THE NFC EAST

[Patler]

He's owned the team for 27 years - starting from a deep hole. You conveniently want to only consider the last 20? They have been up and down, a net of about .500 - a helluva lot of teams have done worse - and that's with more than their share of bad luck with injuries.

As I wrote when I looked at the last 20 years, I did it because those are the years of salary cap football. As I said originally, he had success when he could simply outspend other teams, because there was no salary cap. Since he has had deal with a hard salary cap, he is basically a .500 GM. You can't excuse 20 years by "bad luck". He is a ho hum gm under the constraints of a salary cap.

[texaspackerbacker]

As I wrote when I looked at the last 20 years, I did it because those are the years of salary cap football. As I said originally, he had success when he could simply outspend other teams, because there was no salary cap. Since he has had deal with a hard salary cap, he is basically a .500 GM. You can't excuse 20 years by "bad luck". He is a ho hum gm under the constraints of a salary cap.

Interesting theory, but I doubt it's true. Jerry Jones barely had the money to scrape together and buy the Cowboys for a bargain price. He more resembled George Halas than say Paul Allen or Lamar Hunt. The team made a lot of money, and the franchise got a lot more valuable, hence he is probably filthy rich now, but I doubt even now that he has the money of some other owners who had billions before buying teams.

[Patler]

Interesting theory, but I doubt it's true. Jerry Jones barely had the money to scrape together and buy the Cowboys for a bargain price. He more resembled George Halas than say Paul Allen or Lamar Hunt. The team made a lot of money, and the franchise got a lot more valuable, hence he is probably filthy rich now, but I doubt even now that he has the money of some other owners who had billions before buying teams.

The Cowboys were widely known to have a much larger payroll than much of the league prior to the salary cap. Maybe there were a few richer owners, but Jones had money from his oil and gas business that he was willing to spend on football players. As I remember it, the Cowboys were pointed at as one of the reasons that a salary cap was needed. They had an owner willing to buy championships.

[Patler]

Jerry Jones barely had the money to scrape together and buy the Cowboys for a bargain price.

I didn't recall Jones getting any bargain at the time, in fact I recalled the sale being costly for that day and age. So I looked up prices that other teams were sold for at about that time:

1984 Chargers - $70 million
1984 Broncos - $78 million
1985 Saints - $70 million
1989 Cowboys - $150 million
1994 Patriots - $172 million
1994 Eagles - $185 million
1995 Bucs - $192 million
1997 Seahawks - $197 million

At twice the cost of teams sold just 4 or 5 seasons earlier and only somewhat (15-25%) less than teams sold in the following 8 years, the sale of the Cowboys seemed to set a new value level for NFL teams.