Jerry Jones says Cowboys could win without salary cap, but not good for NFL
By Mike Dyce
The Dallas Cowboys are trying to break their streak of .500 seasons and lock up a divisional title and a playoff spot. They need a win against the Chicago Bears on Monday Night Football to stay there.
The salary cap in the NFL has helped created a parity that has helped the NFL grow into the most popular sport in the league.There have been 10 different Super Bowl champions in the past 15 years. In that time span, every team in the NFC West has played in the Super Bowl (Arizona Cardinals, St. Louis Rams, San Francisco 49ers, Seattle Seahawks).
Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones says if there were no salary cap the Cowboys would win by outspending opponents with no restrictions. He admitted that’d be bad for the NFL as a whole.
“When we did our labor agreement three years ago, I visited with all the other owners and frankly on my part it was an effort to do what I could do to keep everybody together, keep all the owners together,” Jones said Friday on 105.3 The Fan [KRLD-FM], via Jon Machota of the Dallas Morning News. “But during my conversations, whether in front of whole group or individually, I would say, ‘Look, the Cowboys can take this hand any way you want to deal it. If you want to just completely not have a system, completely not even something as absurd and ludicrous as not having a draft, you want to play that game that way, then let’s just line up out here and go get the players and do what we have to do to go get them, the Cowboys can play that game.’
“I can tell you there are certain things that are positive about that for the Cowboys, but it’s not in the best interest and it isn’t in the best interest of our sport. All you’ve got to do is look at where we are today and you look at the competition that’s out here. All you do is look at the standings in the NFL. I think there are three teams that have nine wins or more and everybody else is in there within a game up or down of each other to speak of. You’ve got two or three on the bottom as well. This thing is close. It’s highly competitive.
“Every team has got great players on the other side of the ball and the incentive is there. It’s just a real challenge. It creates a lot of interest. It creates a lot of interest in my town against your town. New York here we come two times a year. Same thing with Washington. Plus all over the league. I don’t know how you can argue with the success that the system has. But we were ready to go and I was ready to go. I really got into this thing for one reason and that was to win these ball games. It’s been amazing to me that it’s been the challenge that it’s been to win the ball games.”
Jones tried doing that in an uncapped year, as did the Washington Redskins. Both teams were penalized for loading their contracts.