The Ringer NFL Show - Inside the Jerry Jones Media Bubble: Is He Winning or Losing the Narrative in Dallas?

Episode Date: September 30, 2025

Bryan Curtis from The Ringer’s Press Box podcast joins Sheil to share his experiences in the Jerry World media scrum while covering the epic Cowboys-Packers tie on Sunday. They then shine a light on the billionaire owner’s mercurial relationship with the media, both locally and nationally. For more reporting on Bryan’s sojourn into the belly of the Cowboys media bubble, check out his article on The Ringer here. (00:00) Intro/cold open(2:38) The Jerry Jones press scrum(6:30) Jones’s relationship with the media(12:38) The Dallas bubble vs. the national media(19:30) How did the Micah Parsons trade affect how we view Jones?(23:48) The Hurry Up: Tyreek Hill’s injury on ‘MNF’ The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.rg-help.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Host: Sheil KapadiaGuest: Bryan CurtisProducer: Chris SuttonSocial: Kiera Givens and Arjuna RamgopowellProduction Supervision: Conor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. I'm your host, Shield Capadia, here with the Ringer's, Brian Curtis, you know him from the press box, one of my personal go-to podcasts on the Ringer podcast network. Brian was at Packers Cowboys on Sunday night. And so we thought let's talk to him about the Jerry Jones media bubble, what it's like to cover Jerry Jones, what we learned about Jerry Jones from this whole Micah Parsons situation. Brian, you're still in Fort Worth. What has been like the dominant sports talk radio conversation since that tie on Sunday night. It's a greatest tie of all of our lifetimes. I mean, that's my headline. You know, listen to sports radio here in Dallas. It's optimism, honestly, because I don't know how many people

thought that Cowboys are going to win that game, A, and B, if you look at this Cowboys season, I think the thing that scared you was that games like this would be 40 to 7, not 40, 40. And so the the idea that the Cowboys have a live offense with C. Lamhert with two offensive linemen hurt. Not bad. Not bad. Yeah, they put up, they have a top five offense by every,

so they're going to be entertaining. We know that and we'll see how many games they win in the NFC. We're going to take a break. We come back and we talk about the Jerry Jones media bubble. I've got so many questions for Brian Curtis about his Sunday night experience. This is the Ringer NFL show presented by Fandul, and the NFL is officially back. So if you're going to be in it, be in it with Fandul.

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Must be 21 plus and present in select states. We're 18 plus and present in D.C., Kentucky or Wyoming. Gambling problem. Call 1-800 gambler or visit RG-Help.com. Call 1-888-8-97777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. paid endorsement. Back here on the ringer and a bell show. So Brian, let's start here.

Take me through like just the Jerry Jones press scrum. Because I've never done this. Maybe this should be on my bucket list. But for those who don't know, NFL owners generally address the media like one, two, maybe three times a year if you're lucky. But Jerry Jones is different. And he addresses the media after every single game. So take me through the process.

You're in the press box, watching the game end in a tie. and then what happens as you make your way to Jerry Jones? And what is that scrum actually like? Shield, this is one of the seven wonders of the sports writing world, truly. Everybody's in the press box. You race for the elevator, in this case, a freight elevator last night. So just imagine I'll see sports writers crowded into a freight elevator. Go down to the bottom level of AT&T Stadium.

And you walk to the Cowboys locker room. Now, as you say, in every other team in America, you are waiting to get into the locker room to talk to the actual. players, but with the Cowboys, Jerry Jones walks out of the locker room and addresses the media before any of his players and coaches talk. That's the Jerry thing. I go first. You might have played coach in the game, but I'm actually first. And he had a funny comment last night with, I'm not going to be here very long. And we're all like, yeah, right. And sure enough, he did 20 minutes. And it was at least the third time he talked last week. You know, I mean,

this is, this is, you're talking about three times a year. No, Jerry talked three times. this week. And that's just this huge scrum of people. I mean, just imagine bright lights, bright camera lights. And by the way, this is the Dallas Cowboys recording this as much as it is like TV cameras locally. The Dallas Cowboys record these Jerry sessions and post them on YouTube. That's the thing that happens. I was behind Jerry. You actually see pictures of me in a few of the clips. And I'm, you know, holding my phone over, you know, try to get over his shoulders. I can hear him because Jerry is not a super loud guy. And I can kind of see, you know, like his sweaty brow and his big blue suit and, you know, and I'm looking at his lip. I was like,

is that a, is that a little scab up there? I mean, we were just, just close as you could possibly be to a billionaire. And then he's just talking about everything. He's talking about Michael Parsley. He's talking about the feud. He's talking about whether he thinks ties should be a thing in the NFL going forward. I mean, you can ask him anything. Now, what are the vibes from the reporters who are there every week during these? Because, listen, why I like you, you know, the press box so much is because Brian loves the media, but Brian likes to make fun of the media just like I do. You know, I think this is why we like each other. But are they rolling their eyes?

Are they like, you know, we're doing this again? Are they like appreciative of the content? Are they like, this is the, you know, 40th time I've done this in the last five years or whatever? What's just sort of the mood of the other reporters? Because usually it's like I said, it's a big thing if you're covering a team and the owner talks. It's like, oh, I've been saving these questions for all year. But with Jerry, it's just totally different. it's interesting, Sheel.

They're actually enjoying it and rolling their eyes at the same time. And they're rolling them right in front of Jerry. They're not really trying to hide it. You know, famously he came to his press conference after trading Micah Parsons and called him Michael several times during that press conference. He called him Marco last night. And immediately, everybody starts giggling and Jerry realizes that, you know, you just got to give me a few on these.

You've got to forgive me. Sometimes I mess up the names. My Michael sound like Micah. And, you know, everybody's just laughing. like it's almost like you're talking to somebody in a bar rather than talking to a billionaire in a formal, you know, interview setting, talking to one of those powerful people in the NFL by any measure. So, you know, and what do reporters think they love it? They get the guy. You'd always rather have material than not. Yeah. You know, I've heard you talk about this on the press box, just like how you cut, you know, I think there was a Joe Biden comparison. But just like Jerry Jones is 82 years old. what is sort of the balance like the media's responsibility if there is any of that sort of like,

hey, let's give him a little bit of grace. You know, he is 82 years old. So he got the person's name wrong versus like, we're here to report what he's actually saying. And he is in charge of this football team. Like, how do you think writers who cover him every day or even you, how do you sort of balance that? That's what's tricky because he defeats a lot of that skepticism by just giving them so much material. How could you possibly be mad? How could you really ask, you know, truly probing questions?

Not why did you trade Michael Parsons, but how much do you know about schematic football, you, the general manager of the Dallas Cowboys? And to me, what we don't know a lot about when it comes to Jerry is his decision-making process. He can get up there and talk about Michael Parsons and why he did and why he did this and why he did that. But what's Jerry like behind the scenes? When he says he wanted to stop the run, how does he talk about stop? the run in the 2025 NFL. What does he know about Kenny Clark,

the Packers' Devincent Tackle he traded for? Right. That level of depth, if we were talking about a president of the United States, we'd want to know the questions they were asking in meetings. And to me, that's the great unanswered question about Jerry Jones. You know,

like, Cowboys are kind of like the Bengals or the Cardinals, and they're very much a family organization. They just happen to be the Cowboys, so they're worth $10 billion more than those teams. But the decision-making is really the same. same. And I feel like we just don't know much about it. Yeah, it's a, it's a great question and you look at it. It's not like they have been, no, they haven't won the Super Bowl, but I was just looking earlier today. The last 10 years, they've got the seventh most wins in the NFL. So it's, you know, they're drafting

guys like Jack Prescott and Mike, like some, you know, I know Will McClay gets a lot of credit and there are people behind the scenes. But you're right. How is that, how is that information conveyed to him? Does he have his own opinions? Is it just, I trust these people? All those things are kind of, an unknown here. I wanted to ask you about how Jones's commitment to taking care of the media has helped or hurt him. Because I always look at some of this stuff with the media. And you know it as well as I do. Like, I look at some players and I'm like, if I were a player's agent, when they were going to the NFL, I would say, learn the reporter's names, shake their hands, smile. If they tell you something about themselves, like bring it back up. And guess what? When you had that big

fumble in the fourth quarter or that big mistackle, they are going to show you more grace than they would if you were just a jerk. And I feel like Jerry Jones is kind of that to the nth degree. I mean, I remember Brian, one time I was covering an Eagles Cowboys game in Dallas and there was some weather event. I can't remember it was a tornado storm, whatever. And I'm packing up my stuff at 1 a.m. in the press box and I'm going to leave. And the woman there says like, is asking me, you know, where am I going? And I'm like, I'm just going to get an Uber back to the hotel. And she's like, we have someone who can drive you. And I'm like, really?

I've been in like a lot of NFL press boxes. And she's like, yeah, hold on. Just wait here. Guy comes over, drives me and my friend. We go in his pickup truck. He works for the Dallas Cowboys. And he drives us back to our hotel. There's this like level of hospitality.

And that story always resonates in my mind. And I just wonder, Jerry has been accessible. He's been open. He believes in the power of the media, the power of access. How has this kind of helped or hurt him over the years? and specifically maybe in recent years. Well, it's interesting. My favorite Jerry story is 2018.

I was working for the ringer, and I wanted to interview him. And he agreed to do an interview. And so I flew down to Dallas. I am ushered into his office by the Cowboys PR guy, who goes, you two know each other right and leaves. And I am alone with Jerry Jones in his office. Nobody's recording the conversation but me.

Nobody's listening to the questions. Nobody's stepping in to be like, okay, that's enough of that. Just me and him. And this is the honestly God truth, Sheel. over an hour later, I ran out of questions, and Jerry Jones walked me to the elevator. Wow. That's the thing that you talk about a hospitality. This is the billionaire owner of the Cowboys who literally doing it himself.

So what is that bought him? Tons of goodwill, including with people like me, because I'm happy to get mad at Jerry Jones, but I do remember experiences like that. I bet other sports writers are the same way. I think it's caused a ton of headaches around the organization because players and coaches are constantly answering for things that Jerry Jones said. Like it's very, very common after a Cowboys game, Jerry talks first, and then guess what? They walk in and they ask Brian Schottenheimer, hey, Jerry Jones just said this.

What is your response? Which is reporters being reporters. So, you know how much football coaches, a quarterback like Dak Prescott loves to just have everything locked down. Well, just imagine if you have this guy, this wildly quotable guy who loves attention, who wants to make headlines talking all the time. and you've got to respond to that. That's a challenge that doesn't exist in any other franchise.

Yeah, no doubt about it. All right, let's take a break. Come back. I want to talk to you about sort of the local perception and the national perception of Jerry Jones and then just kind of get into where is he a villain? Where is he at this point with both Cowboys fans and also nationally? This episode is brought to you by NFL Sunday ticket on YouTube TV.

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Terms restrictions and embargoes apply. Excludes digital-only games. Commercial use excluded, no refunds. All right, we're back on the Ringer NFL show. So yeah, I want to talk about like the Dallas bubble and the national media because you wrote a great column on the Ringer today. And there was something that really stood out. You know, you talked about Bobby Belt, who does radio for 105.3, the fan in Dallas.

And he said, I don't think any. was pro jerry from this trade, but they definitely just thought there were two bad guys. And that surprised me as someone who's been mostly ripping the Cowboys, you know, for this and saying, like, I can't imagine what it would be like to be the Cowboys fan. If they just had Micah Parsons with that offense, maybe they're an interesting team. But that was a different angle from it. What did you make of that when he told you that and do you agree? It really surprised me, too, because from afar, there's one villain in the micah trade, and that's Jerry. But I'd say the psychology of the Dallas sports fan is very interesting.

It's not like they're not mad at Jerry. They're just always mad at Jerry. And I think there's a little fatigue in being mad at Jerry. I mean, at some point I see sports writers here do the same thing every year, and especially after this micotrade. They get mad. They just, you know, go after them on the radio day after day. And then they say, well, we now have to cover the team.

like you can't do a hundred days in a row of being mad at Jerry. That's just you run out of material. Micah, as you know, there were just enough things in the air and those what I call now they tell us stories that came out after the trade where it's like, oh, you know, he was laying on a training table. And, you know, one day he didn't wear his jersey to practice or he tied it around his neck. There's just enough of that. And I think also remember this too with the Dallas sports fan.

Micah Parsons requested a trade. Now, people like you and I, we're very much. in the player empowerment era. We just understand that as, I think, a negotiating tactic. We understand players have a lot of agency in their lives now. If you're a hardcore Dallas Cowboys fan, you might not feel that way. And that might have been a bigger thing to you than it might have been to us nationally. Yeah, no, that's, you're right.

Whenever there's a player who's like, this player doesn't want to be here, there's usually at least a segment of the fan base. That's like, he doesn't, you know, he doesn't want to be here. Get rid of him. We'll find somebody who does want to be here. So that's always something to keep an eye on. I wanted to give it. So here's my take on Jerry Jones as just, I'm not there.

I'm not, I haven't covered him closely. My take has been he likes attention. He likes the Cowboys being in the headlines. He likes himself being in the headlines. He cares about branding and media coverage and attention and publicity. And then from a football perspective, he wants to do things his way. Like you said, family business, old fashioned. And he wants to win, but it's not like I want, I will change everything in the pursuit.

of trying to win a Super Bowl. It's like, I want to win, but I want to do it my way. In terms of that description, that's how I view Jerry Jones. If someone was just like, hey, you cover the NFL, what do you think of him? That's what I'd say. What am I right about? What am I wrong about there? I think you're pretty much 100% right.

He's not going to change anything that gives him any less agency in the process of putting together the Dallas Cowboys. So what happens when you have somebody who's not a football expert running the team as a GM? Well, they do stuff. And then if it works, they do it again. You know, my favorite one of these is Tyler Smith. That was such a wild number one draft pick a couple years ago. People like me were like, really?

The guy who led college football and penalties, you took him in the first round. What? He turns into an all-pro stud guard. Yeah. So then a couple years later, at the end of the first round again, they're like, oh, we'll just take a left tackle at the end of the first round. We'll just plug a bit at left tackle. Well, the odds of that working again are pretty wild.

But to me, it's just very basic with them. It works. They tried it again. You know, there's not this larger, you know, higher, playing a franchise building like you see in a place like Philly. It just doesn't exist in Dallas. I don't believe they have a plan. That's the thing. And you know, it's like if you, if you put me in charge of an NFL team, I bet I get hit on some number one picks just by reading people like you. Like, I'd be smart enough to do that. But would I understand football

at a level where I could actually execute a strategy year after year? No. And they can't. That's, that to me is the major drawback with him. I think that's right. Yeah, they've done such a, mostly maybe not every year, but they've got a lot of plays. players there that they have drafted where it's like, wow, it's a pretty good pick for where you got this guy. But then it's after that, like you said, what is the plan to build around Jack Prescott and C.D. Lamb and Michael Parsons. And they've won a lot of games, but they haven't been able to get over the hum. So you said there's Jones fatigue in Dallas. Is he a villain? Is it like, is it fatigue? Is it like, all right, you know, he's kind of like this

annoying, you know, old uncle or neighbor or something and like, all right, I don't agree with how he does business, but you know what? It's not that. Like, is he a villain locally? I don't, is he a villain nationally? I don't even know. It feels like that's almost too far to how people view him. I think he's simultaneously a villain here in Dallas and also just a wildly popular celebrity

figure at the same time. There's a local radio station here, basically the equivalent of WIP, but for Dallas, And they've actually banned the phrase, Jerry the owner should fire Jerry the GM. Because people have been saying it since I lived here in the 90s. Like that's just, and again, he is a villain. He absolutely is. People are so pissed off about the Micah thing. But you just, you just run out of steam eventually.

Like he did the, he does the thing you don't like. Well, guess what? He's still running the team. He's not changing it. He's not giving up power. And so what do you do? You know, if you're a Cowboys fan, that puts you in a weird corner. because if you root against them,

he's not going to fire himself. If they go 1 and 16 this year, or sorry, excuse me, 115 and 1, he's not going to fire Jerry the GM, right? He's not going to do it. So there's nothing to root for.

It's not like, you know, Mike McCarthy, you're like, okay, if they lose enough games, I'll get rid of him. You just have to sort of hope

that somehow half accidentally he does the right thing. And that's a really weird place for a sports fan to be in. That's the hardest thing in professional sports is when you don't trust ownership because everything else, the coach, the GM, the star, it's like there, it doesn't feel like there's a light at the end of the tunnel, but it's like, all right, eventually this era is going to be over and I'm going to have the next era and I'll be able to root for them.

And he's not even like, I'm not comparing him to Daniel Snyder, but that's what I always thought about Washington. It was like, there's nothing to root for here, unless there's something so bad, which there ended up being that he has to sell the team, you're out of luck until that happens. Like, you know, football franchises, it's a good business to be in. You know, owners don't just give those teams away once you get one. And so there's nothing really to root for when you're in that situation. And just imagine if the owner is also the president general manager, as it is here. Like that, again, there's no comp for us there in the NFL. All right.

Last thing I wanted to ask you about, I thought that the Parson situation was different because with guys like Dak and C.D. Lamb, there was a lot of drama. And I just, and he didn't. But eventually you're like he's not going to let them leave. He didn't let them leave. They're still part of the organization. But Parsons ended up being different where I was on here, you know, and we launched the pod going, everybody settled out.

Michael Parsons is going to sign, you know, a day before the opener. And he's going to be a part of the Dallas Cowboys. So when we kind of zoom out to how we cover Jerry Jones and how we cover the Cowboys and they're a content machine, I actually think now we have to take, there's going to be kind of more content because now you kind of have to just say, everything's in play. If they traded the guy who's maybe one of the five most valuable non-quarterbacks in the NFL, then we can do a segment on, hey, what if they do this? What if they do this? So how do you think the Parson situation, if at all, changed how we cover Jones or the content machine or the media

machine or however you want to phrase it? It's hard to process because as you point out, Jerry loves to pay his stars. He loves to keep stars around. It's a very unusual thing for him to do to get rid of a player like this. But I go back to his press conference after he traded Michael, quote unquote, Parsons. He said something really interesting. He said, you know those draft picks I got from Green Bay? I might turn around and actually trade those for other players to help the Cowboys immediately. I might not even make it to 26 and 27 in the draft. And that was an ingenious Jerry move because if you want attention, well, all of a sudden, people go, oh, you know, he could trade that next week.

Right. He could go get some veteran player. and he actually got asked about that very fact on the radio this week. So that's, again, you know, how does it change the way we cover him? Well, we just have to actually pay more attention to him, which is exactly what he wants. I just had a vision of myself like three weeks from now. All right, trade deadlines coming up. Listen, Jerry's got those two picks.

Cowboys are still in the mix. Could they trade for an edge rusher here? Did you now, you were at the game. Did you happen to catch the Jason Garrett, Jerry Jones pregame interview, Brian? Has this made the group chats or anything? I just saw a little bit of it. Tell me what the dynamic was like. Yeah, so it's about four or five minutes.

And is Jason Garrett, Maria Taylor, and Jerry Jones on. This is right before the game. Like, Michael Parsons is literally running onto the field as they're doing this interview. And, you know, they're reliving the good old days. Jason's like, we used to, you know, we prioritize quarterback, but we also prioritized edge rusher. How do you let this guy, you know, get out of the building? I think he was trying to, I'm asking the tough questions here.

And Jerry kind of did the thing you just mentioned. So it feels like this is a new part of his messaging where he's like, you might want to tricycle under the Christmas tree one year. You might not get it. But the next year you get a motorcycle or something. I'm like, what's going on here? But he started to get a motor. Like at the end, he's like, Jason, you were with me when we opened this building.

And I thought we were going to win a Super Bowl. I miss you. He's like, I miss you. I'm just like, this is crazy. The game's about to start. He's already done to your point. How many interviews last week? I don't think he said no to anybody about talking about this Michael Parsons trade.

And here he is minutes before the game. He's still talking about it. He's still explaining it. And guess what? I tuned in. So Jerry Jones wins again. He does. I mean,

he is truly a PT Barnum of our time. And to think like Jason Garrett, I'm sorry, we get warm and fuzzy. He's thinking about the Jason Garrett era of Cowboys football. But if you're Jason Garrett, why are you on TV? You were part of the Cowboys.

Like, you know, Jason Garrett is the Jaguars coach. He ain't got that job. NBC. You had the great tweet earlier this season. What did Jason Garrett say? It was about like someone being entertaining or something. Yeah, he said, a Cowboys coach,

you got to be purposely boring. I was like, oh, so you were, that was an act you were putting on. I had the same thought. And then when I saw you say it, I'm like,

thank you. Someone had to say it. We were all thinking it here. So yeah, that was a good piece of television with Jason Garrett. All right. Brian Curtis always brings it

the press box. It's in my regular rotation. I'm listening to both episodes every week with David Shoemaker with Joel Anderson. It is a terrific podcast. Check that out. Brian, thanks for joining us. And I'll be right back with the hurry up. All right.

The hurry up is our closing segment where I give you a take on news in the NFL. Big injury Monday night. Dolphins wide receiver, Tyree Kill, carted off the field in the third quarter. According to ESPN, the team fears that it's a discise. located left knee. And if that diagnosis is confirmed, this would be a season-ending injury. So the dolphins are one and three. They beat the Jets 27-21. It was not the most impressive victory I've ever seen. They still have a lot of issues on defense. They gave up 404 yards. They were plus three on turnovers or who knows how that game goes. Maybe they lose to the Jets. The point is just that it was

already highly unlikely that the Dolphins were going to be a playoff team this year. And if Tyree kills out for the year, it's even less likely. The question then becomes, when will the dolphins come to that conclusion? Because if they're taking a realistic view of their own team, they should be sellers between now and the trade deadline on November 4th, meaning could they move someone like edge rusher, Jalen Phillips, who's in the last year of his contract. Now, he's had injury issues, but still, younger player has started every game for the dolphins this season, leads the team in pressures. I'm not saying it's, you know, this isn't like Von Miller back in the day, but still, could he be someone who helps a more contending team? Bradley Chubb, another edge rusher for the

dolphins. Is he someone they could look to move? So I think those are things to keep an eye on with this dolphins team. I know we're not yet in October and crazy things can happen. Maybe they'll go on a run and they'll be, I don't think that's going to happen, but maybe something like that will happen. But if I'm looking ahead here, the Tyreek Hill injury, the ripple effect, the ripple I think the dolphins are going to be pretty high on my list of teams that should be sellers again between now and that trade deadline on November 4th. So we'll see if that ends up being the case. All right. Thanks to Christopher Sutton for producing Kiera Givens on social and additional production supervision by Connor and Evans and Arjuna Ramgopal.

I'm Sheila Kapadia. We'll talk to you tomorrow on the ringer NFL show. Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and and present in D.C., Kentucky or Wyoming. Gambling problem, call 1-800 gambler or visit RG-Hallp.com. Call 1-888-7-8-9-77 or visit ccpg.gat-org or visit MDGamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here.

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