Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has no plans to stop his practice of visiting the sideline during games, saying he thinks he can help inspire the team with his presence.
Jones, who went on the sideline during Monday night’s loss to Washington, said it was important for him to be there after Tony Romo suffered a back injury.
“No. 1, I wanted to go down there and do what I could, look our guys in the eye, look at them, inspire them to overcome Romo not being out there and overcome what I thought was a critical time,” Jones said on KRLD, via the Dallas Morning News. “First of all, I’ve been down there hundreds of ball games. Everyone that follows it has certainly seen it, either criticized it or whatever or lived with it. Secondly, if you look around this league, you’ll see owners, I noticed Bob McNair down there during the entire, almost first half when we played Houston. But you’ll see owners all the time on the sideline. I’m not going to say all the time, you’ll see certain owners down there a lot. But that’s from that standpoint. I know for a fact you see a lot of management people on the sideline.”
Jones said that if people think he’s out of place on the sideline, they’re wrong. Jones believes that in order to do his job running the team, he needs to see the team up close.
“It’s just not an issue,” Jones said. “I’ve always felt that seeing the attitude, seeing what’s going on, getting the pulse, looking at who’s in to it, looking at how they’re into it, looking at how they’re reacting on the sideline, all of that is just part of understanding the team, getting to be a better decision-maker.”
Jones didn’t buy the Cowboys to be a hands-off owner. It’s his team and his stadium, and he’ll go wherever he pleases.