TEXAS TOAST: Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is running a ship that hasn’t seen a Super Bowl title since after the 1995 season, and with key players such as Tony Romo, Jason Witten and DeMarcus Ware getting older, Jones admits, “My window is getting shorter. … We need to strike and strike soon with those guys.” (AP)
IRVING, Texas — They have the name, the fame, the rabid fan base in seemingly every corner of the NFL and a gleaming, mammoth stadium that would give the Taj Mahal a serious run for its money.
All that’s missing from the modern-day Cowboys is success.
What was once one of the sport’s most envied and tradition-rich clubs hasn’t exactly fallen on hard times, but no one is envying Jerry Jones’ track record, either, since the final gasp of Dallas’ 1990s dynasty ended with a Super Bowl victory over the Steelers in the Arizona desert 16 years ago.
From that intoxicating high point — the Cowboys’ third Lombardi Trophy in a span of just four seasons — the franchise built by Tom Landry and Tex Schramm that used to view championship games practically as a birthright has won exactly one playoff game.
Not one conference title or one Super Bowl — one game.
Even worse, the window appears to be closing rapidly on Tony Romo and the rest of the current lineup of Cowboys that will travel to face the Giants in the season opener Wednesday night at MetLife Stadium.
Troy Aikman recently proclaimed Romo better than himself, which is high praise considering Aikman is in the Hall of Fame, but Romo has nothing to justify that other than some gaudy individual numbers his critics say are diminished by a knack for back-breaking mistakes.
No quarterback in the Cowboys’ illustrious history — not even the late Don Meredith, whose failures made him such a local pariah in the 1960s that he was hounded into retirement — has as many career starts as Romo (77) with so few playoff wins (one).
But Romo has escaped becoming Public Enemy No. 1 for the Cowboys’ struggles mainly because that title was claimed long before his arrival by Jones, who in the eyes of many locals has driven the franchise’s reputation into a ditch since his fateful decision to fire Jimmy Johnson nearly 20 years ago.
A team that had one head coach in its first 29 seasons (Landry) has cycled through six of them since Johnson’s ugly dismissal, including two — Wade Phillips and current boss Jason Garrett — since Bill Parcells stepped down after the 2006 season.
Jones’ marketing and business prowess off the field remains unparalleled (Cowboys memorabilia is still among the NFL leaders in annual sales and $1.2 billion Cowboys Stadium is both palatial and state of the art), but his moves as Dallas’ general manager and self-styled “football man” continue to be a road to mediocrity, at best.
Even Jones realizes the time has long since passed for the Cowboys to return to the league’s elite.
“Well, my window is getting shorter,” Jones told the NFL Network. “Time goes by. I do feel real pressure because we do have players not only in Tony Romo, but [tight end] Jason Witten [and linebacker] DeMarcus Ware, to leave out several, that are also in the prime of their career. And we need to strike and strike soon with those guys.”
Jones showed just how extreme that urgency was — and still is — during the offseason, when he traded first- and second-round picks to take LSU cornerback Morris Claiborne in the NFL Draft after lavishing one of the league’s richest free-agent contracts to lure another corner, Brandon Carr, from the Chiefs in hopes of upgrading a secondary that was Dallas’ biggest liability last season.
But issues remain after an 8-8 finish that ended without a playoff berth after the Cowboys’ 31-14 mauling at the hands of the Giants in Week 17 at the Meadowlands.
Not only are Witten, defensive tackle Jay Ratliff and cornerback Mike Jenkins major injury concerns (all three might miss the opener), but former first-round pick Dez Bryant has been an underachiever on the field and continues to be a liability off it with his legal troubles.
Throw in the fact the NFC East appears to be getting only stronger, and it is clear the time is now or never for these Cowboys.
“It’s on us to get the job done here,” Romo said. “We’ll only have ourselves to blame if it doesn’t happen. No excusesWe just need to go out and win.”