Jerry Jones
The saying is that everything is big in the State of Texas and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones took that to heart when he built AT&T Stadium in Arlington,Texas. AT&T Stadium opened in 2009 as the new home of the Cowboys. Skip Bayless of ESPN’s First Take refers to it as “Jerry World” while the NFL Network’s Rich Eisen likes to call it the “Taj MaJerry”. Yours truly references to the facility as “Casa de Jerry”. Anyway that you slice it, AT&T Stadium is one of the crown jewels of the National Football League as it can hold more than 105,000 people for a football game. But the football hungry State of Texas hasn’t always come out to support the Cowboys in their luxurious digs.
In five-plus seasons at AT&T Stadium, the Cowboys record there is only 24-19. This is a far cry from the Cowboys days when they called Texas Stadium home from 1971-2008 as opponents feared walking onto the field there in Irving,Texas. AT&T Stadium doesn’t give the Cowboys the home-field advantage that they need due to the fact that it is more of an amusement park than a football stadium. The Cowboys just happen to play alongside the spectacle that Jones has created in Arlington. AT&T Stadium is replete with cheerleaders, dancers, huge scoreboards, cars, and deejays just to name a few of the amenities. The Cowboys home doesn’t remind fans of the old RFK Stadium in Washington D.C. or the current Lambeau Field in Green Bay where the fans are on top of you and it is catered to the working class football fan.
AT&T Stadium
This season the Cowboys are 4-1, but their three contests at AT&T Stadium haven’t felt like home games for them. In Week 1, the Cowboys hosted the San Francisco 49ers and there was an influx of fans that made the trek from the Northern California. The same could be said in Week 4 when the Cowboys hosted the New Orleans Saints as there were large patches of black and gold in the stands. Last Sunday the Cowboys hosted the Houston Texans. And the sea of red that migrated from Houston was very visible as AT&T Stadium resembled NRG Stadium which is the home of the Texans.
Publicly, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones claims that he doesn’t have a problem with visiting teams bringing a large contingency of their fans due to the fact that they will fill seats at the stadium and more importantly they will spend money which goes into his pocket. Some fans of the Cowboys might have become disenchanted with the club due to the fact that the past three seasons have seen them produce an 8-8 record while Jones continues to employ head coach Jason Garrett who has been in that capacity since midway through the 2010 season. The Cowboys have started out fast this season, but some pessimistic fans in Dallas are still a little weary of a team that has gotten their hopes up in the past few seasons only to falter in the end. The last three seasons have seen the Cowboys enter Week 17 with a record of 8-7 and the notion that if they were to win their final game of the season they would be playoff bound. Instead the Cowboys lost each game to one of their respective NFC East foes who would go on to be crowned as the division champ.
In the 1970’s, the Cowboys were dubbed as “America’s Team”. During that decade the Cowboys were always on national television as they won two Super Championships and they never had a losing record. After a lull in the mid-to-late 1980’s, the magic returned in the 1990’s when the Cowboys won three more Super Bowl Titles in a span of four years. Due to their success the Cowboys were a team that traveled well on the road as they had fans in every state. But since 1996, the Cowboys have merely been a .500 team with only two playoff wins and their popularity has waned some.
While some people are waiting for the other shoe to drop this season for the Cowboys, the best thing for them to do is to continue winning. Right now Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo has been playing “team” football instead of playing “hero” ball which leads to him making costly turnovers. This season Romo has not been consistently forcing the football to Cowboys tight end Jason Witten or throwing to wide receiver Dez Bryant when he is doubled and triple teamed. Instead Romo is handing the football off more to Cowboys running back DeMarco Murray who is leading the National Football League this season in rushing with 670 yards on the ground which is big part of their 4-1 start this season.
The Cowboys will be on the road this afternoon to take on the Seattle Seahawks who are the defending Super Bowl Champions and a victory by Dallas would be a signature victory which could ignite their fan base. The Cowboys host one of their NFC East rivals next Sunday in the New York Giants in what will be a huge game in the division for both clubs. Since AT&T Stadium opened the Giants have been extremely comfortable there as they are 4-1.
If the Cowboys are able to enter their final six-game stretch of the season with a record of 6-3 or better, it will creates some optimism within their fan base. The Cowboys final six games of the season are highlighted by a pair of showdowns with the Philadelphia Eagles, a pair of road games against the Giants and Chicago Bears respectively and a home tilt versus the Indianapolis Colts. But if the Cowboys are able to hold their own and give their fans some hope for January football at AT&T Stadium other than the Cotton Bowl and the national title game in college football, they might have a true home field advantage for the first time at AT&T Stadium.
Jones has built a stadium to which the fans of the Cowboys have not always come out to, but if they are able to head into the month of December as one of the better teams in the NFC, Dallas will more than likely receive the same kind of fan support that they received during their days at Texas Stadium when they had a tremendous home field advantage which is always good for business in the Lone Star State.
Source: Pro-football-reference.com
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