The more you learn about life in Jerry’s World, the less surprised you are that the world’s richest sports franchise hasn’t won a championship in nearly three decades.

Count the red flags.

Draft meetings have been weird for years with scouts trying to put a name in Jerry Jones’ ear… away from everyone else. This owner is easily convinced and of course he is also the CEO. A dangerous mix.

The parties are wild. Rest assured, he still has that “Michael Irvin blood” in him. That’s how one veteran cowboy described Jones. “Irvin could party until 3 or 4 in the morning and get up at 5 or 6. And he would go all day. “That’s Jerry.” This same player also described the Cowboys as a “morally corrupt” organization. One built on friendships. Agree with the Joneses? “You’re in.” Disagree? “You will discover your behind”. It doesn’t matter if you are a coach, scout, former player. “It’s almost mafia-like,” he continued. “They stick together. They run together. There are a lot of people within that organization who do crazy things together. “It’s a little bit backwards.”

All the “what ifs” over these 27 years are nothing short of mind-blowing. Dallas came very close to drafting Randy Moss… but chose Greg Ellis. Bill Parcells took a chainsaw to how everything was handled internally: He only cared about winning . Soon Parcells came out. A few years later, Dallas sabotaged Dez Bryant’s career. Knowing how and when to hand out contract extensions has never been Jones’ strong suit.

To watch the entire Inside Jerry’s World series, here’s Part I , Part II , and Part III from last year:

However, a stroke of good luck is often enough to change everything.

Dak Prescott was Jones’ consolation prize in the 2016 NFL Draft. The owner failed to land Memphis quarterback Paxton Lynch and seemed inconsolable. “When I look back on my life, I always overpaid for my biggest hits,” Jones said at the time. “And I probably should have overpaid here.” He then tried and failed to trade for Michigan State’s Connor Cook in the fourth round. Prescott, ranked 135th overall, was the pick. Jason Garrett was a key factor in selling Jones as Mississippi State’s quarterback. Prescott was thrust into a starting role that rookie season…went 13-3…continued to improve…finally got paid…and now? Finally, the time may have come.

The Cowboys are two wins away from playing for that coveted Vince Lombardi Trophy again. Two. In a wild card beatdown by Tom Brady’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Prescott looked like the force of nature capable of breaking every spell within Jerry’s World.

He has always been the protagonist (the knight in shining armor) of the great story of the Dallas Cowboys.

Monday night seemed like a turning point.

Considering what’s at stake, this was the best game of Prescott’s career: 25 of 33 for 305 yards with four touchdowns (143.3 passer rating) and another rushing touchdown. Now comes the ultimate test: the San Francisco 49ers. Not only is this the other half of one of the sport’s all-time rivalries, but the 49ers eliminated Dallas in the playoffs just a year ago. And they have only gotten better. DeMeco Ryans is the best defensive coordinator in the game, has the best defensive player of the year (Nick Bosa) and arguably the best linebacker in the game (Fred Warner) and the best safety (Talanoa Hufanga).

If the Niners win, the sky will fall again on Big D. Everyone will fill the Monday morning airwaves with talk of Sean Payton. Prescott, as a quarterback, will be blistered. Is that how it works. Jones has always followed the philosophy that any press is good press, a culture that has created a ridiculous amount of pressure on everyone in the building.

But kill this dragon? Make the discomfort? The Super Bowl is in sight and Dak Prescott can forever change the perception of the Dallas Cowboys. He has always been exactly what the organization needs: as a player and as a person. The trauma of losing his mother to cancer in college, followed by the shock of a brother’s suicide as a professional and, on October 11, 2020, a gruesome leg injury, toughened Prescott beyond belief. Most people around a starting quarterback will say good things about that quarterback – no coach, teammate or acquaintance wants to be left out. But with Prescott, from Day 1, he’s always been at the next level. When I first met Prescott for this Bleacher Report profile, the praise was more of an avalanche of superlatives. I had never experienced anything like this with a high profile player.

Honestly, he is a person who would excel as the CEO of any company in any field.

He can rise above the trash to make Dallas a champion.

Jones can remember the $126 million guaranteed he gave Prescott as one of his biggest investments.

When it comes to understanding these Cowboys, former wide receiver Brice Butler is as honest as it gets. Butler played in Dallas from 2015 to early 2018. It was always strange for him to see Jones intervene in Garrett’s team speeches. The players hated that the owner did this.

Jones’ persistent presence has always added an undue element of stress to the daily life of a cowboy.

“I would say the hardest thing about Dallas,” Butler says, “is the fact that you have an owner who basically has his hand in every part of the team in a first-person sense. Their children. His daughter. The grandsons. They all run the organization. So he is there. It adds pressure every day when you see Jerry at practice once or twice a week. Jerry walking through the locker room before the game. Jerry conducting interviews in the locker room after the game. It’s not that he’s a bad guy. It’s not that I’m telling people certain things. It is nothing but positive. But you see it all the time. It’s like, ‘Dang, he owns it.’ If you have an owner there all the time, even if he thinks he’s not adding pressure to you, he’s adding pressure to you.”

That wasn’t the case at his other two stops, in Oakland (Mark Davis) and Miami (Stephen Ross). But Jones learned from the bombastic Al Davis, and winning three Super Bowls so quickly after purchasing the franchise certainly gave Jones a warped plan.

The meddling has not paid off since the team’s last title in 1995.

Then, it fell on Prescott.

Understandably, Prescott was a quiet leader that first season. When his team was one miraculous shot by Aaron Rodgers away from hosting the NFC Championship. Tony Romo retired. Kellen Moore became his offensive coordinator. Prescott began to talk more.

“And it’s still building,” says Butler, who remains close to the quarterback. “It’s getting bigger and bigger. Once Kellen took over, I know he took on much more vocal leadership. Much more cerebral leadership, behind closed doors, introducing strategies. It has turned out great. I hope you keep doing what you’re doing and keep all the outside noise out. Being a Dallas Cowboys player is not easy. Not to mention the starting quarterback. There is a lot of scrutiny. They haven’t won in ‘X’ number of years. We are always talked about, every day. We are like the Lakers. Even if we have 4-12 or 12-4, we have a five-minute segment on every television show. Which doesn’t make it easy. But I think he’s done a great job of not worrying about that.”

Everyone from high school coaches to college teammates to college professors gushes.

His psychology professor, Dr. Tom Carskadon, said: “I know it seems like this guy is too good to be true. … I’ve seen heroes manufactured by the media, and sometimes it’s a little sad because they don’t resist it. But Dak is the real deal.” Impressed by how much Prescott improved in his class, Carskadon created a new award. Of the more than 40,000 students he taught, the Mississippi State quarterback was his only “Scholar of the Year.” In our podcast, Michael Gehlkin of The Dallas Morning News explained how Prescott uses this background in psychology as a leader. He strives to physically touch as many teammates as he can during the course of a game. There is a correlation between fist bumping, head banging, etc. and win games.

Quarterbacks who take the league by storm, like Prescott did in 2016, tend to come and go.

After that excellent rookie season, after Butler first declared that his quarterback could be a “star,” his mind turned to a different quarterback. He then said Prescott needed to continue improving. “If he doesn’t do it,” Butler added, “he’ll be like Colin Kaepernick.” Butler worked with Kaepernick in the 2013 offseason. He believed that after the Niner quarterback lit up Green Bay in that epic divisional playoff victory, his priorities changed. Just when we all assumed Kaepernick was redefining the position, Butler saw a quarterback who didn’t just like the spotlight. “He loved it”.

Yes, Prescott can have a good time. But up close, Butler saw a quarterback who was wired differently. Unlike all QBs who fade, he evolved. He learned to read defenses and throw the ball with confidence downfield.

If we take this conversation back to Butler six years later, he correctly points out that there has always been something different about Prescott’s makeup.

After all, he put Mississippi State football on the map. Butler still remembers his friends in Atlanta, Georgia, laughing in his face when he was happy that Mississippi State gave him his first college offer. For prospects at the SEC level, this was basically a safety school. “Boo-boo trash,” Butler calls it. Under Prescott, the Bulldogs rose to the number one ranking.

“Dak changed that program,” Butler says. “Now they are a renowned brand. For him, making it to the NFL was no different. The starting quarterback goes down and has to come in and make some plays. I know he works his butt off so that doesn’t happen to him. Because he’s been that guy. He works hard, man. This is my dog. I was trying to spend some time with him this offseason, but since he had a shoulder injury, I couldn’t really connect with him. He said, ‘Brother, I’ve just been working. Focusing on.’ That told me he’s focused.”

They have stayed in touch throughout this season. Butler remembers a young Prescott saying how crazy it was that his phone lit up with text messages when he played well, but if he played poorly? It dried. That’s why Butler texts more after losses than wins. And despite Dallas’ 13-5 record, this has been a difficult season. Prescott missed five games and still tied for the NFL lead with 15 interceptions. His streak of seven consecutive games pitching to the postseason tied the third-longest streak since 1990.

No wonder so many people (guilty as charged) thought Brady would take out Dallas.

Butler cites the moving parts of the offense. The fact that Noah Brown is only now getting meaningful offensive snaps after spending four years as a backup. Brown hadn’t gotten that many targets since his senior year at Ohio State in 2016, and even then he was in a crowded receivers room. He also cites the fact that this is CeeDee Lamb’s first season as the true number one. We also miss a lot on the broadcast. Butler has seen plays where Lamb is supposed to cross the face of a safety and instead goes around the safety. When Prescott throws the ball there, and it’s easy to catch, we assume it was his fault.

Happens. It comes with the territory. But then again, Dallas is different .

When Hall of Famer Troy Aikman appears on the broadcast criticizing Prescott for this type of interception, legions of fans will follow suit.

“The people inside that meeting room know what’s going on and that’s all that matters,” Butler says. “Jason Garrett used to say something great that I still use to this day: ‘There will always be prognosticators, naysayers, Monday morning quarterbacks who will have their two cents, but the only thing that matters is what’s inside.’ of this room’. I know it’s something stuck in his mind because those words Jason Garrett used to say to him were the first words he heard in the NFL. Normally, those are your most impressionable years.”

Even if what Aikman says is taken as gospel by those fans who fill Jones’ 80,000-seat palace.

“The only thing I can say about Troy,” Butler adds, “he came up in a different time. I wouldn’t say it was easy for him either. And he won three Super Bowls. So I understand. I understand it. And then there are other times when I say: ‘Bro, shut up.’ You don’t know what the play was called’”.

Fear not, it’s Kevin Burkhardt and Greg Olsen on the call Sunday night.

Dallas can pull off this upset.

It is true that San Francisco is a team whose quarterback is the last player selected in the 2022 draft: Brock Purdy. The magic could disappear at any moment. After working the Niners-Raiders game in the middle, and watching Davante Adams torch this secondary for 153 yards and two touchdowns, Butler is convinced Lamb will explode. And it’s also true that pressure is mounting in the Bay Area. Kyle Shanahan is quickly becoming a coach defined by his own playoff failures, from his reckless decisions late in the Atlanta Falcons’ Super Bowl collapse against New England to blowing a 10-point fourth-quarter lead against Kansas City in the Super Bowl for last season’s NFC Championship loss against the Los Angeles Rams.

Brice Butler’s next-door neighbor is a rabid Giants fan who still owes him 25 push-ups for a loss earlier this season. You can’t imagine how hyped a conference title game between the Cowboys and Giants would be.

On the other hand, what happens when the ball flies off Brett Maher’s right foot? The Cowboys survived an NFL record four missed extra points against the Bucs. That won’t work against San Francisco. The offensive line of these Cowboys is battered. Again. Left tackle Jason Peters exited Dallas’ win over Tampa Bay after 33 plays with a hip injury. His status is uncertain. Dallas has started five different offensive line groupings this season, a potential disaster against Bosa and the gang.

Mike McCarthy’s Packers defenses typically failed at this exact spot. They dragged them into the dark alley and beat them with crowbars, and that’s exactly what happened against these same Niners last season. Dallas’ run defense was pounded for 169 yards and two scores, Ezekiel Elliott racked up 2.6 yards per carry, Prescott was hit 14 times and Dallas committed an atrocious 14 penalties. McCarthy can throw a chain, move and slide, but is this template tougher than that one? That the Green Bay units that fell short for a decade?