Dallas Cowboys chief operating officer Stephen Jones was fresh off the plane from Ohio after his team spent the afternoon suffocating the Cleveland Browns in a 33–17 win, and wanted to offer up a bit of a correction. He knew the narrative I was pushing—and he wasn’t having any of it.
So did the rest of us make too much of all of the perceived drama in Dallas the past three months? This was, of course, just one game. But that one game would indicate that, yes, we did. “What I found is the individuals that are going through the contract situation, you’re almost apologetic about it. But you’re in this position for a reason. It’s between the employer and the employee. It’s part of our everyday business. Going through it 17, 18 years ago , you learn that it’s really part of the ride here.”They also understood that, because of who they are, everything would be magnified.
The way the Cowboys looked Sunday, you can understand now why there might have been a little confidence—and less worry—about working out deals for Lamb and Prescott.Distractions? This didn’t look like a team with many. The Cowboys, for their part, contend that, through it all, they knew the guys would be able to separate business from football, which is part of why they felt good about paying them.