Yeah, but he was kicking butt and taking names back then. His "skills" seem to have diminished significantly.
Boy, you can sure tell JJ is running scared of late. BIG, NEW, $$$$$$ stadium/playpen and he's watching Suite prices drop by the minute. Who wants a Suite with a sweet)) view of a 1-xx team?? Redefines 'hard sell'. Guess JJ ain't gonna be enjoying the Superbowl at his new sandbox, come February 2011... I record the Cowboys on my DVR, which has a 30 sec advance button it, which conveniently matches the 30 sec pause between most plays. Play whistle blows, I hit the button, and couple secs later, next play. Instead of wasting 3+ hours of commercials, drivel, halftime crap, an average game takes 45 minutes or so; bit longer for the replaying the good stuff.
I had always thought that Jerry handled this poorly. He comes in and buys the team. All he had to do was to go to Tom Landry and say to him, "Coach, I am going to replace you. With this ownership change, it makes a perfect time for you to resign and you can go out on your terms. But I will make a coaching change--I just want to give you the chance to handle the announcement." Instead, he fired Landry. I recall a specific report where Jones called in Landry and fired him without giving him the option of resigning. If that report is true, it was bad form, and a bad way to start. However, your post suggests that the backstory is different. What can you tell us.
I don't know football, but wouldn't best thing be to start giving the young guys experience and go for a top draft pick?
The third party perspective I heard was in the context of a former mayor & councilman of Irving who were very in-tune with these events as they occurred, who were retelling the history of the Cowboys' relationship with the city of Irving, on the eve of the Texas Stadium implosion, at the Irving Public Library, hosted by the Irving historical society. At least one of these men were in a meeting with Jones and Clint Murcheson at the time this was happening: Their description was that essentially, Jones made a reasonable effort to contact Landry for the purpose you describe. However, Landry made himself unreachable because suspected what was coming and for whatever reason, decided not to return Jones' calls. At a certain point, Jones couldn't delay announcements just because Landry wasn't returning his calls. Nothing more, nothing less.
^ Seems perfectly plausible to me. Landry was a smart man and would not have chosen to leave the Cowboys on his own. This way he didn't have to quit or resign and becomes a martyr as a result of the "rude" Jones who (was then forced to) fire him outright.
