerry Jones on. This is right before the game. Like Micah Parsons is literally running onto the field as they're doing this interview. And you know, they're reliving the good old days. Jason's like, we used to, you know, we prioritize quarterback, but we also prioritize edge rusher.

23:31How do you let this guy, you know, get out of the building? I think he was trying to, I'm asking the tough questions here. And Jerry kind of did the thing you just mentioned. So it feels like this is a new part of his messaging where he's like, you might want to tricycle under the Christmas tree one year. You might not get it, but the next year you get a motorcycle or something. I'm like, what's going on here? But he started to get a motor, like at the end, he's like, Jason you were with me when we opened this building and I thought we were going to win a Super Bowl I miss you he's like I miss you I'm just like this is crazy the game's about to start he's already done to your point how many interviews last week like I don't think he said no to anybody about talking about this Michael Parsons trade and here he is minutes before the game he's still talking about it he's still explaining it and guess what I tuned in so Jerry Jones wins again he does I I mean, he is truly a PT Barnum of our time.

24:22And to think like Jason Garrett, doesn't it? I'm sorry, we'll get warm and fuzzy. He's thinking about the Jason Garrett era of Cowboys football. But if you're Jason Garrett, why are you on TV? You were part of the Cowboys. Like, you know, Jason Garrett is the Jaguars coach. He ain't got that job. Yeah. NBC. You had the great tweet earlier this season. What did Jason Garrett say? It was about like someone being entertaining or something. Yeah. He said, the Cowboys coach, you got to be purposely boring. I was like, oh, so you were, that was an act you were putting on. I had the same thought. And then when I saw you say it, I'm like, thank you.