Irate Dallas Cowboys fans blasted team owner Jerry Jones after the Washington Commanders and Philadelphia Eagles punched their tickets to the NFC Conference Championship
Cowboys fans are calling for owner Jerry Jones’ head after Dallas’ fiercest rivals each punched their tickets to the Conference Championship.
On Saturday, the Washington Commanders pulled off a miraculous upset win in the Divisional Round, defeating the No. 1 seed Detroit Lions, 45-31, on the road. One day later, the Philadelphia Eagles staved off a late scare from the Los Angeles Rams to win 28-22 at snow-covered Lincoln Financial Field.
If having to watch the Commanders and Eagles duke it out for a Super Bowl berth wasn’t bad enough, the Cowboys now find themselves atop an undesirable leaderboard. Thanks to Washington’s victory, Dallas now boasts the longest active NFC Conference drought in the NFL, having gone 28 years without reaching the penultimate game of the postseason.
To make matters worse, the Cowboys stand as the only franchise in the 16-team NFC to not make the Conference Championship at least once in the last 15 years. For context, since 1995 – the last time Dallas went to the conference title game – the Eagles advanced to eight Conference Championships with three different head coaches.
Taking to social media, droves of irate Cowboys fans blamed Jones for his team’s playoff dry spell. “It is absolutely mind-boggling that Jerry is not capable of seeing what is different between the Eagles/Commanders and us. He literally cannot see it,” one X user wrote, with another adding: “Wow! You mean quality leadership, President (Don Smolensk) & GM (Roseman) makes a difference? If 2 N-East teams in Conference Championship don’t change Jerry nothing will. Poor fans.”
A third chimed in, “Alright, what do we need to do to get the league to remove the Jones family and save us like they did the Commanders???? We’re begging for a miracle now.”
Since purchasing the Cowboys for $140 million in 1989, Jones has served as owner, president and general manager. Despite calls for him to relinquish the latter position, the 82-year-old asserted that he has no plans of stepping down in the near future.
“No. Just, no,” Jones said earlier this month when asked if he give up his GM position. “I bought the team, I think the first thing to come out of my mouth … somebody asked, ‘Did you buy this for your kids?’ I said, ‘Hell no. I bought it for me.’ And I didn’t buy an investment. I bought an occupation, and I bought something I was going to do.
“I was 46 [years old]. I bought something I was going to do for the rest of my life. That’s what I’m doing. So, no. The facts are, since I have to decide where the money is spent, then you might as well cut all of the bull—- out. That’s who’s making the call anyways.”
Jones’ sentiment is a noticeably stark contrast to the approach that the Commanders’ ownership group takes when running their team. Speaking to reporters following Washington’s 23-20 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Magic Johnson – who purchased 4% of the Commanders in 2023 – said: “First of all, give coach [Dan] Quinn a lot of credit and then the players, because it’s all about them.
“Nothing that we could do as ownership. We just sit on the sideline and cheer, but they pulled it out.”