It was back in January when Jerry Jones first said that he and the Dallas Cowboys would be going “all in” in the 2024 season. He then iterated the same sentiment in April by using the same phrase… and then he did next to nothing for the next three months.
He made himself an easy target and the entirety of the football world gained a lot of weight by eating the low-hanging fruit that he willingly grew. Now it’s training camp and Jerry won’t stop lovingly providing for us. It’s just that this time he tried his best to define what he meant by the phrase “All in” and he did it in the most Jerry Jones way: with an over-salted word salad.
Decoding Jerry Jones’ definition of “all in” for the Cowboys
You really have to respect Jerry’s tenacity and unrelenting resolve to never admit he’s wrong. Sure, it’s frustrating as all get out, but it’s impressive to see him double and triple down on something entirely nonsensical.
Typically, you would think going “All in” is like what the LA Rams did in 2021 to win a Super Bowl. They traded for Sony Michel, Von Miller, and Matt Stafford. They won and subsequently had a historically bad season in 2022. That is a textbook example of going all in.
Jerry has had numerous chances to do something even slightly resembling what the Rams did, but instead, he signed Ezekiel Elliott and Eric Kendricks and lost a couple of starting offensive linemen.
So Jones did the smart thing. He moved the goalposts by saying what his definition of “All in” is, and it sounded like the ramblings of pre-senility.
You have to watch that 90 times to decipher the first sentence. Unfortunately, every time you watch it, your chance of having an aneurysm increases significantly. Let’s give it a shot anyway.
First, he says, “I’m all in. Sometimes being ‘all in’ means you narrow… you remove the months out here that are in the future…” That specifically, Jerry, has never been the meaning of “all in”, but you do you. If you want to distort the flow of time mentally, go for it.
He continues, “...And you narrow it down to where all we’re talking about is right now and the next playoff season, and that’s it for everybody...” Okay, so this is a generous read, but maybe what he’s talking about is that all he cares about is winning in the playoffs. Maybe he means that if the Cowboys don’t win in the playoffs this year, then he’ll burn the franchise to the ground.
Side note: Jerry is implying that he counts the playoffs as a separate season. To be fair to him, that makes sense since the postseason is where winners and losers are made, but that also means his record in the playoff season is 4-10 in this millennium. He’s a loser by his own making.
“...We’re all in. We’re all in. It’s all right there. Let’s, let’s, let’s. Okay. We all got some things out here in the future, another two or three years on contracts, all that stuff. Let’s all get in here. Zero, right now, in this…” Honestly, this means nothing. Is he telling his players not to focus on the future and their livelihood, but instead play for glory? Because if he’s doing that, that seems like a very dumb thing to say.
“...Dak’s got his year. Contract? Let’s focus, right here. We all got a lot on the line, for that playoff game. A lot of it…” It turns out that he was telling his players to play for glory. It seems like he’s dangling a carrot in front of his team and telling them that if they want to get paid they have to win, what seems like, a single playoff game. To which, CeEDee Lamb probably would say, ‘I’ve been All-Pro twice. Pay me. The future is now old man.’
“...So you’ve got to understand a weird way of looking at it.” This is a spectacular ending *chef’s kiss*. Put the onus on everyone else. Jerry knows what he’s talking about, it’s our fault for not understanding what he meant back in January. We’re all too stupid to get the high level of thinking from Jerry Jones. He’s a modern-day Aristotle.