The Josh Innes Show - I love Jerry Jones

Episode Date: August 21, 2025

I started the new Cowboys doc on Netflix. I can't really tell you if it's good or not because I fell asleep about 15 mins in. I love Jerry Jones. We need more fun owners. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So earlier I mentioned that I went to sleep early last night, and the reason I went to sleep early, well, early for me, which is I got in bed at like 9.45 and fell asleep at like 10. But part of the reason why I got in bed early is I was just tired. Like I, well, obviously, what a dumb thing to say. Like, hey, you know, part of the reason why I slept is because I was a little bit tired. I thought you guys should know. But I tried to watch the first episode of this Dallas Cowboys show on Netflix. and I couldn't keep my eyes open and I didn't want to miss anything from this

because I think this thing is going to be fucking incredible but let me play a few commercials and let's talk about that so Jillie and I tried to start watching the Dallas Cowboys, the America's team Jerry Jones documentary and the first 10 minutes of it

was mesmerizing like it was great the intro was great the backstory is great how Jerry Jones wants to buy the team team is great. How he came upon his $100 million is great. I get that there are a lot of people who hate Jerry Jones, whether it's you like the Cowboys and you hate Jerry Jones or you hate the Cowboys, unless you also hate Jerry Jones. I love the guy. I think he's fascinating. I think the Cowboys are fascinating, right? Not from a winning standpoint. Like, I'm aware they don't win enough,

but that's what makes them even more interesting. They're interesting because they've got this owner who is desperate to fucking win. But he's also an owner who, who is desperate to keep his team in the front page. It's a fascinating thing. It's a wild dichotomy between him and every other owner that's ever existed, right? So I make it through about 15, 20 minutes, and then I start to kind of pass out, and Jilly's like, well, let's save this because I really want to watch it. But, I don't know.

I just find guys like him interesting because they don't exist anymore. Tell me an owner, like a new owner of a sports team or a recent, you know, 2000s owner of a sports team that you look at and go, wow, that guy's pretty easy. interesting. You know, like Dan Snyder? You know why he's interesting? Because he's a fucking dip shit. But like, I'm talking about a guy who's so driven to win, a guy that is so passionate about winning, but is also passionate about being front page news and has built this universe where his team is the number one brand in all of sport and has the most valuable franchise in all of sport. They don't exist. Like, who are the eccentric? Like, Mark Cuban was the

eccentric owner for a while. But then Mark Cuban kind of leveled out. Like he went from being kind of like the cool, you know, internet bro that own the team and sat courtside wearing jeans in a t-shirt and bitched at the refs and you're like, this guy's super relatable. And then you realize he hates all of us and he's an asshole. So like Mark Cuban's not that cool anymore. He also isn't the full-on owner of the team anymore either. But like when he was kind of in his heyday, he was pretty fucking cool. You were like, and wow, Mark Cuban. Find me that owner of a team now that has that kind of universal appeal and is a controversial figure and not a controversial figure because of criminal shit

although like he had the thing where like the chick took the picture with him in the bathroom and shit which was a lovely picture but where like find me another owner that you circle in a professional sports league and go this guy is kind of the eccentric kind of controversial they used to be everywhere like if you think about dudes who used to own teams think about some of the most amazing stories about different NFL owners and baseball owners who used to own teams because, A, franchises weren't worth what they're worth now.

So, like, the Cowboys are worth billions of dollars. Back in the day, like, even the lower-end teams are worth a ton. Like, a WNBA team can be purchased for, like, $300 million. People weren't buying sports teams for $300 million back in the 70s and 80s, right? They were getting these teams for pretty cheap because they weren't nearly as valuable as they are now with the stadiums and everything else. The things that owners used to do and the show,

that surrounded owners back in the day would have been amazing to talk about in today's world. Like, for example, the guy that owned the Rams, I forgot his name, but the guy that was at one time owned the Los Angeles Rams, he was married to Georgia Frontier, who eventually moved the Rams to St. Louis.

This guy one day just goes out for a swim in the ocean and dead. Just dies. And there's a mystery surrounding it, and the idea is that, like, the mob took his ass out. A lot of these guys were in bed with the mob, but not a lot, but some of them were involved with the mob because that's where the money was and they needed money to

sustain. Well, look at Norman Brayman. Norman Brayman was the owner of the Eagles in the 80s. And Brayman wasn't a popular owner from what I recall, but Brayman was the owner of the Eagles. This guy had to sell the team because he had too much gambling debt. Dude would just throw down millions of dollars at casinos, go to Atlantic City, millions of dollars. This guy had to get rid of the team because of a gambling problem. like you wouldn't hear that now like it's possible that there's an owner with a gambling problem but you're never going to hear that such and such had to sell the team and rumor has it it's because he couldn't stop gambling at the fucking Borgata you know you never hear that like

that's fascinating shit think about the fact that the owner of the st louis cardinals at one time ran an heiser bush and was just like a fun old dude right that like or think about um i mean just go down the list of or finley or look at Bill Vec when he owned the White Sox and the St. Louis Browns. There's a great documentary, by the way, about Bill Vec and his son. Is it the saint of second chances, I think, is what

it's called on Netflix? Fantastic documentary. I would urge you to watch it. If you don't know anything about the Vex, I've read books about them, I think they're fascinating. They're like P.T. Barnum of baseball. But you don't see people who do that anymore. Now you see a bunch of owners. You question how many

of them even give a shit about winning and how much of this is just making money. I mean, look around baseball. Like, look at the, I couldn't tell you who owns the Pittsburgh Pirates, but I know all they give a shit about is turning to profit and not putting a good product on the field. Back in the day, people wanted to put a good product on the field. People wanted to give to their fucking teams and win. Or if you had gambling debt, it was about finding a way to, you know, pay off your gambling debts.

But you don't see that anymore. You know, like, who are the fascinating owners? Who are the people? Like, think about the NFL. Shot Khan, is he that interesting of an owner? Not really. Kind of mysterious? No? Oh, I'll tell you who is interesting is Hannah McNair. Now, she is an interesting lady. She's my kind of gal, as you know. You know that I'm a big Hannah McNair guy. And her husband, who used to just seem like a bumbling dufus, is now a lot more charming now that the team is good and they do a little bit of other shit to try to make him less of a bumbling dufus. Like, he seems cooler now. But no one outside of Houston knows or gives his shit about the ownership of the Texans. The only time they cared is when Bob McNair said the inmates run the prison and they want to,

to put him out to pasture. I'm trying to think. The hunts, they just seem like solid owners in Kansas City. The Maras. Just go down the list of the people, the ownership in Pittsburgh, obviously, just solid ownership. There are no eccentric, wacky owners other than Jerry Jones. And he's a fascinating dude.

And I get that he's divisive. Like, I see a bunch of Dallas people and Dallas fans who just want Jerry Jones to go away. There were people rooting, like apparently in this documentary, I think is where we learned that he had some sort of skin cancer and almost died. We had a melanoma, I guess, and almost died. And there were people like, God, I wish you would have. You think that now, like you think that, oh, I can't wait until Jerry Jones is dead. Jerry Jones is a large part of the reason why the Cowboys are the Cowboys.

It's him being Jerry Jones. It's him being front and center. It's him being in the middle of the controversy. It's him being the GM. Jerry Jones is as much a part of the Dallas Cowboys being like in that second run of being America's team in the early 90s as Jimmy Johnson. Jimmy was obviously the coach.

Jimmy obviously got all the players. But the reason why the brand became the brand it is and the reason why for 30 years of not winning a Super Bowl, the brand still remains the number one brand in the NFL and in all of sport is because of Jerry Jones. So all these people that are like, oh, we got to get rid of Jerry Jones. I can't wait for Jerry Jones to die.

Jerry Jones is. When he's goal, he's going. the Cowboys become exponentially less interesting. And that's just reality. So I've watched about 20 minutes of this, and there's a story about how he was dead broke, 50 million in debt, on his last, you know, dig, I guess, looking for oil. Like he's Jed Clampett.

Although Jed Clampett wasn't looking for oil. He was just shooting at some food, and he found oil. But that had to have pissed off Wildcatters like Jerry Jones to see, you know. Like, I've been out here my whole life working, clon, scratching to try to get by. and what does this motherfucker chid clamid do? He misfires shooting at a goddamn bunny rabbit. Now he's got a goddamn mansion. Probably pisses him off.

But it's a fascinating story. And basically he's talking about how he was down, he went down to his last dollar. He had nothing. He was like in debt and he kept borrowing and borrowing and borrowing. And finally hit the glory hole, as it were, and made $100 million. And he said, in that moment I said, I'm going to buy the Dallas Cowboys. That was the money that was going to get me,

the Dallas Cowboys. I look forward to this a lot. Like, that is just, you could be an Eagles fan. You can be a lot of people who hate this. You can hate Jerry Jones. That's totally cool. I don't hate the guy at all. I admire the guy. I love to pick his fucking brain. I just love old school dudes like that. You know this. I have a crush on old men for whatever reason. Not the kind of old men that, you know, fall for Babylon Bee and Onion stories on Facebook. Not those kind of old men. But I have a thing for old men who are just old badass dudes. who did it in an old school manner. And Jerry Jones falls into that category.

So I'm looking forward to watching this one. I've only watched about 20 minutes of it. It looks like it's going to be fucking epic. And this is kind of the Super Bowl for the Cowboys fans, right? Like this is their thing. This is their last dance, right? They ain't going to the Super Bowl this year. They may never win another Super Bowl.

Jerry will be dead before they win a Super Bowl. They ain't doing it again this year because Dak ain't going to win one. And if it's not because he's not good enough, it's going to be because he's hurt, whatever. They ain't going to win shit. So this is kind of their moment. Like the Eagles are like, that's fine. We'll keep going back to different Super Bowls. We've won two Super Bowls in the last seven years, whatever.

Been to three Super Bowls since 2017. If you're an Eagles fan, like Julie and I were talking about this. We were like, do you think McDougal sits around and watches this and just yells at the TV? And I'm like, well, yeah, this is what. Honestly, if you gave McDougal the option to watch the Cowboys documentary and yell at it or watch the Eagles in the Super Bowl, there would be a percentage. Now, I don't know how high that percentage is, but there would be a percentage of McDougals that would rather just watch and yell at the TV about the Cowboys than watch the Eagles and the Super Bowl. But the Eagles have scoreboard, at least in recent history. So this is all the Cowboys have.

This is their Super Bowl. It's an eight-part documentary series about Jerry Jones in the early 90s Cowboys. This is like the extent of their success. Anyway, more to come.