DATE: Wednesday, September 24, 1997         TAG: 9709240636

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C1   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Bob Molinaro 

                                            LENGTH:   65 lines

THE CONCEIT AND DREAMS THAT NURTURE NFL EGOS

Jerry Jones coach the Dallas Cowboys?

Well, a man is entitled to his fantasies (though, hopefully, not the Marv Albert variety).

``I consider it sometimes,'' Jones said the other day, meaning coaching the Cowboys, not wearing women's underwear.

Then he added that, for various reasons, ``I probably won't do it.''

Note the qualifying word probably.

This sort of dazzling conceit is a show in itself. It would be damning Smiling Jerry with faint praise to point out that his preening and outrageous pronouncements are more entertaining than anything else served up by the National Fieldgoal League.

People want to know, then, what Jones is all about.

Frank Leahy, a descendant of Knute Rockne at Notre Dame, probably explained it best when he said many years ago: ``Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity.''

That's another way of saying that Jones wears a 10-gallon hat on a 5-gallon head.

Did you read what Cowboys lineman Nate Newton had to say about Jones? ``He'd do like any other coach: turn it over to his assistants and just be a PR man.''

Is Newton telling us something about the Cowboys' current coach, Barry Switzer? About head coaches in general?

In any case, it's not as if Jones' egotism is unprecedented in football or the team ownership business. Paul Brown named the Cleveland Browns after himself. Yankees owner George Steinbrenner's legendary displays of clownish self-importance are lampooned on ``Seinfeld.'' And amateurish interference from Peter Angelos, the Baltimore Orioles' bantam rooster, has vexed more than one of his managers.

But think about it. How many among the unwashed haven't fantasized about coaching a pro team? How many fans tell themselves they could do a better job than the current occupant of the job?

Owners are no different. Now add to that universal feeling the heady combination of power and money.

Jones can call himself coach right now for all most people care. After all, he is attached to a league that encourages flights of fancy. It's a league that allows teams like the Landover Redskins to call their games sellouts even when about 3,000 seats in Jack Kent Cooke Stadium go unsold and unused.

Sunday, the Redskins will celebrate their 231st consecutive sellout, tops in the NFL. And yet, empty yellow seats will abound on the club level. How can this be?

Well, it seems that NFL rules determining a sellout do not count club seats and luxury boxes, only general seats. The same rules have helped the Denver Broncos continue their sellout streak - at 216, they are second to the Redskins.

Naturally, this is all about image. It's important to the league that the public believes its games are automatic sellouts, whether they are or not.

Fact is, on the opening Sunday of NFL play this season, seven games did not sell out, even under the NFL's liberal definition of sellout.

As for the Redskins, a break in The Streak could mean lost pride and dubious PR. A lot of the franchise's history and self-esteem are wrapped up in The Streak.

So ignore those empty seats at Jack's Place on Sunday. They simply are not there. They don't exist as far as the Redskins and NFL are concerned. In any case, they don't count.

Like some owners we know, an NFL franchise must have its ego massaged.

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