Troy Aikman calls out Cowboys for prioritizing attention over winning

As Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys get accused of caring more about attention than winning, Troy Aikman is having a harder time defending their actions.

The Cowboys haven’t broken their Super Bowl drought, but they did have a Netflix docuseries released about them this summer. And it’s fair to wonder which one is more important to Jerry Jones. The Cowboys can insist they have championship aspirations, but trading arguably their best player in Micah Parsons to the Green Bay Packers one week before the NFL regular season kicks off tells a different story.

In the wake of Parsons being dealt, Aikman joined The Rich Eisen Show to preview the NFL season, where the Monday Night Football analyst was asked about the Cowboys seemingly caring more about business than championships.

“I saw Jerry talk about the fact that, having the Cowboys as a discussion point is meaningful to him. And if people aren’t talking about the Cowboys, then he’ll do things to stir it up. So, he kind of walked into that and has given the impression that supersedes winning,” Aikman admitted. “In some ways, I’m sure Jerry and the Jones family, and everyone is tired of the fact that they haven’t been to a championship game, let alone a Super Bowl in 30 years.

“So, then when you deflect that, then essentially the valuation of your franchise or the attention and the exposure, or the drama or as Jerry said, the fact that the Cowboys are a soap opera 365 days a year, that then becomes the scoreboard instead of winning and losing on the field. And do I think that winning is not important to Jerry Jones? Not at all. I think Jerry wants to win more than anything else and I think that he’s very exhausted of the fact that this team, although they’ve won a lot of regular-season games…they’ve only won four playoff games and that’s hard to stomach.”

As Aikman aptly noted, the Cowboys care about winning, and surely, Jerry Jones wants to break their Super Bowl drought. Just not at the expense of attention. There’s no way Jones would trade his Super Bowl drought with the Cowboys to win one with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, for example, and it’s hard to argue otherwise. Dallas remains the most valuable sports franchise in the world despite a 30-year championship drought.

Jones might not be great at putting the best roster possible on the field, but he thrives on keeping them a relevant part of the national sports conversation. The Cowboys and ESPN are often mocked for their mutually beneficial relationship. Jones loves seeing the Cowboys talked about on ESPN and ESPN loves being gifted a reason to talk about the Cowboys. Publicly questioning the Cowboys priorities isn’t going to change the way Jones operates, but it has to hit a differently coming from Aikman.