It would be nice to see the world through Jerry Jones' eyes every now and then.
In Jerry's world, football teams don't need general managers when they've got an owner astute enough to run the whole show by himself. The lack of positive returns on investment don't matter in this world, a nice change from the world the rest of us call home.
And, in Jerry's world, a player really wants to be a member of the Dallas Cowboys even after he signs with their hated rivals in Philadelphia. That's what the salesman of the century was offering up recently when discussing the team's pursuit of free agency's biggest bauble. Per Jones, the team only bid on Nnamdi Asomugha's services because they knew he desperately wanted to play in Dallas.
"We had known that he really wanted to be a Dallas Cowboy," Jones said. "And that’s a fact. There, for about an hour, I thought he was going to be a Dallas Cowboy. You do that because you can do it and should do it, and take advantage of the opportunity."
You know who else really wanted to be a Cowboy once? Randy Moss. How'd that work out for you, Double J?
Much like Baxter the dog eating an entire wheel of cheese in "Anchorman," you can't really be mad at Jones for making such an obviously false statement. You just have to be impressed that a man can throw facts out the window and hold a point of view that has no mooring in reality.
If Jones said that and then explained why the Cowboys felt like the move wasn't right for them, there would be something interesting to glean from his comments. But all Jones says is that the team made a competitive -- over $10 million per year -- bid for his services that Asomugha ignored in favor of the chance to play for the Eagles.
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It would be equally fine if Jones said the team made their bid but Asomugha took more money to play somewhere else. That's what free agency is all about and there's nothing you can do but give signing him your best shot.
He didn't say either of those things, though, and that's why this is ridiculous.
If Asomugha really wanted to be a Cowboy, he would be a Cowboy right now. Things don't get much more cut-and-dry than that, especially if the Cowboys, as Jones claims, made a serious play for his signature. That's the textbook definition of someone who does not want to be a Cowboy to everyone other than Jones.
The worst part of all of this is that this is a dead issue that has little to no bearing on the season to come. Asomugha isn't in Dallas, which makes him as crucial a part of the Cowboys season as Grover Cleveland. That it comes up weeks later in some misguided attempt to burnish the team's image or, more likely, the owner's image doesn't do much to make you feel good about the near future of the team even if it doesn't come as much of a surprise.
