It’s no secret Jerry Jones loves the spotlight.
For better or for worse, Jones consistently keeps everyone talking about the Dallas Cowboys.
In Netflix’s eight-part series, “America’s Team: The Gambler and His Cowboys,” cameras follow Jones’ tenure as owner and general manager—from the highs of the 1990s, to the decline that followed, culminating in the nightmare that was the 2023 wild-card loss to the Green Bay Packers.
A game that Jones showed rare emotion over when talking about it.
“Oh, what a disaster,” Jones said, as he wiped away tears. “This loss hurt us, in every way, more than any one we’ve ever had.”
The Athletic’s Jon Machota, who has covered the Cowboys for years, shared Jones’ sentiment. “I believe the Cowboys’ 2023 playoff loss to the Packers (down 48-16 midway through the fourth quarter) is the worst loss in franchise history,” Machota wrote on X.
They both may be correct. The Cowboys were coming off a third-straight season finishing 12-5, led by a Pro Bowl year from quarterback Dak Prescott and an All-Pro season out of CeeDee Lamb.
They finished with the second overall seed in the NFC and were NFC East champions. They welcomed in the lowest seeded team in the conference, the seventh-seeded Packers.
It was Jordan Love’s first career playoff start. The Cowboys were riding a league-best 16-game home winning streak and were more than a touchdown favorite.
What happened next?
One of the biggest thuds of a postseason performance of all-time. The Packers jumped on the Cowboys early and never looked back. Blinked, and before the second quarter was even over, Dallas trailed 27-0.
It never got better as Machota alluded to earlier, the Cowboys trailed 48-16 midway through the fourth quarter at one point, before scoring a few cheap garbage time touchdowns.
The final score read 48-32, but it was the furthest thing from a two-possession game as possible.
It was a coming out party for Love, who finished with 272 yards, three touchdowns and no turnovers. Running back Aaron Jones also shredded the Dallas defense to the tune of 118 yards on 21 carries and three touchdowns of his own on the ground.
Meanwhile, Prescott’s stats were heavily inflated due to the end of the game, as he finished with 403 yards, three touchdowns and two interceptions, including a costly pick-six.
Packers wideout Romeo Doubs had the best game of his career, hauling in 6 catches for 151 yards and one touchdown. Meanwhile his counterpart Lamb finished with nine catches for 110 yards.
All the momentum that Dallas had finishing the year and entering the postseason was quickly put out by Love and company.
The sour taste seemed to carry over into 2024, as the Cowboys finished 7-10 and missed the postseason for the first time since 2020.
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Jones parted ways with head coach Mike McCarthy and surprisingly replaced him with Brian Schottenheimer.
The Cowboys own the longest streak in the NFC without a conference championship appearance, making it 29 years and counting. If they fail to do so again this season, it will make it a whole three decades since they last made it to the conference title game, when they won the whole thing back in 1996.
Unfortunately for Jones and Cowboys fans alike, Troy Aikman isn’t walking through that door. There’s no Emmitt Smith or Michael Irvin to bail them out. Deion Sanders? Forget about it.
As high as Jones and the Cowboys were riding in the ’90s, the complete opposite can be said over the last couple of decades. There will always be something to talk about, when it comes to “America’s Team,” Jones will make sure of that.
But in the year 2025, the discourse around Dallas usually centers on anything but the on-field results.