Cowboys missed Parsons in season opener, but Jerry Jones will never admit it

The new Netflix docuseries on the Dallas Cowboys' 1990s dynasty, "America's Team," is filled with interesting tidbits. There's triumph and defeat, ego and hubris, cocaine and strippers.

There's also, surprisingly, a real note of sadness.

Owner Jerry Jones' three adult children, all of whom hold executive roles with the Cowboys, become teary-eyed when discussing what it would mean to win another Super Bowl while their father is still in charge.

Jerry himself, looking every bit an 82-year-old with some hard living behind him, admitted he'd be embarrassed by how much money he'd be willing to pay if he could write a cheque that would grant him that elusive fourth NFL title.

For a Cowboys fan, it must be incredibly frustrating, because it raises an obvious question: Why do you keep doing - waves hands around frantically - this?

Jones' insistence that he does things his way hasn't been so overtly on display since he fired head coach Jimmy Johnson, after consecutive Super Bowl wins, almost 30 years ago.

The owner-president-GM, who has made no secret that he likes to make a spectacle of the Cowboys because he believes it's good for business, spent the spring and summer in a bizarre contract standoff with all-world edge rusher Micah Parsons.

While contract disputes aren't unusual, especially for Jones and Dallas, this one was different. Jones insisted he was happy to pay Parsons a boatload of money, but only on the terms he had discussed with the player outside the presence of his agent. As the holdout wore on, Jones suggested Parsons was to blame for not honoring their agreement. This didn't sit well with the four-time Pro Bowler, who watched as peers like T.J. Watt, Maxx Crosby, and Myles Garrett signed monster extensions.

Then came the real shocker: Jones traded Parsons to Green Bay for a pair of first-round picks and defensive lineman Kenny Clark. It was, and remains, a baffling decision. The Cowboys are a playoff contender with a talented offense, and they have a significant amount of money committed to quarterback Dak Prescott and receiver CeeDee Lamb. There's no world in which it makes sense to give up Parsons, a 26-year-old who might be the best player in the league at a premium position, for a couple of picks and a 30-year-old interior lineman.

The best evidence this wasn't a trade made to improve the Cowboys now, as Jones claims, is that he spent months insisting Parsons would remain in Big D. The owner can say he decided to spread Parsons' money around to fill out the roster, but mere weeks ago, he was still trying to give it to Parsons.

And so, the Cowboys opened the NFL season on Thursday night against the Philadelphia Eagles, and it didn't take long for the Parsons-shaped hole on their roster to be noticeable. In a game in which Philadelphia's defense did every possible favor for Dallas - racking up several back-breaking penalties and losing lineman Jalen Carter to ejection before he even played a down - the Cowboys couldn't stop the Eagles' offense. Like, at all. Three first-half drives, three touchdowns.

Where Parsons would've been expected to put pressure on Jalen Hurts, the Eagles quarterback was instead all but setting up a lawn chair in the backfield. Hurts appeared calm and relaxed, and when no receivers were open, he sauntered into the end zone for a pair of touchdowns. Those are precisely the kind of plays an explosive edge rusher would've made a difference.

The game changed after halftime, with the Cowboys' defense showing resistance, although it's hard to say how much of that improvement stemmed from Philadelphia losing lineman Landon Dickerson and an hour-long lightning delay. A few more plays on offense and Dallas might have even won the contest. But there's simply no way to watch their 24-20 loss and not conclude that the Cowboys would've been more of a threat with Parsons on the field.

This brings us back to the question about Jones posed at the beginning. Why does he keep doing this to himself? Why does he insist on taking on the burden of making all the football decisions, especially when he's plainly not that good at it? Why not follow the path of other successful owners, such as those in Philadelphia, New England, and Kansas City, to name a few, and bring in outside help, rather than operating the Cowboys like a family-run restaurant?

The Netflix series provides an answer to that, too. Jones has spent almost three decades trying to prove that he can build a winner without Johnson. Even though the men have ended their long-running feud, Jones still grumbles about the lack of credit he gets for those early '90s teams. If he could just win one on his own - or, technically, with his kids - it would validate the argument he's been making for so long. It would show that Jerry really does know ball.

This is why he hasn't gone out and hired a proven NFL architect, despite a 5-14 playoff record since the last of the Super Bowl wins. Jones doesn't want to hire Bill Belichick. He wants to be Bill Belichick.

If he does ever pull it off, it'll be one hell of an "I told you so."

Scott Stinson is a contributing writer for theScore.