Jerry Jones still loves Mike?

It may be time for Dallas Cowboy fans to switch over to watching and rooting for Houston. At least their Monday mornings might be more fun since Houston has a 5-1 record after Week 6, whereas Dallas may have a 3-3 record, but their blowout at home this past Sunday doesn’t give fans much hope for the rest of the season.

Team Owner and General Manager Jerry Jones celebrated his 82nd birthday Sunday, but what a way to grow a year older watching his team suffer its worst loss at home – 47-9 – since Jones bought the team in 1989. There are always football stats that tell a tale, but perhaps none other tell the story of Sunday’s gridiron massacre more than this tidbit – during the course of the entire game Sunday, Detroit didn’t have to punt…once.

During the entire 60 minutes, all four quarters, not once?

Nope, not once. How many games can you remember watching where one team never has to punt?

No, high school games don’t count.

Dallas may just as well have kept its defense on the bench the whole game because every time the Lions had the ball, it looked like the D line was MIA, along with Jerry’s defensive backfield. Granted, two starting linebackers were out of the game, Micah Parsons and Eric Kendricks, along with two defensive ends, DeMarcus Lawrence and Marshawn Kneeland, but all that shows is how lacking Dallas’ roster is with regard to depth.

Scrolling through news stories and comments Sunday post-game, the best one, spot on, went like this: “Jerry’s ego is so big he can't stand to have a coach who might get some of the credit if they win. Jones would rather lose than take a back seat to a coach or any player.” (Source: DailyMail.com.)

Which has been the explanation all along as to why he kept Jason Garrett as head coach for 10 looooong seasons. Garrett never butted heads with Jones like Parcells, Johnson, and Switzer were known to do.

Speaking of which, do any other team owners besides Jerry give post-game interviews to the media unless they’ve just won the Super Bowl? Or the Conference Championship?

Jones does though, and it’s obvious he relishes the limelight, even when his team gets blown out like the Cowboys did Sunday, giving up five touchdowns and four field goals on Detroit’s first nine drives.

$60 Million a Year

QB Dak Prescott may now have a four-year contract worth $240 million in his desk drawer, making him the NFL’s first $60 million-a-year player, but getting hit as hard and as often as he did Sunday, you have to wonder, will he last the entire four years if his O-line can’t give him some protection? In fact, Sunday’s game left fans wondering, where is the offensive line?

There they are, getting steamrolled by Detroit once again. What a difference from 2016 when Prescott led Dallas to a 13-3 record his rookie year while throwing for 3,667 yards, 24 TDs, and only four interceptions.

Sunday, he threw two interceptions, including one from Detroit’s seven-yard line.

Compared to 2016, Prescott is now 31 and has to still be thinking about that horrific injury he suffered in October 2020 – compound fracture and dislocation of his right ankle. He followed that up with a fractured thumb in 2022, and now he has a line that offers him no protection.

Makes you feel sorry for Prescott because there’s nothing in sports quite as sad as an elite athlete playing without a coach. QB Sonny Jurgensen, Hall of Famer with Washington, played his whole career without a real coach until Lombardi came along. Unfortunately for Sonny, Vince only lasted one season before his cancer diagnosis put an end to his coaching career.

During his post-game interview, Birthday Boy Jerry said he was “shocked” by what he saw Sunday. Kind of the way Tom Landry felt – shocked -- when Jones fired him without even a “Thank you for your many years coaching America’s Team.”

Oh, well, there is always Houston to follow this season, currently 5-1 atop the AFC South. The team is fun to watch, and the coach, former NFL linebacker DeMeco Ryans, is the kind of coach Dallas should have. A guy who actually knows how to call a play-action pass.

Jones fired Wade Phillips mid-season in 2010 after a disastrous 45-7 loss to the Packers. Why he won’t do the same with Mike McCarthy, who knows. This may be the last year on his contract, but why make Cowboy fans suffer through the rest of the season?

Only the team’s general manager knows the answer to that, along with, “We have to get better.”

After a 47-9 blowout Sunday, the question is, how? Open up your wallet, Jerry, and call Belichick after telling Mc-Carthy to clean out his office.