Jason Kelce, the patron saint of the Philadelphia Eagles, faced the Dallas Cowboys 24 times in his storied career, coming away with a hard-fought 11-13 record. For more than a decade, his football life was defined, in no small part, by the bitter, all-consuming rivalry with the Cowboys. He was an emissary of the unwritten Philly code, a tribal oath passed down from one generation of players to the next: thou shalt hate Jerry Jones.

On a recent episode of the New Heights podcast, the guy who’s heard ‘Dallas Sucks’ chanted more than he’s heard his own name, offered an admission that must have felt like a betrayal to some in the city of Brotherly Love. “I gotta say, I kinda like what I’m seeing out of him,” Kelce admitted, “I gotta admit… between this documentary and then his deal on ‘Land Man’ when he talks about buying the franchise and like his family and everything, I’m like, you know what? I’m kind of turning into a Jerry guy. I kind of like what I’m being told.”

And it wasn’t just Kelce. Deion Sanders, a guy who knows the Cowboys’ owner as well as anyone, immediately jumped in to give him more than just a taste of that legendary Jones charm.

“I’m watching ESPN,” Sanders began, launching into a story about a former teammate, Alonzo Spellman, who was struggling in Chicago. “I said, ‘Jerry, I could help him. I could help.’ He flew his jet to pick the kid up, brought him to the Cowboys, and changed his life.” It’s a story that clearly resonated with Kelce. “That’s the kind of guy you want to play for, man,” he mused, to which Sanders replied with a firm, “Absolutely. We wanted to win for him.”

And yet, that human side is constantly at war with the football side. That’s the rub, isn’t it? The same weekend those personal stories were getting out, the on-field reality for the Boys was a whole other kettle of fish. Following a disheartening 31-14 loss to the Bears, Jones told reporters he “really thought we came out and were ready to play.”

That sentiment seems to completely miss the on-field reality. To put the defensive struggles into perspective, second-year QB Caleb Williams went 7/13 on throws over 10 air yards for 186 yds and all 4 of his passing TDs. He had an average of 3.2 seconds to throw, a veritable lifetime in the NFL, and ended up throwing 298 Yds, The Cowboys’ pass rush, the very thing they’ve built their identity on, registered just 7 QB pressures and zero sacks. It was a failure of execution, not preparation.

The cost of Jerry’s calculated decision

The Parsons trade, while a boon for a team’s future, costs the team dearly right now. The defense, which was ranked best in the NFL in EPA per play when Parsons was on the field since 2021, has been a dud without him (0.209 in the last match). These are numbers that don’t lie.

On the podcast, Kelce weighed in on the drama (on Eagles’ legendary comeback too), noting that while he gets that Jones has “an old school way about how he approaches things,” he still felt the situation was going in the wrong direction. “There’s one common denominator here, and that’s Jerry, right?” Kelce remarked, pointing to Jones’ long history of organizational conflicts and the uncharacteristic choice to trade a generational talent.

When asked if the team’s defensive struggles had given him any sense of urgency to use those two future first-rounders, Jones offered a surprisingly honest take. “That implies that being more urgent, I can create an opportunity to use them,” he said. “That usually doesn’t work that way at all.” It’s a sentiment that speaks to his long-standing approach, the calculated gambler who waits for the perfect moment. But for a franchise that has won just 4 playoff games since 1997, the question remains: at what point does patience turn into complacency?

And that’s the beautiful, maddening contradiction of it all. The very guy Jason Kelce is starting to like is the same one who’s made the Cowboys the sport’s most valuable underachiever, as we explore the worst times the Cowboys lost to the Eagles.