Posted on by Phil Strawn

Not America’s Team…The Curse of Smiley Jones


I am not pretending to be a sports writer. No, sir, my knowledge of football and the NFL is as sparse as a Teralingua lawn. I possess the cutting humor—or maybe it’s cutting-edge angst—that allows me to see the man behind the green curtain and pay attention to what he does and doesn’t do.

It’s been almost thirty years since America’s team has been to a Super Bowl game. Still, I would bet the owner, Jerry “Smiley” Jones, has attended more than a few super bowl parties in his ostentatious Dallas neighborhood of Highland Park. The day that smirking hillbilly with a gold card bought my team, the Dallas Cowboys, and fired the legendary Tom Landry was a low point for that shining turd on the hill, known as Dallas, Texas. Landry was almost a saint, a winged Arch Angel in a grey fedora that stalked the sidelines like a lion, pushing his team to victory with a blend of tough love and radar-melting glares. If Landry didn’t like you, no one would. The man should have been allowed to resign instead of a quick meeting and a handful of traveling papers. Smiley Jones, the new owner of the team and the son of Jed Clampett and Ma Kettle drove into Dallas with furniture tied to his Mercedes and grandma strapped to the roof. It’s been a shavit show since.

Jimmy Johnson clashed with Jones from day one. Johnson was a football man, a brilliant coach, and had the best hairstyle in the NFL. Jones was a wannabe coach who knew nothing about football, so the mating was bound to go sour, and it did, but only after a few Super Bowls. Barry Switzer took over and coasted across the finish line for another shiny trophy. Then Jones took over, and the team has been complete crap since. The Cowgirls are on track to deliver their worst season after paying a mediocre, nice guy quarterback 60 million a year for life. Prescott is a has-been; the money has taken over his brain, and he doesn’t care; he’s got the money, and Smiley doesn’t have shavit to show for it. The days of wine and roses are over for the Jones family. What is sad is that after Jerry is laid to rest, there are two more sons, a daughter, and a surgically enhanced wife to take the helm, which should put the city out of its misery.

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13 Replies to “Not America’s Team…The Curse of Smiley Jones”

  1. Well, we had been saying the same kind of thing about the Fords for a very long time in Detroit. Yet it finally seemed to be about coaching and general management. So not sure.

    McCarthy was successful enough in Green Bay, I guess.

    But we thought it amounted to this for the Fords: a “successful franchise” was just one that made money, so they didn’t care about having “a winning franchise.” I don’t think they are bummed out about having both, though. Detroit fans were loyal no matter what, so they always made money.

    In our case, it sure seemed to be coaching.

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  2. I haven’t followed football since they started disrespecting the US flag. I do remember Tom Landry being a class act back in the day when I photographed NFL games. That was a big mistake to axe an icon. 🙂

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    1. If Jones hadn’t treated Landry so bad, Dallas and Fort Worth may have accepted him and his Hillbilly family. I doubt the rummy-eyed fool can go anywhere in Dallas without folks chasing him down with a rope in hand.

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  3. Villenueva, Stauback, Garrison, Ervin, Smith, Williams, Too Tall, Lilly, White, Hayes – them was football players

    Lost interest as a far-from-Texis fan years ago- it took moving ffom Milwaukee to shed me of the Braves, but Dallas just withered on the vine.

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    1. I hear that. I was one of them Cowboy fans years ago, if they lost a game, I need Xanex to get through the week unitl the next game. I used to go see those dipshits in that open air stadium and freeze my butt off. I was an idiot.

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  4. I’m not a Cowboy fan at all…back in the 70s as a kid…I would root for Oakland because hey…love him or hate him…Ken Stabler was hard not to root for…but The Cowboys…Tom Landry WAS the Cowboys (more than Staubach) and the way Jones fired him was just no class. On top of that he doubled down and got rid of Johnson…he deserves what he gets but the fans don’t.

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    1. My son, Wes, worked for the Cowboys for three years and he knows all the slimy scoop. Jones is a hated man in Dallas and Fort Worth. He holes himself up in his mansion with a few hundred Dobermans and cartel looking guys with auto machine guns. Son of Jed Clampett.

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    1. Looking back over the decades I was a Cowboy fan and supporter, I feel the team started going downhill after Johnson left. I’ve reached a wall with America’s team, which is no longer that. And that is how I really feel.

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