Jerry Jones' excuse for Cowboys not pursuing Derrick Henry isn't the defense he thinks it is

At this point, maybe it would be best if Jerry Jones just stopped doing radio hits entirely. Just last week, Jones made national headlines for losing his cool (and threatening two people's jobs) at the gentlest hint of criticism over the Dallas Cowboys' lackluster offseason. But maybe that was simply blowing off steam; coming after the livelihood of your employees is never okay, but maybe Jones said some things he regretted in the heat of his team's embarrassing home loss to the Detroit Lions. Surely, with a bye week to cool off, he'd have a chance to come back and learn from his mistakes, right?

Or, alternatively, he could just keep digging that hole for himself. Jones was back on the air for his regular Tuesday spot, and once again he was faced with the question of what the Cowboys did or didn't do in free agency. He didn't erupt at his interviewers this time, but he managed to raise eyebrows all the same in his attempt to justify Dallas' lack of interest in one big-time player in particular.

Jerry Jones says Derrick Henry 'didn't fit' because of Cowboys salary cap

It was clear from the start of the offseason that Dallas needed to upgrade its running back situation. With Tony Pollard hitting free agency, the cupboard was just about bare, with only the seldom-used Rico Dowdle as an internal option. The good news was that, between Derrick Henry, Josh Jacobs, Saquon Barkley and more, there were plenty of talented players available on the open market, all of whom would seemingly have interest in a starting spot for a ready-made contender.

And yet, despite all of that, Jones and the Cowboys decided to more or less sit on their hands, bringing back a thoroughly washed Ezekiel Elliott and calling it a day. It's a decision that looked strange at the time, and has only gotten more so as many of those names excel with their new teams — especially Henry, who added to his league lead in rushing yards with 169 more in the Baltimore Ravens' 41-31 win over the Tampa Bay Bucs on Monday night.

The morning after Henry's latest huge performance, Jones was once again asked about why he was doing that in Baltimore rather than in Dallas. Instead of simply owning up to a clear mistake, Jones doubled down in the worst and weirdest way possible:

"I don't know if he'd be having a career year in our situation," Jones said, before adding that the running back wouldn't have been able to fit anyway because of the Cowboys' cap concerns.

Let's take Jones at face value here. Dallas was facing a bit of a cap crunch this offseason, and it's true that the team's offensive line struggles are as much to blame as anything for the inability to run the ball. But even allowing for all that ... how is that a defense of Jones and the team's braintrust, exactly? Jones is the one responsible for managing the salary cap, and he's the one responsible for putting a functional offensive infrastructure in place. The fact that he mismanaged both so badly that the team didn't think it wise to fill an obvious need with an obviously talented player should make Cowboys fans even angrier about the whole thing: This wasn't a case of a single misfire regarding talent evaluation; this was a total system failure, an organization so broken that it didn't even trust itself to make a move it knew was correct.

And that's even taking Jones at his word! Not to mention the fact that Henry would almost certainly help the Cowboys offense compared to what Dowdle and Elliott have produced, and the fact that this team has always been able to find cap room for players it thought could help it finally get over the hump and into the Super Bowl. Jones is floundering right now, and everything he says just makes things worse.