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Friday, June 6, 1997

Jones: Irvin can take his time, but training camp is 'business time'

IRVING, Texas (AP) - Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones says he'll wait patiently while Michael Irvin tries to find his intensity for football, but that patience will run out when the team goes to training camp.

Jones gave his reaction Thursday to Irvin's statement this week that he has lost his "intensity and emotion" for the game and might retire. Irvin missed a Cowboys minicamp last month and hasn't appeared at a quarterback school this week.

The team owner said he accepts Irvin's assessment that his game is based on emotion and he can't play without it.

"On the other hand, I think we would all expect him to play through a down period of time," Jones told radio station KTCK on Thursday.

"As it turns out, a lot of us all over this country get up and do things that we've contracted or that we've said we're going to do when we don't feel like doing them. Many people do that, and they do it every day in all walks of life."

Jones said he won't put the receiver's well-being over the good of the team.

"He is a friend of mine. He is a son. He is a brother," Jones said of Irvin. "We're all of these things. ... Now having said that, it's business time. It's business time. And let's do what we said we would do."

Jones didn't specify what he'd do if Irvin doesn't show at training camp next month in Austin but said he had several options, including putting Irvin on an involuntary retirement list.

Irvin has expressed his unhappiness in Dallas, saying he has been unfairly scrutinized in the year since his arrest and eventual no-contest plea to a cocaine charge.

Both he and Jones have acknowledged that Irvin would like to be traded, but the owner has said that's not possible because of salary cap restrictions.

Irvin's teammates on Thursday said they understood his feelings, but they aren't sure he's ready to walk away from football.

"I don't think Michael could look me in the eye and tell me that he doesn't enjoy playing the game of football anymore or that he doesn't want to play the game of football anymore," quarterback Troy Aikman said.

"But after hearing the press conference yesterday, maybe that's true. Maybe what he's been through away from the field, maybe, that's just taken a lot out of him."

Said guard Nate Newton: "We need him, and that's what probably makes some of the guys angry."

Then Newton turned his comments to Irvin.

"Mike, c'mon man. Shave up, get the glare back, throw on the gold. C'mon, let's kick some (expletive), man."