Radio Row and Super Bowl week always produce interesting quotes. It’s the one time in the football year when multitudes of current and former players get together with media outlets from around the country and have the opportunity to speak their mind into a live microphone.
Dallas Cowboys legend Emmitt Smith took one of his media appearances and turned it into a venting session about what he thinks is wrong with his former team.
Emmitt Smith Argues Cowboys Shouldn’t Draft Boise State’s Ashton Jeanty
The Hall of Fame running back is clearly agitated with how his former team operates on offense and doesn’t believe Boise State Broncos running back Ashton Jeanty would be a good fit.
“If he comes to the Cowboys… he’s going to get beat up”
Pro Football Hall of Famer Emmitt Smith says the Cowboys SHOULD NOT draft Boise State RB Asthon Jeanty pic.twitter.com/KFu9dZAOnC
— Maggie and Perloff (@MaggieandPerl)
“[If Ashton Jeanty] comes to the Cowboys right now, he’s going to get beat up,” said Smith on a Radio Row interview. “I don’t think we’re ready. We don’t have the right mindset, we don’t have the right commitments. I just talked about commitments and being disaligned. I think we’re drafting ‘exciting pieces’…that gets the fans, ‘Oh, we got Ashton Jeanty. Oh, we’re going to be able to run the ball, okay.'”
Smith was visibly upset, acknowledging the Cowboys’ lack of commitment to the run game. In his time, he was one of the premier NFL ball carriers and still holds multiple rushing records.
Smith is the all-time leader in rushing attempts (4,409), yards (18,355), and touchdowns (164), with most of that production coming for Dallas. He knows how to run the ball, but he can’t say the same about the current Cowboys.
“Don’t say Ezekiel Elliott and Rico Dowdle could not carry that team, no. There was no commitment to run the football. And when there was a commitment, when Dak Prescott went down, Rico ran the ball well. So don’t tell me we can’t run the football.”
Dowdle’s yards per game increased from 45.8 to 84.2 after Prescott went down in Week 9.
Smith continued, “Dak went down, they shifted from Cooper Rush. They brought his passes down, and created more…for the running game. And then you start having this level of balance and start to show some level of consistency. Need to do that the whole entire year, that’s the formula.”
He’s not wrong that Dallas’ offense was more effective once they committed to running the ball. So, where does Jeanty fit? Not in Dallas, according to Smith.
He was asked in another recent interview if the Cowboys should draft Jeanty at No. 12 in the 2025 NFL Draft and doubled down with an interesting answer.
“I think if they do that, they hurt themselves,” Smith told RG. “No disrespect to Ashton Jeanty, but at the end of the day, we have bigger problems than just having a running game.”
“Everybody thinks that [Jeanty is] the answer to everything or Derrick Henry was the answer to everything,” said Smith.
“You still have the same offensive line; you still have the same old offensive mentality. Regardless of whether or not you have Derrick Henry back there or Ashton Jeanty, there are a lot of things that need to be corrected. I think it begins with the philosophy of the organization.”
Dallas let Mike McCarthy’s contract expire and named Brian Schottenheimer its next head coach, but it’s tough to say if this is the philosophical change Smith is talking about. Schottenheimer was the team’s offensive coordinator for the last two seasons, but McCarthy called the plays, so time will tell if the new coach can get this offense rolling again.
Smith continued, “They have to look deep within themselves and really figure out who they want, what they want, and what the organization wants to be. They need to go back through history and see what has made the organization what it is and why people love the organization.
“I’m talking about going back through Tom Landry, Roger Staubach, Tony Dorsett, Drew Pearson, and the doomsday defense and what made that team and what made that organization special.”
Smith is telling owner/general manager Jerry Jones to take a hard look in the mirror. The Cowboys were great before Jones, and they were great early in his ownership. Yet, Smith thinks the organization is lost and is too concerned with the brand.
“Go through the 90s and see what made that team and organization so special,” said Smith. “We’ve gotten away from the true brand of who we are. When you think about the Pittsburgh Steelers, you think about hard-nosed, hardworking, you think about the city of Pittsburgh itself, and what they stand for. That’s how they play football. When you think about Baltimore, it’s the same way.
“When you think about those organizations that has the football paralysis and the football brands,” Smith said. “They had something that the organization built off of, and it’s part of their history, it’s part of their tradition. We’ve gotten away from some of those things and a commitment to that identity.”
It’s a strong statement from the Cowboys legend.
There’s a growing thought that Jones has lost the goal of putting a winning team on the field and is more concerned with making money. That’s his prerogative, but more and more former players will speak out if the poor seasons continue.
Smith’s focus was on Jeanty and the Cowboys’ running game, but he saved a parting shot for the current Dallas quarterback.
Smith Takes Shot at Cowboys QB Dak Prescott
Smith finished the Radio Row interview with, “Your quarterback is not Patrick Mahomes, he’s not Josh Allen, he’s not Joe Burrow. He’s Dak Prescott.”
Ouch.
Prescott has been the starting quarterback since his rookie season in 2016 when he won Offensive Rookie of the Year. He’s had many promising moments, including finishing second in MVP voting in 2023. However, he hasn’t gotten Dallas over the Divisional Round hump.
Prescott also signed an extension in 2024, making him the highest-paid quarterback in the NFL, yet he finished an injury-shortened season ranked No. 30 in PFSN’s QB+ metric. Hopefully, the $60 million a year can keep the heat off until he gets the Cowboys a Super Bowl.
