Jerry Jones pledged to finally induct Jimmy Johnson into the Dallas Cowboys’ Ring of Honor last year, but no further plans have been announced on that front. Jones does not appear to be in any hurry to make that announcement, either.
Jones was asked by Newy Scruggs of NBCDFW when Johnson would be honored by the Cowboys, and Jones’ response was not exactly diplomatic.
“It’s BS for anybody to be making anything (of that),” Jones said, as transcribed by Charean Williams of Pro Football Talk. “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.
“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. 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.”
Johnson coached the Cowboys to back-to-back championships in the early 1990s, but he and Jones fell out after that. The two have been at odds since, and Johnson has been omitted from the Ring of Honor since. That seemed to change last summer, when Jones finally relented on his stance.
Johnson has made clear, however, that nothing more has come of this since then. Based on Jones’ quotes here, it hardly seems imminent at this point, and there still seems to be significant tension in that relationship.
