I’m posting this in Game Room so that 1. it won’t be lost in Polls, and 2. because it’s sports related. this iss informal poll intended for discussion. Anyhow, here’s my 10, from worst to least worse (relatively speaking), feel free to comment
Raiders-top down incompetence, no talent
Jets–owner should keep fingers away, stop playing favorites
Browns-no-clue owner, worse QB signing ever
Bengals-cheap owner, no defense in decades, wasted top QB
Giants–up-and down strategies
Saints–since Payton left, no long-term plan, no QB
Titans–went from AFC finals to lost way
Colts–been looking for QB since Luck
Panthers–nowhere since Cam
here I’m torn between Cards and Falcons, Cards owner cheap even when in St Louis, and Blank too involved in day-to-day.
Even as a Washington lifer, I would have to put them on the list somewhere. The last two years of competence still don’t erase the previous eight of Dan Snyder bullshit. Not at the top where they would otherwise likely belong, but at least above the Giants, who have been directionless for a while but not a total embarrassment off the field, which would describe most of the teams lower on your list.
I’d have the Panthers higher. They are 61-104 in the last decade. Only the Browns, Giant, and Jets have lost more games in that span, and not by that much. David Tepper is the stereotypical meddling, impatient, impetuous owner.
No love (or is it hate?) for the Dallas Cowboys? They hold the record for the longest active streak for not appearing in a conference championship game, now at 30 years. Their last appearance was during their Super Bowl winning season in 1995. Admittedly there’s probably other stats that are better measures of futility, but as a long suffering Cowboys fan, that’s the one I’ll focus on for this thread. Of course, I don’t think there’s any debate as to why that is. It’s because Jerry Jones is a bad owner (in the sense that he lacks talent, as opposed to other owners who just don’t care about winning). His meddling in the football side of things ever since Jimmy Johnson left is, IMHO, what has led to this lack of success.
Focusing on the last ten years, as per the OP, I’m going to go with:
Browns (revolving-door management, bad personnel decisions)
Raiders (meddlesome, incompetent ownership, continuing historical tendency to fall in love with fast/strong/flashy players, continuous GM and coaching churn)
Bengals (cheap owner who is also GM)
Cowboys (Jerry Jones falls in love with certain players, and refuses to fire his 83-year-old GM who is absolutely no longer fit for the job, because it’s himself)
Yup, you guys get exempted. Things definitely started to turn around after William Clay Ford passed away, and got even better once Sheila Ford Hamp took over the team.
The biggest gotcha stat for the Giants is that during this stretch where they are the second worst team in the league by record – only the Jets are worse! – they actually won a playoff game. Of course playoff games don’t count towards the win total, but the fact that they are the 31st team by wins while making a playoff run one year only serves to highlight how incredibly bad all the recent non-playoff years have been.
By any business metric, Jerry Jones and company are wildly successful. The team organization is valued at 13 billion dollars, revenues of 1.2 billion, and profits of 629 million, making them the most profitable professional sports franchise anywhere.
Their management and on-field malaise is due to Jones himself and his constant meddling. But he absolutely knows what it takes to make money as a pro sports owner. I mean, I live in Dallas, and I can’t watch the TV news at any time of year without at least one Cowboys story every day, every season. It could be early May (roughly the midpoint between the Super Bowl and the start of training camp), and we’ll still have some fluff piece about some aspect of the Cowboys. Same thing in the paper.
You’re not wrong; measured by revenue and visibility, the Cowboys are an absolute f***ing juggernaut. This is despite the fact that, measured by on-field results, especially playoff results, they are, at a minimum, in the bottom half of the league for the last couple of decades, in no small part to, as you note:
Will Jerry die a very very wealthy man, with only three Super Bowl rings (and none in the last 30 years) to show for his nearly 40 years of spending in pursuit of on-field success? Sure seems that way at this point.
I should also note, in regards to the Cowboys’ front office: it’s also full of nepotism.
Jerry Jones, the team owner, is also the general manager, as already noted. Jones has three legitimate* children:
Stephen Jones is the Cowboys’ Chief Operating Officer and Director of Player Personnel
Charlotte Jones Anderson is the Cowboys’ Chief Brand Officer
Jerry Jones Jr. is the Cowboys’ Chief of Sales
All three also hold the title of Executive Vice President
*- He also apparently has an illegitimate daughter; he paid the daughter and her mother several million dollars over the years, in order to keep them from attempting to legally establish his paternity.
Yes, and imagine how well the Cowboys would be doing financially if Jerry could squeeze just one more Super Bowl title out of them in the post-2020 era or so. They might be valued at $20 billion.
I used to think that Jerry was just a terrible egotistic owner who wanted to win but insisted on doing it his way, but lately I question if he even wants to win at all. The guy seems to have no urgency, drive or fire. When the Cowboys lose, he’s just like, “meh.”
The Dan Snyder years in Washington were the first thing that came to mind but my thinking may be skewed by what an execrable human being he was.
I read an interesting profile on Jerry Jones some years ago where he forthrightly admitted his meddling tendencies and the poor results that ensued. He said that it was part of his personality, that he couldn’t help himself and that he wasn’t going to change. Sympathies to the Cowboys fans (not really) for suffering through the endless future decades of that dynastic ownership.
Jones and Snyder are hard to beat, but I don’t think there is any way the answer can be other than the Cleveland Browns.
Signing Deshaun Watson knowing he would be suspended for a season, and giving him that much guaranteed money, was not just a football management failure it was a moral failure.
They didn’t have to do it. They chose to reward a serial sex criminal and alienate their fan base. Then they tried to gaslight the fans into believing that Watson was both a good person and a good football player when everybody could see that neither was true.
I think he wants to win, but not badly enough to do what it takes to actually accomplish that. Look at it from his perspective- if he’s able to do what he personally enjoys the most (interfere and meddle with the team on-field and personnel operations) and the business side of things is still raking in the cash hand-over-fist, that’s like the personal sweet spot for him.
It would probably be easy enough to set up a dynasty- he’d just need to poach the top GM and top coaches from around the league/college ranks, and set them up with the right latitude and funding to get the job done over time. Which wouldn’t be that big of a lift for an organization with the resources of the Cowboys, but it would require him to basically be an observer, at least relative to what he’s been doing for the last 25 years or so.