Jerry Jones Frustrated as Cowboys Star Misses Game with Covid: ‘He Might Have Played Had He Been Vaccinated’

Jerry Jones is paying Amari Cooper $20 million this season and the boisterous Dallas Cowboys owner appears frustrated by the unvaccinated wide receiver getting sidelined with Covid.

Cooper was placed on the reserve/Covid-19 list last Friday, just before the Cowboys began a pivotal stretch of playing three games in 12 days. Because Cooper is unvaccinated, he is required to quarantine for 10-days, meaning he automatically missed the Cowboys loss to Kansas City and will also be ineligible for their upcoming Thanksgiving game against the Las Vegas Raiders.

Jones joined Shan Shariff and RJ Choppy on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas for his weekly radio interview and was clearly frustrated by Cooper’s absence.

“First of all, he wouldn’t have been testing had he been vaccinated,” Jones said on The Fan. “So, he didn’t have symptoms. So, he wouldn’t have been tested. So, there’s a very likelihood that he might have played had he been vaccinated.”

“It is very punitive to get the COVID, to be trite, it’s very punitive to get the COVID if you’re not vaccinated in the NFL,” the football owner continued. “It’s very punitive. We have a high alert for unvaccinated players in the NFL, a high alert.”

Jones was complimentary of Cooper as a person, commending his character and charitable work during his career as a professional athlete. But the Cowboys owner did reiterate the negative impact his absence has on the team.

“You check ‘me’ at the door in a football team,” Jones said. “That has nothing to do with the issues of masking, not masking, getting vaccinated, not getting vaccinated…Everybody understands our rights and our options as it pertains to those rights.”

“This is a classic case of how it can impact a team when people are, at the end of the day, this is not individual; this is a team. You cannot win anything individually,” Jones continued of Cooper’s absence. “So, all of that are statements everybody has heard until they are blue in the face. But the point is this popped us. This did pop us.”

Watch above via Audacy