Account
Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson Believes City Could Host Cowboys, NFL Expansion Team
May 9, 2022
The Dallas Cowboys are known as America's Team, but they may not even be the only team in their own city if the mayor gets his way.
Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson tweeted out an article from the Dallas Morning News revealing he believes the city can host another NFL team.
On Thursday, he responded to a tweet from the NFL on CBS asking which city most deserves an expansion NFL team and explained why he believes Dallas is the answer:
Mayor Eric Johnson @Johnson4DallasThe answer is Dallas. Why? We are about to pass the Chicago metro and become the #3 metro in the US, which would make us the largest US metro WITHOUT 2 teams. Football is king here. Dallas needs an expansion team and we would be able to sustain 2 <a href="https://twitter.com/NFL?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NFL</a> teams better than LA or NY. <a href="https://t.co/ikG0oeZq4T">https://t.co/ikG0oeZq4T</a>
Johnson continued explaining his rationale in a series of tweets, saying the city needs an AFC team that can play in Southern Dallas, which would set up the possibility of a Super Bowl between that franchise and the Cowboys.
Such a hypothetical would also mean the expansion team wouldn't be sharing AT&T Stadium in Arlington with the Cowboys.
Perhaps most notably, he highlighted potential opposition from Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and said "So far the main reason I hear for why this can't happen is because of Jerry Jones. Well, first, let's not put words in Mr. Jones's mouth. Second, I work for the residents of Dallas, not Jerry Jones. Third, other NFL team owners also do not work for Jerry Jones, but themselves."
The mayor even had two possible suggestions for teams that could relocate if expansion is off the table:
Still, Jeff Kerr of CBS Sports and Michael David Smith of Pro Football Talk each called the possibility of a new NFL team in the Dallas area a "pipe dream."
While Johnson suggested Frisco, Texas, as a location for a team since "The City of Dallas won't be allowing any more teams who don't actually have any of their assets located within our city limits use our name," Kerr explained Jones could stand in the way of that becoming a reality.
"The Cowboys owner has the rights to approve or deny any team in Frisco or their regional market rights," Kerr wrote. "The Cowboys practice facility, The Star, is also located in Frisco—so it's hard to fathom Jones actually approving another team in that area (or anywhere in the Dallas-Fort Worth market)."
That won't stop the mayor from dreaming about two NFL teams in the metro area, but, for now, Dallas will remain a Cowboys town.