Interesting, do you have a link or article name? I’d love to read that self-admission by Jerry.
I have no optimism that Stephen will be any better after Jerry passes; he seems just as rigid and wrong-headed as his father, just maybe less obviously so.
Every indication I can see around here is that Stephen is less of a football dabbler and more of a straight businessman than his father, so maybe that’ll change things on the field for the better.
The Browns have been a front-office shitshow since their return to the league in '99; the Watson saga, and the incidents which @Atamasama points out, show that they aren’t getting any better recently.
About Jerry Jones and his meddling, I found this both sad and hilarious:
Jones took over the music during practice and his choice? The Pointer Sister’s Slow Hand, circa 1981.
The average age of players on the Cowboys roster is under 26, but the release year isn’t even the main issue here. There’s nothing about this song that would ever have it appear on anyone’s workout playlist, and the audacity of putting a personal favorite into the practice playlist simply because he is the team owner is about as egregious of a “look at me” move someone could make.
Note that this happened last year.
Wow.
I hadn’t listened to this song since the early '80s; I have it playing now. It doesn’t have a particularly slow beat (111 BPM, according to various sites), but the entire mood of the song is mellow and sexy. Appropriate for certain types of workouts, I suppose.
I’m surprised Miami hasn’t been mentioned yet. Over the last decade (and beyond) with a meddling owner and constant yo-yo’ing between total rebuild and wild win-now contracts leading to the mess they’re in now - new coach, new GM, eating nearly $100million in dead cap (though designating Tua as a post-June 1 means they “only” count 2/3 of that against this season’s cap), and essentially paying a QB over $50 million to play for another team.
My top three over the last decade have to be the Browns, Raiders, and Miami. Followed in ignominy and in no particular order, by the Jets, Panthers, Giants and probably the Jaguars (last season notwithstanding, it’s about their ineptitude over the last decade) and Washington maybe deserving to be there as well if averaging over the last decade and not the last few years.
Conway Twitty also covered it
So he did; it’s every bit as mellow and sexy and inappropriate for a high-energy workout as the Pointer Sisters’ version. I’m surprised that Mr. Cowboy didn’t pick the Twitty version. 
The Saints have been 92-73 over the last 10 seasons, with four playoff appearances and six winning seasons (including Dennis Allen’s only .500+ campaign).
You’re correct that the team took a few steps back after Payton left (and Brees’ retirement a year earlier) – but really, that’s to be expected. It’s rare to just reload and keep reeling off double-digit-win seasons after losing figures such as Payton and Brees.
Fast-forwarding past Dennis Allen’s tenure, head coach Kellen Moore and the Saints do have a long-term plan and do have their starting quarterback for the next 10+ years. Too early to call Tyler Shough a top-5 NFL QB by season’s end 2027? Not to me it’s not.
Have to agree with this. I was surprised by the inclusion of New Orleans on the OPs list.
Seems to be recency bias and not based on mismanagement but on perceived quality and win-loss.
No team is going to lose an all time great QB/coach combination and just bounce back without a lot of luck (or Luck, in the case of Indy). Especially when it was sustained (unlike New England) with savvy but expensive free agent signings. Dealing with the costs from those signings was going to take time. That was the price of maintaining their window of success while they still had Brees and Payton.
I’m not necessarily going to say their current brain trust is amazing (yet to be seen, really) but they don’t seem to be mismanaging things.
On the topic of the Jets, whether this story is true or not, it’s the most hilarious one there is in inept sports ownership.
both you and bordelond make valid points. I stand corrected/updated, thanks. Surprised no ones commented on Cards.
wonder how much of that is due to QB hole, they had Barkley, usually good defense
They had Barkley and their lone playoff appearance over the decade (after finishing 3rd in their division with a 9-7-1 record) was solidly on his back.
And then Joe Schoen traded him away after the following season only for him to rush for 2000 yards and get a Super Bowl ring with a division rival. That’s the sort of decision making that gets people to put your team on these sorts of lists.
And looking back to his draft, Barkley was a good draft pick in isolation but in context, maybe they should have gone with this guy named Josh Allen? Maybe you’ve heard of him? Or maybe not - Allen probably would have gotten little development and been wasted.
The Barkley and Daniels Jones draft picks notwithstanding, they generally haven’t had good draft success. Gettlemen and Joe Schoen have hardly covered themselves in glory there (again, Barkley draft notwithstanding) and both of those players have gone on to find better success on other teams, which is also not a great sign.
All signs point to Harbaugh being in effective control with Schoen getting an effective demotion. That’s probably a good thing. Whether or not that leads to a huge amount of on field success (Harbaugh is starting to get on in years and it’s a big lift for anybody), it’s probably a massive improvement in team management over the last decade and hopefully a return to at least competence.
Almost certainly. Don’t forget that he came into the league with terrible accuracy. The Bills coached him up and after a couple of years they fixed him, and now he’s one of the best QBs in the league, but he didn’t start out that way. If he had gone to the Giants, he might have been mired in mediocrity, on a bad team where his undeveloped passing game never improved.
Apologies, no. I read lots of sports stories and it was some years ago. But it was something that stuck in my head.
Professional sports in the US are our versions of hereditary monarchies, no?
It can be, though there’s only a relative handful of teams remaining which have been in the same family’s hands for multiple generations.
In the NFL, off the top of my head:
The Cowboys aren’t on that list yet, because Jerry’s still alive, and his kids haven’t taken over yet.
Seahawks are not a family dynasty.
Jody Allen’s ownership is technically as the holder of the Paul Allen estate. And, as you point out, in the process of being sold out of the estate.
The Saints were passed from husband Tom Benson to wife Gayle Benson when Tom died in 2018. Tom Benson bought the Saints in 1985 from original owner John Mecom.
None of Benson’s children or other relatives will inherit the team upon Gayle’s passing. There is already a plan and a trust (?) in place to sell the team. Raisin’ Cane’s founder Todd Graves is rumored to be the front-running candidate for the eventual majority owner of the Saints.
To me, “multi-generation” team means it is passed from a parent to a child as the parent dies, and it gets inherited. Passing to a sibling or spouse is staying within the same generation. (And as pointed out, in the case of the Seahawks it didn’t even really go to Allen’s sister; she is just taking care of his estate until it gets sold.)
So I agree with you.