Dallas Cowboys' greatest hurdle is Jerry Jones

Albert Einstein once described insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Einstein probably never met Jerry Jones or dreamed of the Dallas Cowboys, who played their first game five years after his death, but his definition of insanity surely fit what the Cowboys have been doing more than a half-century later.

Jones is the over and over again, the constant in the Cowboys' failure.

Dallas is a stark contradiction in the NFL.

The Cowboys are the league's richest team, recently identified by Forbes magazine as the world's most valuable sports franchise, worth $4 billion. That is $800 million more than the next most valuable NFL franchise, New England, which has won four Super Bowls and played in seven since the Cowboys last played in one.

The Cowboys are - or have become - chronic under-achievers since the mid-'90s after Jones forced out coach Jimmy Johnson in a middle of the night drinking rage.

Since Dallas last played in and won the Super Bowl, following the 1995 season, the Cowboys have won 162 regular-season games and lost 158. They have finished a season with a record better than .500 just nine times in 20 years.

Dallas has won only three playoff games in 20 years and has not reached a conference championship game since the 1995 season. The Cowboys are one of only four NFC teams that have not reached the Super Bowl in the last two decades, along with Washington, Detroit and Minnesota.

They have, in essence, been the picture of mediocrity, yet they remain one of the NFL's bulwark franchises.

Almost every game the Cowboys play is slotted into one of the television networks' prime spots. They are scheduled for only four 1 p.m. Eastern time Sunday games, for example, none before November.

They are scheduled for three Sunday night games, one Monday night, one Thursday night and their traditional Thanksgiving Day game at home.

And this, after finishing 4-12 a year ago.

San Diego, the league's other 4-12 team last year, is scheduled for one prime time game, on a Thursday night, and has a late Sunday starting time only in the Pacific and Mountain time zones, where 1 p.m. Eastern games are impractical.

In other words, Dallas still is considered a marquee franchise by the NFL.

The Cowboys have fans all over the country who show up at the team's hotel or at their road games. Only the Steelers and Packers, teams that have been much more successful over the last two decades, are in the same league as Dallas when it comes to fan following.

Cowboys' gear is worn in every stadium in the NFL, even at games where the Cowboys are not playing. Their logo with its big star is instantly identifiable. Their history of five Super Bowl championships, their stadium(s) with the iconic hole in the roof, their legacy is familiar to every football fan.

And yet ... they are relatively insignificant in the big picture, the competitive realm. Even in their division, the NFC East, Dallas has finished in first place just five times in 20 years.

Through it all, Jones has steadfastly refused to hire a general manager, kept his thumb on his coach's back, and orchestrated every decision that involved the franchise. Maybe there's a parallel here, because his ego and his control sounds a little like a certain presidential candidate who often says he knows a lot more than he really knows.

History is clear on this: Success in the modern NFL requires a separation of duties, requires an owner to delegate and trust his subordinates, requires much more than an authoritarian strong man at the top pulling all the strings. There's just too much going on.

Success also requires smart dealings in personnel, which flow from a strong front office and a willingness to stay away from players who look terrific in the abstract but carry with them, shall we say, "baggage" or "issues," no matter how cold-hearted that might sound. Dick Vermeil found out about that with the Rams in the '90s when he inherited Lawrence Phillips -- a top-10 draft pick the year before Vermeil arrived -- and Vermeil earned his nickname, "Father Flanagan."

Forget that Dallas was forced to jettison Greg Hardy after a failed, one-year experiment; the Cowboys must start the season with three of their defensive starters suspended for at least four games - linebacker Rolando McClain (10 games) and defensive ends Randy Gregory and DeMarcus Lawrence.

It seems clear that the Cowboys would be better served were Jones willing to delegate more responsibility, but he does not appear inclined to do that - even though there are examples throughout the league of why that's a good idea.

There is probably no better example than the Pittsburgh Steelers who did not become a force in the NFL until after four decades of futility, when the late Art Rooney (Dan's dad) finally decided to stop relying on cronies and magazine articles for advice and was convinced to put the entire football operation in the hands of the late Chuck Noll.

The Packers, because they are the NFL's only publicly owned team, never had the problem of a controlling owner. They have done just fine by letting the general manager and coach run the team. Of course, Jones never even has hired a general manager in Dallas.

The Mara family, which owns the New York Giants, has a history of hiring a general manager and getting out of his way. That plan seems to have worked just fine.

Consider the Oakland Raiders, an organization with whom Jones has been close. Once the late Al Davis lost his touch, the Raiders sank. Jon Gruden revived them briefly but Davis didn't like sharing the spotlight with the coach, so he got rid of him. A decade in the darkness followed before Davis' son Mark allowed a general manager, Reggie McKenzie, to rebuild the franchise.

Now, it looks like they're on the right track.

Because the Cowboys were so bad last year, when quarterback Tony Romo missed most of the year due to injury, they are a trendy pick for a big bounce this year based on Romo's return. That all sounds great.

But the reliance on troubled players who are now suspended and on an owner who insists on playing at general manager leaves Dallas with a hazy future.

--Ira Miller is an award-winning sportswriter who has covered the National Football League for more than four decades and is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Selection Committee. He is a national columnist for The Sports Xchange.