It might pain fans of rival organizations to admit this, but there’s a very good case to be made Jerry Jones is really in charge of the NFL. Things seem to be getting crystallized at the NFL owners meetings taking place in Phoenix, AZ. With the 31-1 owner approval of the Raiders move to Las Vegas from Oakland, a series of musical chairs is coming to an end, and Jones seems to be the one in control of the boombox. It hasn’t resulted in championships for his Dallas Cowboys, but the more people look into the details of the moves made by other franchises in recent years, the more it becomes clear to them.

Jerry Jones is secretly the real commissioner of the NFL. https://t.co/EUdwkLq27p — Matt Miller (@nfldraftscout) March 27, 2017

Jerry Jones has been instrumental in getting the Rams out to Los Angeles, leaving the Chargers without their own stadium solution that will now see them rent space in the Rams’ stadium. Now, he has coordinated funding for the Raiders moving to Las Vegas. But that isn’t all that he has his hands in out west. The involvement seems to go much deeper.

Miller’s take is in response to a series of tweets by sports columnist Tim Kawakami of the Mercury News. In these thought bubbles, Kawakami has laid out how Jerry Jones’ marketing company, Legends, stands to profit from all of the shuffling taking place for the California-based franchises.

The more I talk to people around this, the more obvious it becomes: Jerry Jones is driving every bit of this… — Tim Kawakami (@timkawakami) March 27, 2017

Jones is making money from the 49ers new home, Levi Stadium.

Jones owns a chunk of Legends–company that sold 49ers' suites, will sell them in LA for Rams/Chargers and set up to do same Las Vegas… — Tim Kawakami (@timkawakami) March 25, 2017

Raiders, 49ers, Chargers and Rams–and obviously the Cowboys–are basically now the Jerry Jones Bloc of NFL ownership. Unprecedented. — Tim Kawakami (@timkawakami) March 25, 2017

Kawakami explains in addition to San Francisco suite sales, the newly-installed president of the 49ers, Al Guido, is a former employee of Jones’ at Legends. Jones was instrumental in the Rams relocation to owner Stan Kroenke’s billion-dollar site in Inglewood, CA. From Sam Farmer of the LA Times:

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, the staunchest advocate of the Rams owner, leaned over to his son, Stephen, Cowboys vice president, and whispered, “There’s a lesson here.” “I got it,” said Stephen, nodding. “If you’re going to stick your neck out, make sure you’re riding Secretariat.” In this case, Kroenke’s $2.6-billion Inglewood project was the prized thoroughbred, and the Triple Crown meant topping the two other competitors in the race, the San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders, who had teamed to propose a rival stadium concept in Carson. This was seven months ago, when the NFL was a very different place and no one had cracked the L.A. code for 21 years.

Jones was head-to-head with Panthers’ owner Jerry Richardson who was championing a move to the Carson location.

Not surprisingly, many people in St. Louis see Jones as a villain and a central figure in the prying loose of a team that called that city home for the last two decades. Meanwhile, other NFL owners – chief among them Carolina’s Jerry Richardson – pushed hard for the Carson project and for the Rams to stay put.

Once Kroenke’s site was approved, it took only one year for the Chargers to be forced out of San Diego — by virtue of taxpayers refusing to fund a new stadium — relocate their organization. They will be rent-paying tenants of the Rams at the new stadium in Los Angeles. Legends will stand to make millions in profit from the suite sales in this building that will be open 20 weeks each NFL season, unlike most home parks that are only open for 10 games a year (two exhibitions, eight regular season).

Continue…