Jerry Jones: Cowboys not rebuilding
Jerry Jones said Tuesday that the Dallas Cowboys are not in a rebuilding mode, despite losing star defensive end DeMarcus Ware and Pro Bowl defensive tackle Jason Hatcher in free agency and having his quarterback recovering from back surgery.
If anything, Jones said during a 35-minute chat with the Cowboys' beat writers, that he thinks Dallas has improved its defensive line in free agency, led by the signing of tackle Henry Melton.
Jerry Jones said that despite the loss of DeMarcus Ware, the Cowboys are not in rebuilding mode -- specifically because they have Tony Romo.
Jones, the Cowboys' owner and general manager, also pointed to the fact that Dallas has Tony Romo as their quarterback as a reason why the team is not rebuilding.
"Not at all. You don't rebuild with Romo," Jones said at the NFL's owners meetings. "The firepower we have on offense and where we are with our running backs, and our receivers -- you don't rebuild with an offense that's got the capability we've got.
"We didn't bring [Scott] Linehan in here to rebuild."
The Cowboys finished the last three seasons at 8-8, and coach Jason Garrett wasn't given a contract extension, leading to speculation he's coaching for his job.
But Jones said Garrett isn't coaching for his job and if anything else, he's on the same page with what the head coach is trying to do.
"I don't think so," Jones said. "I don't look at it that way at all. We've got a lot of experience together. It's no secret that we probably are shoulder to shoulder on the success we'd like for this team to have with him as head coach and what it would do for our fans' future, our future -- he's more capable today than he was when he took over as head coach, certainly more capable than he came and got on the staff."
When free agency started, the Cowboys had less than $10 million to spend. They released Ware in a salary-cap decision and didn't attempt to re-sign Hatcher.
Ware was signed by the Denver Broncos one day after his release from Dallas, and Hatcher inked a deal with the Cowboys' NFC East rival, the Washington Redskins, at the end of the first week of free agency.
The Cowboys signed three defensive linemen in Jeremy Mincy, Terrell McClain and Melton. Jones said signing those three makes better financial sense than keeping Ware, who was scheduled to make a base salary of $12.2 million and have a cap hit of $16 million in 2014.
"We're not rebuilding," he said. "We are, by necessity, having to revamp the defensive line from where we were this time last year, not with what we played with last year.
"We've definitely improved to what we played with last year. We ought to do better if we do improve there fundamentally, schematically we should be better in the secondary, we should have better play throughout the secondary, if we can have better defensive-line play."
