Jerry Jones: 'We should smell the roses'

Jerry Jones, who celebrated his 72nd birthday the day after his Dallas Cowboys defeated the defending Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks, wants the party to keep going a little bit longer.

“We know we can’t dwell on it, but we should smell the roses here just a little bit,” Jones said Tuesday on 105.3 The Fan. “I know we’re back to concentrating on the Giants and have got to, but our guys know they can do something today that they did not know they could do when we arrived in Seattle. That’s a material thing. That’s a tangible thing. That’s not intangible.”

You can’t blame Jones for being giddy. After all, the 5-1 Cowboys are probably the most pleasant surprise in the NFL this season and physically dominated Seattle, handing the Seahawks only their second home loss since the start of the 2012 season despite a few major self-inflicted mistakes by Dallas.

But count this as another case of the owner/general manager and head coach sending conflicting messages.

Coach Jason Garrett’s 24-hour rule has been bent this season, but only because the players’ day off is now Monday with the film review on Tuesday afternoons. This film might be fun to watch, but there will be plenty of constructive criticism from the coaches, too.

“You have to just keep grinding away at it,” Garrett said Monday. “There’s so many things that when we look at our football team that we have to get better at, and our players see that when we show it to them on tape. It’s all over the tape.

“So there’s obviously some good things going on. Yesterday was a good win for our team. Can’t deny that. It’s a positive thing for our team in so many ways. Where we have to get better is at so many places and we’ll continue to focus on that.”

Jones can smell the roses as much as he wants. Garrett’s job is to make sure the players and coaches keep their noses to the grindstone.

That’s the kind of talk that was coming from the Cowboys’ locker room in the wake of their win in Seattle.

“We’re not going to make it bigger than it is,” tight end Jason Witten said. “There’s still a lot of football to be played.”