OXNARD, Calif. _ Jerry Jones isn't the problem here, at least not on this particular day. The Cowboys owner plays these opening news conferences for laughs, joking about the length of his Hall of Fame speech, how much he enjoyed life before social media and how some Cowboys became former Cowboys this off-season because of money.

No, the problem today is Jason Garrett because it's the deadly serious head coach who can't keep himself away from his "good guys" speech and threatens to make a national laughingstock of this team off the field.

Jones had just handled the first question about having so many players in trouble with the law or the league in his usual roundabout fashion when Garrett piped in.

"Character is critical with us, with the Dallas Cowboys,"" Garrett said. "We have built this team with great character guys. We have 90 players and we love the character."

He just can't help himself. There might be a time when diehard Cowboys fans buy into this stock speech of his, one most media members can recite by now.

But is it a good time when a rookie is off in Michigan awaiting trial on a domestic violence charge? When your elite back is awaiting word from the NFL on a possible suspension? When a potential starting cornerback has a DUI arrest hanging over him? When a starting linebacker is facing aggravated assault charges in Frisco? When two pass rushers are suspended for different violations of the league drug policy?

Couldn't Garrett lay low on that stuff just this once for the sake of credibiility?

Answer was no.

"Having said that, we had some incidents and issues this off-season," Garrett added.

Hey maybe this is where Jason acknowledges things have to change...

"There is a standard around here."

Oops, never mind...

"We solve the issue and we move on. We learn individually and we learn collectively," he said.

Do they really?

I can see where one can argue that individuals learn. In the case of Elliott, either he is suspended for the season opener and costs his team a game or maybe he gets hit with a major fine for his variety of missteps that fall mostly under the "he just needs to grow up" umbrella and he actually grows up. Or maybe he doesn't.

Either way, I don't see how anyone can say the Cowboys learn "collectively" from their transgressions, arrests and suspensions year after year? If they did, why would they keep happening? Why would the Cowboys continue to draft or acquire players who have run afoul of the law elsewhere (Adam Jones, Tank Johnson, Greg Hardy, the drafting of Randy Gregory, Jourdan Lewis and others) if anyone was actually learning anything here?

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For Jones, it's simply all about risk management and he sees himself as a man whose biggest life decisions have been riddled with risk and those decisions have made him a bound-for-the Hall of Fame billionaire.

On Sunday, Jones cited the play of two other Hall of Famers -- Charles Haley and Michael Irvin -- as risks that paid substantial rewards.

Maybe riding along with Elliott will do the same. Unless the NFL's interminable investigation has yielded a domestic violence surprise, his punishment should be minimal. If Cincinnati's Pacman Jones got only one game Friday for his violation of the personal conduct policy, it's hard to imagine Elliott being hit with more than that.

And Jones said Sunday that there is "nothing, absolutely nothing" in the evidence he has seen that relates to domestic violence. He stopped short, however, of saying that he thinks Elliott will avoid suspension.

"I don't want anything I've said over the last week to be interpreted as a feeling or a speculation about his status, relative to a suspension," he said.

Jones sounded like a man who was concerned that his recent criticism of Elliott, comparing handling him to dealing with a child, could be interpreted as a sign of some presumed guilt.

But we already know that's not the Cowboy way.

So the club will begin workouts Monday, searching for ways to revive the good feelings of a 13-3 season. And there's plenty of talent on hand to make that possible.

If only the whole team had gone to Disney World with Dak this off-season...

Twitter: @TimCowlishaw