Jones hopeful of super season

Dallas Cowboys coach Wade Phillips, left, and team owner Jerry Jones, right, laugh as Jones responds to a question during a football news conference on Friday in San Antonio, Texas. The players will have their first training camp workout Saturday at the Alamodome in San Antonio.
Dallas Cowboys coach Wade Phillips, left, and team owner Jerry Jones, right, laugh as Jones responds to a question during a football news conference on Friday in San Antonio, Texas. The players will have their first training camp workout Saturday at the Alamodome in San Antonio.

— Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones seemed to be trying to temper the obvious expectations he has for his team.

Not so easy when the next Super Bowl will be played in his own stadium, and the Cowboys could legitimately be in position to play in that game next February.

“There’s just not a whole lot of things not to like about the upcoming season,” Jones said Friday. “But we all know the game and the journey we have ahead of us.”

The ever-optimistic Jones has constantly reminded his players since the end of last season, and even before that, that they could be the first Super Bowl host team to actually play for the title. He beams withpride when talking about his $1.2 billion stadium that opened last season.

Yet, on the day before the Cowboys open the NFL’s longest full-squad camp this year, Jones talked about how the defending NFC East champions ended last season. After winning their first playoff game in 13 seasons, against Philadelphia at home, they lost 34-3 at Minnesota the following weekend.

“We have got a lot to make amends for, but that’s not all bad,” Jones said. “Where I think that I won’t be going is spending a lot of time talking about, ‘Well, we’re having the Super Bowl in the Super Bowl stadium, the expectation is to play the Super Bowl there.’”

Yet, clearly that is what he wants to happen.

Instead of a spending spree in an uncapped salary year, Jones emphasized continuity with a group that has had success - though still hasn’t reached the pinnacle the owner experienced by raising the Lombardi Trophy three times in a four-year span in the mid-1990s.

A slimmer Coach Wade Phillips (he has lost about 40 pounds since last season) goes into his fourth year with a 33-15 record in Dallas and a playoff victory to his credit as head coach.

Phillips has also settled nicely into the dual role of head coach-defensive coordinator. His 3-4 defense led by Pro Bowl linebacker DeMarcus Ware last year allowed the fewest points in the NFC, with consecutive shutouts to end the regular season.

Jason Garrett is still calling plays for Tony Romo, who is coming off a recordsetting year in which he also threw a career-low nine interceptions.

Jones said having that continuity “is a big deal. ... We have got a lot of continuity in what our players are going to be asked to learn and execute.”

The only significant changes came after Dallas cut expensive former Pro Bowl players Flozell Adams, their offensive left tackle the past 12 seasons, and safety Ken Hamlin (Arkansas Razorbacks).

“We do have a lot of starters coming back,” Phillips said. “We have a lot of starters who played well and are coming into the prime of their careers.”

Regardless of what happens, this is going to be a special season for the fivetime Super Bowl champions, who are marking 50 years asan organization. For the first time, Dallas has the highest all-time winning percentage in NFL history at .580, just ahead of Miami (.579), after the Cowboys won their last three games of the 2009 regular season.

Emmitt Smith, the NFL’s career rushing leader, is being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in two weeks, and the Cowboys are playing in the preseason opener that weekend in Canton, Ohio. Troy Aikman and Michael Irvin, teammates with Smith for those three Super Bowl championships under Jones, are already in the Hall of Fame.

With the extra preseason game, the Cowboys are the first full squad to open camp. Rookies of some other teams are already reporting, but no other full squads report until Wednesday.

Dallas has all of its drafted

Sports, Pages 19 on 07/24/2010

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