It was only a matter of time before Jerry Jones fucked it all up. I covered the Cowboys for NBC's Dallas affiliate for a few years, and covering the Cowboys is an easy job because Jerry Jones never stops talking to the media, and is a completely fucking insane person. He is a man who abhors a vacuum. He tolerates neither quiet failure nor quiet success. If a week passes without the Double J having done or said something completely stupid, he will cry out, "JEEZUM CROW I HAVEN'T DONE ANYTHING STUPID TODAY!" and go running for the nearest camera. He's fired Jimmy Johnson, hired Barry Switzer, installed cage dancers in his stadium, stretched out his face to look like a villain in a Terry Gilliam movie, tampered with Adrian Peterson, rubbed his crotch on people, employed BOTH Roy Williamses, and in general has done everything possible to run the Cowboys into the ground.
So it was only a matter of time before something like last night happened—seven weeks of good work blown apart in three tidy hours. Jerry Jones wasn't gonna just leave a 6-1 team be. No other football team would have let Tony Romo come out and play the rest of that game. No other football team—not even the one owned by Dan Snyder—would see its owner personally inform the coach that the QB was ready to play (the message implicit to Jason Garrett that Tony Romo would be playing regardless of his thoughts on the matter) and then stay on the sidelines for the rest of the game, commandeering coaching duties [NOTE: Commenter bimps says Jones did go back to the box eventually]. In every Cowboys season, there is at least one moment in which the Double J dismantles the authority of his coaching staff in plain view of millions, and everything falls apart shortly thereafter.
This is what happens when an owner with a flair for the dramatic crosses paths with a veteran QB with a history of serious spinal problems, a QB who has not practiced for six straight weeks because of those spinal problems. This is how Jerry Jones assumes the role of both head coach and team doctor all in one clusterfuck of a game, all in a transparent and ultimately futile effort to work up a Kodak moment with Romo pulling a Willis Reed in the fourth quarter. Even for the Double J, that is a new level of crazy. We ran these earlier, but look at these fucking quotes again. I mean, holy shit …
"We knew there were no structural issues when they gave him the X-rays"
I've had a lot of back surgeries in my time, and an X-ray is strictly a preliminary test when it comes to disc problems. Everybody gets an X-ray. You need an MRI, especially when you have a back injury that compromises your legs, as Romo had last night. It was completely fucking irresponsible to shoot up Romo and let him go back out there. And then there was this:
"After we looked at the play and saw that was a knee kind of to the side of the back, then we felt better about it."
HOLY FUCK YOU'RE NOT A DOCTOR. No doctor is like, "Hmm, well, your spine looks messed up, but I'll need to see a replay of the other guy's knee to make a proper diagnosis." The NFL has serious problems when it comes to injury management these days, and yet here is the Double J putting on his toy stethoscope and dispensing medical wisdom. This is how 6-1 becomes 8-8. It happens just like that. And it will happen over and over again as long as Jerry Jones is running roughshod over his own team. Romo's MRI results are due later today. I look forward to Jones's diagnosis.