The Cowboys’ record rating can’t buy them a Super Bowl

Kudos to the Dallas Cowboys for being the first sports franchise to surpass $10 billionaccording to a new list drawn up by the sports business entity Sportico. Surely Forbes, Haute Living and duPont REGISTRY are next in handing out accolades.

One of the real pleasures of such news is realizing that money can’t buy you happiness, or for that matter, competence. The Cowboys have essentially created a New Orleans Saints-like financial hole for themselves to sit in. They have more money than the islands of Fiji and Barbados combined, but were hilariously able to spend just $16.5 million in free agency during a critical offseason. due to previous contractual entanglements and the perpetual loss of their financial problems on the road as a guest on The Dave Ramsey Show. Imagine being able to buy an original Da Vinci and not Alexander Mattison. As the Joker told Batman dark knight, “You have nothing to do with all your power.”

For reference, the Carolina Panthers spent $259.9 million this offseason, while the New York Giants, the next closest team in the NFC East, spent $94.7 million. The Cowboys spent less than half the money that the NFL’s second-cheapest team — the Tampa Bay Buccaneers — opted to use on free agency.

The Philadelphia Eagles were able to match up a top-market quarterback, two top-market wide receivers and a top-market running back all in one offseason pairing. They’ve also been to a Super Bowl since”Expires (Shoop, Shoop)” was a #1 hit in the country. Life comes at you fast, doesn’t it?

Part of that, I understand, is because they’re trying to figure out how to pay CeeDee Lamb, Dak Prescott and Micah Parsons. To add to the macabre humor of it all, Prescott will likely see the finish line when it comes to free agency and knows he could probably make a lot more money on the open market (or force Dallas to pay more). For Parsons, every defensive player contract that exceeds Nick Bosa’s increases his asking price. Their indecision and commitment to an Old West style handshake costs him interest by the second.

Of course, the money Jones can spend this year just because he has it — the $14 billion that doesn’t depend on the NFL’s salary cap structure — remains tied up elsewhere, too. Mostly through indifference, which is harder to explain given the team’s new rating. What do we mean by that? For example, much of Jones’ coaching staff is on panic-inducing one-year contracts that inspire neither confidence in the people operating under those contracts nor confidence in the players tasked with listening to those coaches or potential draft picks and free agents looking for a bit of stability.

Jones could have taken that money and extended head coach Mike McCarthy along with all of his assistants for an additional season … but chose not to. He could have taken that money and paid the rest of their contracts, fired them, hired Bill Belichick and a new staff…and not done it. He could have taken that money and invested in an image consultant who could have explained to him that it’s not pretty or flashy or a show of strength to make players like Lamb wait until 11 o’clock to to sign their contracts after acrimonious restraint. This act is so incredibly tired and thankfully rooted in the more oppressive side of the league.the inmates who run the prison“past He chose not to do that either.

Jones could have given the fan base something to show up for during training camp, which appeared to be sparsely attended and, according to one report, essentially protested by Cowboys fans sick of the team. failure to observe common sense practices. He chose not to.

This is the other element of this new assessment that is so fascinating. It really only matters to a very small handful of people, a kind of measuring contest for a class of people so removed from our reality that we come into contact with creatures from outer space more regularly. Cowboys fans are like recent layoffs at a mega-corporation touting their strong stock market performance after what they will call a “strategic restructuring” in a press release.

If anything is accomplished by this news, I hope it’s the revelation of the truth — that very little of it is spent directly on making life as a Cowboys fan. better. Sure, there are plenty of luxury hotels to go to in Frisco, Texas. There will be more places to buy t-shirts and eat $100 steaks. There will be endless sinkholes that you can drop money into. But that’s as far as it goes. Once it leaves your hand, the only real value is helping someone else explain how valuable they are without any burden of proof.