Owner-itis

So the Dallas Cowboys have brought in Mr. Green Bay Packer to save the day, and if Lombardi isn't giving Landry the business about that somewhere in the Great Beyond, the Blob will eat one of its many gimme caps. 'Cause, you know, irony.

But Mike McCarthy won a Super Bowl in Green Bay and he was available and so, hey, why wouldn't you take a flyer on the guy? Especially when it's not a flyer?

And so the Cowboys rolled out McCarthy for his introductory news conference yesterday, and he said all the things a new NFL head coach is supposed to say in his introductory news conference.  And all of that was fine and dandy, because McCarthy knows how to win in the NFL, so there's no reason he shouldn't in Dallas.

Except ...

Except here is the thing, exemplified by the headline ESPN slapped on the story: "Jerry Jones Believes Mike McCarthy Can Get The Cowboys Back To The Super Bowl."

Not Mike McCarthy believes. Jerry Jones believes.

And so once again the owner was the story in Dallas, and McCarthy was merely a sidebar. And that's how the owner likes it. 

No owner in the NFL is more of an attention whore than Jerry Jones, and the media plays right along with his megalomania. The man can spot that little red light going on from 50 nautical miles, and he'll break both his legs getting to it. The consequence is every story about the Cowboys always turns into What Jerry Thinks -- and that's a problem.

It's a problem because Jerry's need to be The Guy bleeds over into the football operations, too. And  there are toasters that know more about football than Jerry Jones does.

So the immediate challenge for McCarthy will be keeping Jerry out of his business, and good luck with that. The smartest owners in the game you hardly ever see, because they hire smart people and then get the hell out of their way. That's not how Jerry works; he's that particularly dangerous species of rich guy who thinks he knows more than he does.

Which is why it's no coincidence the Cowboys have barely made a sound since the Clinton administration. And why Jason Garrett, a face in the crowd when Jerry promoted him to head coach, lasted as long as he did.

Jason Garrett, after all, was never going to steal any headlines from the de facto head coach. Who of course was Jerry himself.

Now it's McCarthy's turn in the barrel. Again, good luck with that.