Stephen Jones admits: T.O. had to go to benefit Tony Romo

Jerry Jones has spent a good portion of the off-season justifying the release of Terrell Owens as a move to open up opportunities for Roy Williams and Patrick Crayton and for the offense to utilize the running backs more effectively.  Well Jerry's son, Stephen, is telling a different story.

Stephen Jones has told Michael Silver of Yahoo.com, Owens was released to help Tony Romo realize his leadership potential, which Jones says was being held back by Owens.

"It's hard to take over leadership when you've got a strong personality like Terrell," Jones said. "If you look back at our old teams [from the 1990s], a lot of people would say maybe Michael [Irvin] was the leader. Then you might say, 'He was a receiver. What about Troy [Aikman]? He was the quarterback. Wasn't he the leader?' And the answer is, yeah, Troy was a leader. But if Michael wasn't supportive of him, Troy would've had problems.

"A lot of our players thought the world of Terrell - they still do. They loved the way he prepared and how hard he played, and everybody respected his skills and what he'd done in the league. And with him here, I think he was always going to carry that kind of weight."

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More on Tony Romo and his leadership style, tonight on The 33 News at 9:00pm