Jerry Jones Says His Five Oil Wells Cost More Than Any Coach

• Jerry Jones spent more than five minutes on Friday on 105.3 The Fan rejecting the idea that he will not pay for a head coach, per ESPN.
• The Cowboys owner and general manager said he has five wells that cost more than any coach he knows of.
• The remarks came three days after Jones told the same station there is no correlation between spending on a coach and winning.

Jones Spends Five Minutes Answering Coach Pay Critics

Jerry Jones answered his critics Friday by pointing to his oil business. “I have five wells that cost more than any coach I know of, each one of them, in the NFL,” the Dallas Cowboys owner and general manager said on 105.3 The Fan.

The comparison was his reply to a charge that has followed him for years: that he will not pay what it takes to land a top head coach. Jones took more than five minutes on the team’s flagship network to reject it, and he did not stop at oil.

The Tuesday Remark Behind the Backlash

The Friday appearance followed criticism of what Jones said on the same station Tuesday, when he told listeners there is no correlation between spending money on a coach and winning in the NFL.

On Friday, Jones spoke about his own habits. “Not one time in my life that I have ever, if I wanted to do it, let money stand in the way of doing it,” he said.

He went on to describe pursuits that the public never saw. “No one will ever know if I’ve ever been interested in somebody that at the time was known to have, let’s say, a substantive financial marketplace,” Jones said. He then went further. “The facts are I have been out there, and I have been trying to lure very successful coaches away from the teams they were on and knew full well that I was going to pay them for their success,” he said. “So that has been done. No one knows that, but I do. And so it is absolutely ridiculous. And I actually grin when somebody says, ‘Jerry’s not willing to pay the money for what it would take to get the right kind of coach out there.'”

He also rejected the notion that a candidate ever turned him down over pay. “I have never on the basis of some coach saying, ‘I’ll come and I know you want me, but I won’t because you won’t pay me enough,'” Jones said. “That’s never happened in my life.”

What Jones Said About Risk

Jones accepted that hiring a coach is a gamble, then returned to the money. “Now whether I get the right kind or not, we’ll all agree that it’s risky. Not risky, [but] you just know it’s ambiguous when you hire a coach because there have been many hired and not necessarily have won Super Bowl,” Jones said. “We all get that and we understand all the nuances in between, but the fundamental issue of me not paying money for something that has a chance to be as wonderful as a Super Bowl or a successful team is ridiculous.”

The Record Behind the Argument

The doubts about Jones and head coaches reach back to his split with Jimmy Johnson after the two Super Bowl seasons of 1992 and 1993. Jones said then, “there are 500 coaches who could have won the Super Bowl with our team.” He hired Barry Switzer to replace Johnson, and the Cowboys won the Super Bowl for the 1995 season. They have not won one in the decades after. Jones has hired seven coaches after Switzer: Chan Gailey, Dave Campo, Bill Parcells, Wade Phillips, Jason Garrett, Mike McCarthy and Brian Schottenheimer.

Coaching salaries are not public. Schottenheimer is believed to sit in the bottom half of the league in pay. McCarthy, his predecessor, made $8 million per season, and Garrett received a five-year, $30 million extension in 2015.

Jones has fielded questions about his front office before, including when he said he could and would hire Troy Aikman for a front-office role.

Before Jones hired Schottenheimer in 2025, the Cowboys held no interview with Ben Johnson, one of the more sought-after candidates, who ended up with the Chicago Bears. They did interview Leslie Frazier, Robert Saleh and Kellen Moore. Saleh is now head coach of the Titans and Moore is head coach of the Saints.

What Comes Next

Elsewhere in the NFL this week, San Francisco coach Kyle Shanahan said he has moved on from Brandon Aiyuk mentally as the receiver’s reinstatement process continues.

For Dallas, the questions about spending will stay in the background for now. The Cowboys play at the Indianapolis Colts in Week 9 on Sunday, with kickoff set for 1 p.m. ET. Jones has made his case on the radio twice in one week.