Jason Witten stands by Jerry Jones’ criticism of Cowboys: 'That's completely fair'
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones publicly called out his head coach on Sunday following their 13-9 loss to the New England Patriots at Gillette Stadium, and stood by his comments again on Tuesday.
Cowboys tight end Jason Witten — who is now in his 16th season playing for Jones’ team — said on Tuesday that he completely understands where Jones is coming from.
“Passion, emotion, the energy he brings, that is Line 1 for Mr. Jones, I feel from my perspective,” Witten said, via ESPN. “He wants to win. He expects to win. He feels like he’s put a great team together, which he has, and we haven’t played to our expectations of where we should be. That’s completely fair.
“I think it’s just the raw emotion of it all. He’s been around great football and knows what he wants it to look like.”
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The Cowboys dropped to 6-5 after the loss on Sunday, prompting Jones to call out coach Jason Garrett — who is in the final year of his contract with the organization. Jones, though, was adamant that he would not fire Garrett in the middle of the season.
“With the makeup of this team, I shouldn’t be this frustrated,” Jones said Sunday, in part.
Yet with all of their struggles this season, the Cowboys are still in first place in the NFC East.
That, running back Ezekiel Elliott said, is a big bright spot within their locker room.
“Just with us not winning, you’re going to be frustrated,” Elliott said, via ESPN. “Where we are grateful is that we do control our destiny and we can control our destiny in these last games and get into the playoffs.”
In order to do that, though, the Cowboys will need to win — starting with Thursday’s Thanksgiving matchup against the Buffalo Bills.
A win there would mark Dallas’ first against a team with a winning record this season, as they’ve dropped games to the Green Bay Packers, Minnesota Vikings, New Orleans Saints and the Patriots.
While Garrett knows what’s at stake — and is very aware of what his boss has said about him and his team this week — he insists his focus is simply on Thursday first.
“We just focus on what we need to do to coach and play our best and get ready for this ballgame,” Garrett said, via ESPN. “Buffalo’s a good football team, so we’ll just keep our attention right there.”
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