What's Jerry Jones Really Think About His Cowboys Roster?

What Jerry is doing - craftily - is not comparing the roster to where it was three months ago, but rather, to where is was 12 months ago.

FRISCO - Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones this week unveiled a clever way to speak to both the holes on his roster and his faith in said roster.

“I think we can very easily be where we were last year talent-wise,” Jones said during Tuesday’s pre-NFL Draft media session here inside The Star. “I’m not willing to concede at all that by the time we get to the playoffs this coming year that we won’t be every bit the team that we had going into the playoffs last year.”

Clever.

Jones, who also said last year's roster compared favorable to most any in his 32-year Cowboys history - which is a mouthful, given that the early 1990's Cowboys might be the greatest assemblage of talent ever - is not hiding from truths here.

Last year's playoff failure was a crushing disappointment for him.

And this year's roster is - today - not what it was just a few months ago.

Dallas traded star wide receiver Amari Cooper to the Cleveland Browns in a salary dump, endured the defection of Randy Gregory to Denver, cut starting offensive lineman La'el Collins (who all but received a welcome parade in Cincinnati) and didn't blink when wideout Cedrick Wilson Jr. and guard Connor Williams both signed with the Miami Dolphins.

So how does Jerry Jones think this group is better? He doesn't; dig through his words carefully and he's talking about the promise of what can be, about the development of his young players, about the leadership of his veterans and about the hope of hitting on another Micah Parsons gold mine in this week's draft.

"I'm not factoring in finding this year's Parsons,'' he said. "I feel very strongly that we can have a team that can give us every bit the promise to evolve and get us back to where we were in the playoffs last year with the health level, the availability level, as well as the talent level that we had last year. I can go down through and look at specifics just within. Dak (Prescott) should be in better shape than when he was going into the playoffs ... That alone could put us in better shape for the playoffs.''

What Jerry is doing - craftily - is not comparing the roster to where it was three months ago, but rather, to where is was 12 months ago. That's before Parsons got here and while Dak was still rehabbing from major ankle surgery.

Meanwhile, what he is also doing, with as much subtlety as he can manage, is telling you the 2022 Dallas Cowboys are going to the NFL Playoffs. ...

"By the time we get to the playoffs this coming year,'' Jones said.

It's clever. It's crafty. It is, Cowboys Nation hopes, true.