{"id":795,"date":"2012-11-09T11:14:18","date_gmt":"2012-11-09T16:14:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/?p=795"},"modified":"2012-11-09T13:30:14","modified_gmt":"2012-11-09T18:30:14","slug":"jimmy-johnson-i-had-complete-and-total-responsibility-over-cowboys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/2012\/11\/09\/jimmy-johnson-i-had-complete-and-total-responsibility-over-cowboys\/","title":{"rendered":"Jimmy Johnson: “I had complete and total responsibility” over Cowboys"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Recently Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said that he would continue to operate as the general manager of the team. Jones went on to say\u00a0 that he had been the team’s general manager since he bought it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I bought the team, the night I bought it, I said I would be doing what I\u2019m doing and that\u2019s GM the team and making the final decisions on personnel,\u201d Jones said late Sunday night. \u201cThat\u2019s the way it\u2019s always been done. We\u2019ve won three Super Bowls doing it that way, so I\u2019m going to do it again.\u201d<\/p>\n

At least one person disagrees with Jones’ view of the Cowboys early success under him. Jimmy Johnson was the head coach for two of the Cowboys Super Bowl victories and said that the responsibility of the Cowboys operation fell on him.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cThe time I was with the team, I had complete and total responsibility over the football operation,\u201d Johnson said in a telephone interview<\/a> with the Dallas Morning News. \u201cThat meant personnel, the draft, coaches, including the strength coach. Everything.”<\/p>\n

Jones has trumpeted himself as the “final decision-maker” saying<\/a> that there was no way he would be involved with the Cowboys and not act in that capacity.<\/p>\n

Despite the words of Jones, most credit the Cowboys success in the early-mid 90’s to the eye for talent possessed by Johnson. The Cowboys defeated Buffalo in back-to-back Super Bowl’s under Johnson before him and Jones split up. The Cowboys would win a third Super Bowl against Pittsburgh under Barry Switzer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we signed that first contract Jerry said, \u2018I\u2019ll be in charge of the finances, you\u2019ll be in charge of the football,\u2019 we\u2019ll make history,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n

Jones responded in a statement Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cI came into the NFL as the owner and general manager of this team, and one of the first decisions I made in the role of GM was to hire Jimmy as head coach,\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n

\u201cJimmy and I worked well together. We had great communication, and I have always appreciated what he has done for the organization. I wanted all the input in the world from Jimmy on personnel.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring Jimmy\u2019s tenure, the authority to hire the players was with the GM. But it was agreed that we wouldn\u2019t bring a player into the organization that he didn\u2019t approve of. We were a team and it worked very well. In our unique circumstances, where the owner and the GM were the same person, in the case of a disagreement \u2014 which we never had \u2014 the owner had the ultimate authority.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both Jones and Johnson arrived in Dallas in 1989. Since 1996 the Cowboys have won two playoff games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said that he would continue to operate as the general manager of the team. Jones went on to say\u00a0 that he had been the team’s general manager since he bought it. \u201cWhen I bought the team, the night I bought it, I said I would be doing what I\u2019m […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":796,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[425],"tags":[73,121],"coauthors":[4],"class_list":{"0":"post-795","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-jerry-jones","9":"tag-jimmy-johnson"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}