Only two Pro Football Hall of Famers who spent most of their careers with the Cowboys are not in the team’s Ring of Honor. Owner Jerry Jones went into the Pro Football of Fame in 2017, and former coach Jimmy Johnson earned a spot in Canton in 2020.
Jones makes up the one-man committee that controls the inductees into the team’s Ring of Honor. Last August, before the pandemic-delayed induction ceremony, Jones agreed to put in Johnson.
A year later, Johnson’s name still isn’t on the facade at AT&T Stadium.
Newy Scruggs of NBCDFW asked Jones a question about that Sunday, telling the owner it seemed “very petty” for Johnson not to be in the Ring of Honor.
“It’s BS for anybody to be making anything (of that),” Jones said. “I’ve said I’m going to put him in. Now, when I put him in, and the circumstances and what I do with that, there’s a lot more than Jimmy to think about here, and I’ve got a lot of other lives out here that have laid a lot on the line on the field that need to be in that Ring of Honor as well. And so how I do that, what I do it with, I get to make that decision, and it isn’t at the end of the day all tailored around whether Jimmy is sniveling or not.”
Johnson hasn’t coached the Cowboys since 1993.
Johnson and Jones’ relationship ended contentiously when they agreed to split after the Cowboys repeated as Super Bowl championships. The Cowboys won a third Super Bowl in the decade, in 1995, with Barry Switzer as the head coach.
It’s obvious by Jones’ quote Sunday that all is not Kumbaya between the former Arkansas teammates.
“I’ll be very sensitive and be very appreciative of what Jimmy is, but it’s too much to say, ‘Well, that is the thing that gets up and goes to bed at night when we think about the Ring of Honor’ as to Jerry and Jimmy’s relationship,” Jones said. “Jerry and Jimmy were two of the luckiest guys that’s ever been on this earth to get to be sitting here having this talked about if you want to know the truth about it.”
Jones did present Johnson his Hall of Fame ring during halftime of a game last season.