Stephen Jones: “We want our players to feel good about their contracts. But at the same time, we don’t want to do things that are out of line because we can’t afford to be that way. When we save money, whether it’s with Dak, whether it’s with Zeke, whether it’s with Amari, it’s not saving Jerry and I a dollar. It’s just money that’s going to another player.”
Colin Cowherd: “There’s something about Stephen Jones and Jerry Jones with the Southern charm and the Texas twang that makes it feel like they love you, wanna put their arms around you, and want you to be Cowboys… Boy, are they good at it and really smart at it. This Zeke thing could have imploded the locker room, but they just shifted it over from Zeke vs. management to Zeke taking money from other Cowboys players. Jerry and Stephen are really smart. They told all those Cowboys players, ‘you’re all young and great and wanna be in business with you forever, and that guy in Cabo having fun in the surf is just taking YOUR money’… This is really smart."
Listen to Colin Cowherd explain why Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and his son Stephen Jones have publicly handled the Ezekiel Elliott contract holdout masterfully, as Jerry’s son Stephen, the team’s executive Vice President and Director of Player Personnel, recently raised some eyebrows around the league with an infectiously telling soundbite.
Stephen Jones essentially backhanded Elliott’s desire for a new contract with the notion that it means taking away from other Cowboys players in the process. Cowherd believes Jones couldn’t have played a better hand to the media, considering Jones successfully flipped the narrative to Zeke vs management, to Zeke vs. the Cowboys players, as Jones dropped the bitter truth of Zeke’s payday cutting into the salaries of other players.
Check out the audio below as Colin lauds the power move, and says you can’t help but accept anything the Joneses say with their Texas twang and Southern charm, that seems to just make everything become softer, less crude, and less antagonistic.