Tuesday was a surreal day for the Dallas Cowboys.

It all started with Jerry Jones taking to the radio airwaves of 105.3 The Fan and taking exception to questions about how he and his front office built this year’s version of the team. When pressed along the lines of why were not more active, Jerry told hosts Shan Shariff, RJ Choppy and Bobby Belt that it was not their job to question him and that their job was to let him openly pontificate on various news items. He then threatened to have them removed from being the people who get to question him. Seriously. This all really happened.

As the football world collectively (think about how hard it is to unite people over anything, let alone something football-related) noted how out of line this was across the day, the Cleveland Browns traded Amari Cooper to the Buffalo Bills and received more in return for him than they originally gave to the Cowboys to acquire him back in 2022. Again. Really.

If you thought things would die down there, you clearly have underestimated the Cowboys. While at NFL owners meetings, Jerry spoke to Dianna Russini of The Athletic and actually doubled (tripled?) down on his criticism of the hosts from The Fan. He noted that they are not football people and that because of that he did not feel the need to be tolerant of their questioning. Again, once more. This really did happen.

As transcribed by The Athletic’s Jon Machota:

“I don’t know that I would go as far as (calling) the volume connotation as yelling. OK? But the facts are that if I’m going to be grilled by the tribunal, I don’t need it to be by the guys I’m paying. I can take it from fans and take it from other people. I take a lot of pride in how fair and how much I try to work with the media, we’re brothers and sisters. But I was a little frustrated there today. … The wrong ones were doing the questioning. Now, if those had been real fans sitting there or if there had been people that knew what they were talking about, football people, I might have had a different answer.”

This was not the end of Russini’s reporting though as she offered a note out herself. With Cooper getting traded, Davante Adams was sent from the Las Vegas Raiders to the New York Jets while the original radio saga was going on, many have wondered also whether or not Dallas may get involved for a desperate move to save their season, similar to what Cooper was himself for the team six years ago.

According to Russini, that is not to be the case. She noted that Jerry said that the Cowboys will not be active before the trade deadline. He also apparently reiterated to her that the Cowboys will not be making any changes at head coach or any coordinator spot.

It is possible that this is just posturing or gamesmanship from Jerry so as not to show the team’s cards, but given the events of the entire day it is difficult to make any assumption one way or the other.

This is the team’s bye week and one that is supposed to be headline-free.

Who would have thought?