Jerry Jones has revealed just how hostile things got when he bought the Dallas Cowboys and fired legendary head coach Tom Landry in 1989.
Jones has remained a controversial figure ever since. Most recently, he made headlines after Hollywood star Denzel Washington criticised Jones during an ESPN appearance.
Speaking in Netflix’s new docuseries America’s Team: The Gambler and His Cowboys, the longtime owner said his arrival sparked fury across Texas.
“I was Darth Vader,” Jones, 82, recalls in the series.
He went on to explain the backlash reached frightening levels. “They’re serious about their football in the state of Texas, almost as much as we are in Arkansas,” Jones says. He told Arkansas state lawmakers at the time that he had received multiple death threats.
The firing of Landry, who coached the team for 29 years, left fans devastated. More than 100,000 people filled downtown Dallas for a parade to honour him.
“Jerry and the Jones family had broken into the museum and taken our most valuable possession,” former WFAA-TV sportscaster Dale Hansen says in the documentary.
Looking back, Jones admits the move still weighs on him. “The firing of Coach Landry was certainly one of the great PR missteps, maybe of all time,” he says. “Because I still wear that.”
At the infamous press conference later dubbed the “Saturday Night Massacre,” Jones announced his intentions as the new owner. One day later, he fired Landry and named his longtime friend and former Arkansas teammate Jimmy Johnson as coach.
Jones’ daughter Charlotte, now the team’s executive vice president, recalls the shock. After the announcement, she remembers thinking: “What do we do?”
Despite the threats and the backlash, Jones pushed forward. “With all that hate, I could stop and cry or I could just keep going,” he says. “But I’m not gonna take my marbles and go home. I can’t, I burned all my ships when I landed.”
The Cowboys went on to dominate the early 1990s under Jones and Johnson, but those early days highlight the risks he faced to take control.
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