By all accounts, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones likes to do things his way. From building his roster to building his empire, Jones is going to do what Jones wants to do. Never one to accept the status quo or care if the odds are in his favor, the NFL owner is a maverick in every sense of the word, including when it comes to his own health.
After revealing his 10-year-long battle with stage 4 cancer in the upcoming Netflix documentary series, America’s Team: The Gambler and His Cowboys, which hits the streaming giant next week, the 82-year-old Texas businessman divulged more about the severity of the illness to The Dallas Morning News.
“Well, you don’t like to think about your mortality, but I was so fortunate to have some great people that sent me in the right direction,” stated Jones, who revealed the initial skin cancer cells metastasized and spread, requiring a pair of surgeries on his lungs and two more on his lymph nodes.
“I got to be part of a trial that was propitious,” added the Cowboys owner. “It really worked. It’s called PD-1 [therapy], and it really, really, really worked.”
NFL Owner Jerry Jones Beats Cancer with Experimental Drug
In the upcoming eight-part Netflix documentary series premiering on August 19, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones reportedly alludes to his health concerns in the fifth episode.
Jones told The Dallas Morning News about his stage 4 diagnosis and undergoing an experimental drug treatment at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas.
"I was saved by a fabulous treatment and great doctors and a real miracle [drug] called PD-1 [therapy],” he told the outlet. "I went into trials for that PD-1, and it has been one of the great medicines."
"I now have no tumors," he said conclusively.
Cancer, unfortunately, has a personal through line with the Dallas Cowboys. First-year Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer is also a cancer survivor after undergoing surgery in 2003 for thyroid cancer at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, reports the NFL.
"I'm glad that Jerry shared it, just because I think it gives people hope," said Schottenheimer as he praised Jones on Wednesday after the team’s final practice in Oxnard, California. "It gives people the strength to say, 'OK,' you know, 'Hey, you can beat this.'"
According to the Melanoma Research Alliance, stage 4 cancer is the most advanced stage of the disease. The American Cancer Society estimates patients have a five-year survival rate of 35%. That said, due to the advancement of pharmaceutical therapy, a Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center study explains how people in the advanced stage could have a five-year survival rate of about 50%.
"It doesn't discriminate against anybody," added Schottenheimer from the podium. "And mine was certainly less serious, but I was 28 when I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. Nothing like Stage 4, nothing like what Jerry and other people have to go through. But you hear that word 'cancer,' and it scares the hell out of you."
Since purchasing America’s Team in 1989 for $140 million – Dallas is now worth nearly $13 billion – while not always successful in terms of wins on the gridiron, Jones has turned the Cowboys into the most profitable franchise of all time, eclipsing both the Golden State Warriors in the NBA and the New York Yankees in the MLB. He's not just a titan of football, he's a titan of business.
So when fear like that from a stage 4 cancer diagnosis rears its ugly head, the risk-taking patriarch of the Dallas Cowboys isn't going to back down or take the news lightly. Jones is going to triumphantly attack it like the maverick always does because that’s what real winning from a leader truly looks like. Jerry, may the odds forever be in your favor.