A new Netflix docuseries, ‘America’s Team: The Gambler and His Cowboys,’ chronicles the Jerry Jones era of the Dallas Cowboys.
The series covers Jones’ purchase of the team, the dynasty of the 1990s, and controversies surrounding key figures.
“I don’t like it like that. I like the pain,” Jerry Jones says when he is asked the question of why he doesn’t hire a general manager for his football team, instead of him being in charge of player personnel.
That answer certainly isn’t going to fly with die-hard Dallas Cowboys fans, who for years have implored Jones to turn over those duties to a more seasoned football mind, but instead, the team is ridiculed when it reaches an early end during the NFL playoffs or misses the postseason altogether, like they did in 2024.
Being relevant in the sports world in this day and age, with the saturation of social media, talk radio, and mindless, numbing, bloviating morning shows, is a golden ticket that you can’t buy. Unless your team is the Cowboys, who haven’t sniffed a Super Bowl appearance in three decades but are talked about ad nauseum as if their exploits on the field recently warrant a minute of anyone’s time.
There is one person largely responsible for that: Jerral Wayne Jones Sr., the 82-year-old Hall of Fame owner and general manager of the five-time Super Bowl champions.
Netflix has hopped on the Jerry’s World bandwagon with a fascinating sports series, titled ‘America’s Team: The Gambler and His Cowboys,’ premiering Aug. 19 on the streaming service, because let’s be real, there were cameras nearby and a chance for people to talk and dissect the film before the NFL starts its 106th season next month.
The film is directed with a slow, grinding pace by veteran documentarians Chapman and Maclain Way (‘The Battered Bastards of Baseball,’ ‘Untold: The Race of the Century’), who certainly benefit from getting unfettered cooperation from those intimately involved with the Cowboys.
Jones’ ‘gamble’ has certainly paid off: A $140 million investment in 1989 when he bought the team has turned into the most valuable sports franchise in the world, valued at $10 billion. They added three championships during his ownership, and in turn, have helped turn the NFL into its own money-printing press.
The eight-part series doesn’t skip any of the major contributors of the 1990s Cowboys, who would have set social media on fire if it existed back then.
The dozens of athletes and journalists featured provide context, praise, and biting criticism about Jones and do so with incredible insight, and the series also includes appearances from former President of the United States George W. Bush, Nike co-founder Phil Knight, and former Fox Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch.
“The Saturday Night Massacre,” the first episode, centers around Jones buying the team from Bum Bright – and jettisoning anything that wasn’t nailed down – telling you all you need to know about what’s coming. It sets the tone for what essentially most documentaries are these days: In this case, a glorified infomercial with just enough tears, Texas-sized egos, downright delusion, and lies (depending on who is answering the questions) to keep even the most skeptical viewers glued to their chosen device.
Jones doesn’t mince his words: His team is the best soap opera this side of “General Hospital”, and he wants the credit for his team’s success, direct or not. Yes, even when his team was losing $1 million a month, because he is the owner, president, and general manager.
The series has time to go through the paces, consistently going from the 1990s back to Jones’ time at the University of Arkansas, just as “The Last Dance” did in telling the story of the Michael Jordan-era Chicago Bulls.
For example, when asked about the infamous White House, a party and drug den near the team’s old headquarters at Valley Ranch, it got the ‘no comment’ treatment, like it was a matter of national security from numerous interviewees – except for wide receiver Michael Irvin, who was gleefully willing to spill the tea about his exploits.
Former head coach Jimmy Johnson gets a healthy amount of play, especially in the first four episodes, as well as the other ‘Triplets,’ fellow Pro Football Hall of Famers Troy Aikman and Emmitt Smith.
“Dictator” and “a–hole” are the terms most commonly used by Cowboys players to describe Johnson, who, with Jones, bickered like a bunch of third graders, debating who deserves credit for building those championship teams. The exchanges were repetitive, long-winded, and exhausting, sometimes slowing down the documentary; there are only so many times you can repeat the phrases ‘500 coaches’ or ‘I’m going to fire that (expletive),’ before it gets tiresome. But, of course, with the recent kumbaya singing, it allowed long-standing hurt feelings to be set aside, culminating with Johnson being inducted into the team’s Ring of Honor in 2023, featured in the final episode.
Perhaps the most emotional part of the documentary is the penultimate episode titled “Cocaine Cowboy,” which focuses on the literal trials and tribulations of Irvin, from his drug possession charge to being the subject of a murder-for-hire plot, to stabbing a teammate with scissors. The raw feelings from those situations, as well as the retirement of the Triplets and the crumbling of the empire, make for a compelling watch, in a ‘Taxicab Confessions’ kind of way, and almost makes you feel sorry for all involved – almost.
While nearly an entire episode is focused on Irvin, Jones skirts by with his only mere, or non-mentions of his controversies over the past 35 years, including a paternity suit, him being captured in a photo showing up at a 1957 protest to prevent six African American students from entering North Little Rock High School, or his stance concerning Cowboys players kneeling before the national anthem.
Jones seems reflective, sometimes through tears, when discussing subjects of his past, but also shines when storytelling, including mentions of Teamsters, the mob, and an interesting Jimmy Hoffa soliloquy when Jones attempted to buy the then-San Diego Chargers.
Jones has no doubt done incredible things for his team and the NFL at large, but the documentary doesn’t need eight episodes, some of which were not necessary to get the point across. It is a formulaic (and sometimes cringy) watch, complete with the cheesy western-style background for the subjects who are interviewed.
Overall, the documentary does its job, satisfying those who love and hate the Cowboys, while telling the story of one of the most fascinating franchises in sports history.