After watching his team fall to 3-7 with a 34-10 loss to the Texans on Monday, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones told reporters that the franchise “didn’t anticipate the record,” but scoffed at the notion that coach Mike McCarthy has lost the team.
— As much as his time as owner and general manager of the Dallas Cowboys has been about winning three Super Bowls in the 1990s, Jerry Jones has had down times, too.
“We won one game my first year”, Jones said after the Cowboys’ 34-10 loss to the Houston Texans on Monday night that dropped Dallas to 3-7 on the season. “One. And so have we had rough seasons? Yes. Yeah, I’ve been around. Certainly we have. And we’ve had other tough years. And this one, we didn’t anticipate the record. And the way we’re playing right now, we wouldn’t have anticipated that. But, not, this isn’t — y’all have heard me tell these old stories until you’re sick — but not, you stay in this league long enough, you’ll have times like this.”
The 1989 Cowboys, however, were not considered one of the best teams in the NFC at the start of that season. Neither were the teams that finished 5-11 three straight years in 2000-02. In 2010, Jones made the only in-season coaching change of his tenure, replacing Wade Phillips with Jason Garrett after a 1-7 start. In 2015, the Cowboys finished 4-12.
At 3-7, the Cowboys are projected to have a top-10 pick in next year’s draft. With Mike McCarthy in the final year of his contract, there could be a new coaching staff in 2025, but Jones says he believes the players still believe in McCarthy.
“That losing the team stuff, that’s so overblown”, Jones said. “These guys are so, first of all, they’re natural competitors. Secondly, they’re so proud of the fact that they are professional and disappointed in maybe the way they executed the play, but that’s not anything that’s brother or first cousin to give up. . Everybody’s certainly disappointed, but that’s a big difference in not knowing that you got to put the foot in front of the other to go.
