On Sunday evening, word broke of a reported "nuclear" option being considered by some NFL owners that would essentially attempt to take the Dallas Cowboys away from owner Jerry Jones. That seemed ambitious and, frankly, unlikely even in the moment, but just hours later Cowboys executive vice president Stephen Jones visited with 105.3 The Fan in Dallas and clapped back at the notion. (h/t SportsDay)
"I think that's laughable. I think that's — we don't take that serious in the least bit. And our thought process and Jerry's thought process is we want what's in the best interest of the league. We're not against Roger [Goodell]. We just don't know if this is the time to be talking about major contract extensions when the league certainly has several challenges in terms of where we are as a league, whether that's our ratings, whether that's our concerns with our sponsors."
Jones' description of the concept as "laughable" says it all, though it is also newsworthy that he would say that the organization (and his father particularly) is not "against Roger Goodell" at this time. From there, Stephen Jones kept sharing his thoughts.
"I think we need to be focusing on our business and not necessarily on contract extensions. It's nothing that we're against Roger. I think Jerry has been vocal about it. That's not easy to do when you have certainly momentums that are going one way and you take a contrarian stance. But he's obviously, in his mind, what we think as an organization, we just think it's not in the best interest of the NFL right now to move forward. It may make all the sense in the world here in the coming months and our commissioner has this season and one more season left on his contract. In our mind, that's plenty of time to do something, but we think our focus should be elsewhere right now."
There will be legal action to come when breaking down the Goodell contract situation, but as far as the reported notion that the Cowboys ownership could be in peril, one high-profile member of the front office isn't buying it.
