Is Jerry Really That Despicable?

According to a poll conducted by Forbes recently, Cowboys' owner / general manager Jerry Jones is disliked by 53 percent of the nation, and is tied with the very Wilt Chamberlain of the PGA, Tiger Woods, for the fourth most unlikable figure in sports.

Granted, Jones exudes the sort of hubris that made 1980s movie villains what they were--he's a cocksure billionaire, a so-called "maverick" owner who--in true 1980s movie villain fashion--rode into town in 1989 and summarily dismissed the architects of the dynasty as we knew it, Tom Landry and Tex Schramm.

Jerry is also, however, the man who brought three Super Bowl Championships to Dallas. The man who, almost invariably, puts an imminently watchable product on the field. The man who, every once in a while, gets schnockered and shoots his mouth off in a hilarious fashion.

We won't delude ourselves in pretending that, if those polled were common Dallasites, Jones would have fared much better--in fact, the results would have likely been much the same. Remember the aforementioned unpleasantness with Schramm and Landry? Well, so do many fans, which explains much of the ambivalence among the local hoi polloi.

But the fourth most despicable human being in sports?

This places him with Michael Vick, who served jail time for funding and participating in a dog-fighting ring; with Ben Roethlisberger, who has developed something of a habit of poor decision-making with regard to the fairer sex; with the aforementioned Woods, whose philandering made for one hell of a Thanksgiving Day discussion with the family.

It leads us to wonder: Is Jerry really that despicable?

Yours in the comments, DFW.

Get the latest Dallas Cowboys news direct to your phone with Blue Star SMS alerts. Text "bluestar" to 622339 (NBCDFW) to subscribe to this free service.  Read more about it here.
Contact Us