Jerry Jones refuses to call the Dallas Cowboys 2011 season a failure; he prefers disappointing because using the word failure would be a confession of guilt by the owner and general manager and there’s is no way Jones — or Jones’ elephant-like ego — would condone such an admission.

Jones’ Cowboys do not fail, they disappoint. If that is the barometer, then the team has been disappointing their fans for more than a decade now. These are the facts:

Since 2000, the Dallas Cowboys have made four playoff appearances, winning once (a Wild Card win in 2009 over the Philadelphia Eagles) and losing four times; they’ve had five losing seasons, one .500 season (2011), zero Super Bowl appearances and four different head coaches.

On Tuesday, speaking on his radio show carried on 105.3 The Fan, Jones was asked if the New York Giants were simply the better team. Jones couldn’t bring himself to admit the facts, instead he rattled off a series of individual statistics and team rankings.

The facts are clear: The Giants beat the Cowboys — twice in December — to win the NFC East title. The Giants are hosting a Wild Card playoff game this Saturday against the Atlanta Falcons. Wins and losses, not individual statistics, determine the better team. Fact: the New York Giants are a better team than the Dallas Cowboys.

“I’ve made a lot of changes from year to year as time goes along, but frankly, I know that when we do not have the kind of success, when we don’t have expectations lived up to, the one that should get the most heat is the one that ultimately makes the decisions, period, with the Dallas Cowboys. And that’s me.”

So what were the Cowboys expectations? Even after listening to Jones speak directly about the subject in August, your guess is as good as mine.

“I tried to be very deliberate last year [2010] and not get into the prediction business and talk about a Super Bowl, from one one perspective we spent more money than anyone in the NFL, putting that team on the field last year, so we definitely thought we were going to do a lot better than we did. Our expectation right now is to have the team we would have last year [2010] … we don’t have the same team, but we’ve got a team with a lot of the same talent and we should expect to play better than we did last year [2010].”

Better than last year … as in the year the Cowboys finished 6-10? Then, mission accomplished. Dallas finished 8-8, missing the playoffs for the third time in four years, but better than last year, nonetheless.

In November, former Cowboy, now NFL Network analyst, Deion Sanders defined Jones’ expectations as a moving target, saying:

“You got to give your hats off to Jerry Jones. He creates this persona, this image that this team has a chance. They’re going to win it all every year. And that says a lot from the ownership position. But I don’t think they think about, ‘Hey, we’re going to the Super Bowl.’ It’s not like that. ‘We just got to get in the playoffs and anything can happen.’ So the expectations has lessened.”

Dallas fans can rejoice. The 2011 Cowboys exceeded expectations, improving on their 2010 performance. Wave your blue-and-white Dallas flags with pride knowing the Cowboys did not fail — despite the 53-man roster is golfing, not practicing for the post-season — but disappointed.