Here’s the message: Approximately 94% of NFL owners share something very important in common- they hire a general manager to manage football operations and let that person be completely in charge of the team’s roster management and on-field results.
There are only 2 owners who don’t use that model- Cincinnati’s Mike Brown and Dallas’ Jerry Jones. So how have the 30 other owners who hire a GM fared compared to Jerry and Mike Brown?
- The winning owners of the last 26 Super Bowls all hired a GM to run their football operations.
- The only time in the last 26 years a team who had an owner as it’s GM won a conference championship or even went to a conference championship game was last year’s bengals team.
- The combined playoff record of the two “GM owners” over the last 26 years: 7-18. (After the bengals won 3 playoff games last year)
Having the owner also serve as your GM is an inherently bad idea. The data of the last quarter century makes that clear. The owner has an emotional attachment to their team that makes it more difficult to make the tough decisions needed to win in this league.
So the next time Jerry tells us how bad he wants to win- just remember- he doesn’t want to win bad enough to do what it takes to win a SB. And 30 NFL owners have made it abundantly clear that starts with hiring a real GM.
