Saturday, May 10, 2008
Jerry Is Happy, But Cowboys May Suffer
By Newy Scruggs
Special to the Star-Telegram
Posted on Sat, May 10, 2008
Owner Jerry Jones is allowing his massive ego to undermine his football team. The Cowboys are going back on HBO to be featured in the reality show Hard Knocks.
The last thing this club needs is cameras and microphones following everybody around at training camp in Oxnard, Calif. The Cowboys need focus.
General Manager Jones needs to go curse out Owner Jones, because this organization needs to worry about winning football games instead of allowing training camp to become a distraction.
He has tricked himself into believing it's a positive. "We like to have the show at training camp," Jones said at a joint news conference with NFL Films president Steve Sabol and HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg. "I think it prepares the team."
I called up former Cowboy and Hard Knocks alum Randal Williams for his take on the show. Six years ago, he was trying to make the team. Williams became one of the story lines of the training camp.
He backs up Jones' assessment that the NFL Films cameras are good for the players. "True. Like Monday Night Football, when you know the nation is watching, you want to perform," Williams said. "Guys are trying to make the team. The cameras make you play better."
Williams, now retired, made that 2002 club and remembers the NFL Films crew always being courteous and not getting in the way of his training camp routine.
The last time we saw Jones' football team, it was being upset by the New York Giants in the playoffs at Texas Stadium. The Cowboys didn't look focused for the second season. So why begin the 2008 season with a distraction?
Playing on national TV five times is not enough publicity for Jones. Call the man "Hollywood Jones" -- after all, he was born in El Segundo, Calif., which is a 20-minute drive to the Sunset Strip and all those movie studios.
"The Cowboys are the No. 1 viewed team in the NFL," Hollywood Jones boasted. "It's because of that interest, on a personal basis...I want HBO, I want them to tell the these stories, to see behind it all."
NFL Films big boss Sabol knows that cameras in front of Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo and maybe his squeeze, Jessica Simpson, can bring in ratings that he expects to be "through the roof." T.O. likes to make himself a show. Pacman Jones, Tank Johnson, Roy Williams and Patrick Crayton should all find camera time in Oxnard.
Hard Knocks: Training Camp With The Dallas Cowboys premieres Aug. 6, with weekly one-hour episodes leading up to the Sept. 3 finale.
newy@newdawg.com
Newy Scruggs is sports director for NBC 5.
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