Pro Football Hall of Famer and former Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Terrell Owens is calling on the team’s owner, Jerry Jones, to step aside.
“Jerry Jones is really selling all these Cowboy fans. He’s selling them a fantasy. He’s selling them a dream,” Owens, 52, said on the Wednesday, September 16, episode of his “Get to the Point” podcast. “Jerry, I cannot deny, he is a great salesman. He needs to relinquish some of the control that he has with the team and allow some other people to step in place.”
Jones, 83, purchased the Cowboys in 1989 from previous owner H.R. “Bum” Bright for $140 million. The former vice president of his family’s insurance company famously put up $90 million of his own money — everything he had — to purchase the team, which was struggling financially at the time.
Since then, the Cowboys have won three Super Bowl titles under his ownership. However, Dallas has not returned to the Super Bowl since their last win in 1996, winning just two playoff games total in the last decade.
“At the end of the day, he’s not worried about wins and losses,” Owens said. “Fans out there, it’s not about wins and losses for him. It’s about the bottom line and the bottom dollar. As long as you guys keep buying Dallas Cowboy merch, he’s raking in dollars. As long as he’s putting a decent product on the field and giving you guys hope that every year is the year, you guys keep buying it.
He added, “He’s just like Donald Trump – he’ll just say anything, and a lot of people are eating it up and think it’s going to be true. Stop it.”
Owens played three seasons with the Cowboys from 2006 to 2008, tallying over 1,000 receiving yards each year.
Jones’ original $140 million purchase — $65 million for the team and $75 million for the stadium — is now worth upwards of $17 billion today, according to Forbes. The legendary owner reflected on the gamble he took when he first bought the team in a 2022 interview with the outlet.
“I had danced with the devil to buy the Cowboys, and it was scary,” he said, adding that he tapped into his oil fortune to make the move. “When I [got the loan], I celebrated because I had all the money back home.”
Now in his 80s, Jones opened up about his health in August 2025, crediting an experimental drug with saving his life after he was diagnosed with stage IV melanoma.
“You don’t like to think about your mortality, but I was so fortunate to have some great people that sent me in the right direction,” Jones told reporters at the time. “I got to be a part of a trial that was propitious. It really worked. It’s called PD-1, and it really, really, really worked.”
The Cowboys are coming off a 7-9 season, their second consecutive losing campaign. They lost, 28-20, to their rivals, the New York Giants, to open the 2026 season on Sunday, September 13.
