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Jerry Jones’s Rambling at Brian Schottenheimer’s Press Conference Had NFL World Baffled

The Cowboys owner went off the rails during Schottenheimer's intro press conference as the new head coach.

Liam McKeone

Jerry Jones
Jerry Jones / FOX 4 Dallas-Forth Wort
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On Monday the Dallas Cowboys introduced Brian Schottenheimer as the new head coach of the franchise, succeeding Mike McCarthy. Some may come into the the press conference hoping Jerry Jones would shed light on the surprising hire and, perhaps, what went into the Mike McCarthy decision. Those people were left disappointed as the 82-year-old owner went completely off the rails when he got the microphone.

Jones was first asked why he thought Schottenheimer was the man for this job. Instead of answering that question Jones went on an impressive tangent in which he discussed never missing a Senior Bowl and that he wishes he became a coach with how much money they make nowadays, among other topics. He appears to have never actually answered the question.

"In the almost 35 years that I've been involved with the Dallas Cowboys... I've only missed one Senior Bowl," Jone said. "35 years. And I think I missed one Combine, in 35 years. At the NFL, over the last 4 or 5 years, the NFL we want to come in a day early... so that we can visit with prospective coaches for the future of my team and any other teams. In 35 years I don't think I've ever visited with a coach but what in my heart in mind I wasn't having an interview. I don't think I've ever had a coach visit with me that wasn't prospectively thinking maybe someday our paths might cross...

"I've been around a lot of coaches. As a matter of fact I wanted to be a coach. Except I wanted to live better than I thought coaches lived."

He also addressed McCarthy's departure and seemed to start to explain how they came to the decision to let him walk but keep his offensive coordinator in Schottenheimer. Then he didn't.

"It was time for a change," Jones said. "We spent five days getting to come to that decision. One of the reasons we came to that decision was because this decision was available to us."

At one point he even started crying.

Jones's strange rambling left the viewing NFL world quite confused.

It's all very odd but, at the same time, just another day at the office for Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys. What else can we expect at this point?

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Liam McKeone
LIAM MCKEONE

Liam McKeone is a senior writer for the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. He has been in the industry as a content creator since 2017, and prior to joining SI in May 2024, McKeone worked for NBC Sports Boston and The Big Lead. In addition to his work as a writer, he has hosted the Press Pass Podcast covering sports media and The Big Stream covering pop culture. A graduate of Fordham University, he is always up for a good debate and enjoys loudly arguing about sports, rap music, books and video games. McKeone has been a member of the National Sports Media Association since 2020.

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