[an error occurred while processing this directive]

Wednesday, November 26, 1997

Jerry Jones the master of spin control

By Jim Reeves

Knight-Ridder Newspapers

IRVING, Texas -- It was classic Jimmy Johnson.

There he stood, straight-faced and steely-eyed, staring point-blank into the minicams and notebooks and spinning a line of bull that was straight out of the "Jimmy Genius" handbook on football psychology.

How many times did we see Jimmy pull this off during his five-year Cowboys reign? How many times did we watch him carefully push his players' psychological buttons, looking to motivate them for a critical upcoming game?

Same song, same chorus reverberated through the halls of Valley Ranch, only the speaker wasn't Jimmy Johnson.

It was that crafty old copycat, Jerry Jones.

Trust Jerry to try and steal a little of Jimmy's old black magic. Heaven knows, he could use it right now.

Jones walked into the Cowboys' locker room during media hour on Monday, conveniently let himself get "caught" by the reporters gathered there and proceeded to verbally tar and feather his coaching staff while virtually removing all blame from his players for Sunday's crushing 45-17 loss at the hands of the Green Bay Packers.

This was Jerry trying to deal himself a hand in the big game, taking it upon himself to get the shellshocked Cowboys fired up to get back on the field in three short days. And if his coaches got a little bloodied by being in the line of fire, so be it.

Take this one for the team, boys.

Cold-blooded, baby. Very cold-blooded. But did you really expect anything else?

Wouldn't Jimmy have played it the same way? Well, maybe Jimmy wouldn't have fried his assistants like that, but the way Jerry figures it at this point, what's he got to lose? The whole season is on the brink.

"I don't have to put any blame but certainly coaching should take a significant part of the blame for this," Jones preached in the middle of the locker room. "I saw our players competing well right till the end of the ballgame. I saw a big effort.

"It's our job to line 'em up and get them in better position to make the plays. I think in a game like this it's very fair to really be critical of me and be critical of all of our coaching. That was an embarrassment. We blitzed a lot and if we had it to do over again we wouldn't do it."

It is significant that Jones was fresh from (a) circling the locker room, patting players on the butt to try and lift them from the psychological gutter where the Packers left them, and (b) a film-watching session with head coach Barry Switzer and his coordinators, who seldom hold back in slapping their heads and second-guessing their own calls.

Jones obviously didn't enlist the aide of Switzer or defensive coordinator Dave Campo in his little locker-room ploy. Both were taken aback when they heard Jones was criticizing the coaching. Switzer, in fact, insisted it couldn't be true, that Jones was merely repeating what he'd heard the coaches say during the film session.

"What do you think he's doing? Repeating what he heard us say in our meeting," Switzer said. "Why would we criticize a defense that has played outstanding (for most of the season) and the defensive coaches? He's not criticizing the defense. Why would he? I don't think that he did.

"He's sitting in there hearing us criticizing ourselves. We sit in there and cuss and carry on and throw erasers and say, ÔWhy in the hell did we make that call?' It's a guessing game."

And the Cowboys' brain trust, Switzer admitted, was guessing wrong more times than right against the Packers. But he also was quick to declare that lining up and trying to play Brett Favre and the Pack straight up wasn't the answer either.

"You can't line up and play straight every down," Switzer said. "You've got to take chances when you got to get the ball, or to make a play or get the quarterback. You got to move, you got to stunt, you got to do some things, and when it's wrong, you admit it's wrong. You don't try to cover it.

"It's a guessing game, and our guesses didn't work as well as they have in other games."

Jones' sudden criticism of the coaches clearly shows how desperate he believes the situation has become. One more loss and the Cowboys' playoff chances are cooked, and he knows it.

"I want to be real clear that from what I saw (on the game tapes) that it was not the effort of the players," Jones said in explaining his surprising criticism. "When you see that kind of score, you all of a sudden start thinking, were they into it? Did they give the kind of effort you needed all the way through it? And the facts are, they did."

Jones must have eaten too much Wisconsin bratwurst, which he's now sharing with the rest of us. That was as thorough a physical whipping as any Cowboys team has ever taken.

Jerry's scheme didn't fool a lot of people.

"I don't know (Jones') motivation, but I know whether we blitz or don't blitz, it's the same deal: We've got to make the plays," veteran safety Bill Bates said. "It's up to us to be in the right position and make the plays, and we just didn't do it."

Trying to convince his players that what happened Sunday in Green Bay wasn't their fault ... if Jerry can pull this off, even "Jimmy Genius" would have to tip his cap.

But don't hold your breath.

(c) 1997, Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Visit the Star-Telegram on the World Wide Web: www.startext.net; www.arlington.net; and www.netarrant.net.

Distributed by Knight-Ridder/Tribune Information Services.