USATDAY:Jerry Jones: Cowboys 'pretending' they're still 0-3 to stay sharp in bye week

Jerry Jones: Cowboys 'pretending' they're still 0-3 to stay sharp in bye week
02:38 PM

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones wants his 1-2 team to keep its edge of desperation during the bye week.

And he's pushing an intriguing psychological button this week to do that -- instructing his coaching staff to act as if they're still in winless, crisis mode during this bye week.

Imagine Cowboys coach Wade Phillips as actor Jimmy Stewart's character George Bailey in the Frank Capra Christmas classic film It's a Wonderful Life.'

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Instead of waking up this week at 1-2 in Valley Ranch, Phillips wakes up in Pottersville -- the dark, sinister place that would have been life in Capra's film if George Bailey had never been born.

Leave it to Jones to borrow from classic Americana to keep America's Team's pedal to the metal.

Acknowledging that his team plays its best when the pressure is highest, Jones told USA TODAY, "You know what we're doing? We're pretending. I'm pretending.

"It's a luxury to be able to do it this bye week. And I asked our coaches to do the same thing: 'Let's pretend for a few days here that we're 0-3 and try to run that tape forward and feel how it would feel (to be winless) and how you'd be being criticized.

"Let's get all that on us because we've got an opportunity to do it.

"It's like Jimmy Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life. You've got a chance now, and then you wake up and say, 'That's not the case, and say, 'Hey, let's go.'

"That'll cause you to do maybe that little extra thing during this bye week that will help us maybe not have that feeling again.''

It's as if Sunday win at Houston never happened and Phillips and the Cowboys are still trying to figure a way to climb out of a hole.

Wonder who will play Clarence, the guardian angel who shows up in the film to intervene and show a stressed-out George all the lives he's touched when he was contemplating jumping off a Bedford Falls bridge?

Roy Williams? Dez Bryant?

-- Jim Corbett

I understnad what they are doing from a psychological standpoint in still playing with your backs to the wall, but they just need to do what they were doing like last week. They need to tune out the media. Garrett needs to call a more balanced attack. We ran the ball 27 times in the Texans game compared to 21 times in the previous two games combined.

You mean pretending like you do as a GM?

Hey, look now....I'm a Doctor.

LAZARUS_LOGAN said:

I understnad what they are doing from a psychological standpoint in still playing with your backs to the wall, but they just need to do what they were doing like last week. They need to tune out the media. Garrett needs to call a more balanced attack. We ran the ball 27 times in the Texans game compared to 21 times in the previous two games combined.

Keep reading...

You understand it because it's retarded.

They know they're 1-2. They'll play like they're 1-2.

Bonecrusher#31 said:

Jones told USA TODAY, "You know what we're doing? We're pretending. I'm pretending."

Keep reading...

He has never been more honest since he's been here.

sbk92 said:

You understand it because it's retarded.

They know they're 1-2. They'll play like they're 1-2.

Keep reading...

Then that makes two of us. You must understand it yourself to even recognize it is retarded in the first place. IOWs like recognizes like.

Hey, check this out, guys. We're 0-8 right now. Now play pissed.

Idiots.

This entire thread makes me laugh out loud. :Clap

sbk92 said:

You understand it because it's retarded.

They know they're 1-2. They'll play like they're 1-2.

Keep reading...

yea, that makes perfect sense, I guess the Cowboys played like a fucking 0-2 team against the Texans too right?

Good, if that is the case, I hope Dallas plays like that all year.


Good grief.

Plymkr said:

yea, that makes perfect sense, I guess the Cowboys played like a fucking 0-2 team against the Texans too right?

Good, if that is the case, I hope Dallas plays like that all year.


Good grief.

Keep reading...

The Cowboys did play like an 0-2 team against the Texans. That's why your owner/fake GM wants to pretend they're 0-3. He wants the same backs against the wall effort.

That makes sense. But it's idiotic to think it's possible. Players know their situation. Some oil salesman telling them to pretend they still haven't won a game yet is a joke.

Explain why again you like this team? . everything outta your trap is piss whine and moan.

, my owner.. , I didn't hire the fucker, nor did I help in the process of him getting the team. Fuck, just as bad when fans use the lameass term "we" when talking about the Cowboys.