Emmitt Smith is a lifelong Dallas Cowboy, helping bring three Lombardi Trophies to the franchise while carving out a 15-year Hall of Fame career of his own. But he couldn't be more dissatisfied with the team going into the 2024 offseason, telling "PFT Live" Friday that he's "tired" of the team failing to reach expectations, suggesting everyone from Dallas' star players to team owner Jerry Jones is losing credibility and respect.
"I'm tired of being sold on what the Cowboys could be," Smith said, reflecting on Dallas going one-and-done in the playoffs despite a 12-5 record, failing to secure the club's first conference championship appearance since 1995. "I'm tired. I've had enough of it because I'm more about what the Cowboys really are. And who we really are and who we were. That's where I'm at. That's where everyone else is at. How do you allow this to happen?"
Smith was "surprised" Jones didn't replace head coach Mike McCarthy following the latest playoff flop, suggesting the way the team finished 2023 "is not becoming of the Dallas Cowboys' mystique, respect, the brand."
Truth is, he added, the "respect" has been lacking for years within America's Team.
"Nobody wants to fight no more," Smith said of today's players. "No one wants to fight hard anymore. They wanna (say), 'Oh, we are the Cowboys. Tell me how good I am. Check out my Instagram posts. See me on my podcast? I'm doing all this stuff. I'm everything.' Without doing anything. And everybody's patting them on the back. ... People wanna give them so much without doing nothing. And what they're living off of is what happened in the past, not what's going down right now. They're not establishing their own legacy, let alone building off of the legacy that was established."
In the end, Jones is the one who oversees it all. And Smith, who played all 13 of his Cowboys seasons under the polarizing owner, believes the former Super Bowl-winning executive is losing credibility.
"And if you're losing credibility, you're losing respect," he said. "You lose respect, you have no honor. ... Things have to change. ... I mean, it's like we went out and played with our hands tied behind our backs or we left our minds up in Frisco and didn't even take it over to AT&T (Stadium) in Arlington. It was such a disappointing thing. It was just bad. It's bad all the way around. I even hate talking about it because I feel responsible. I feel like I could have helped, and I don't know how. But, yeah, it was bad."