It is football (NFL, not World Cup) season again, and so I thought it might be nice to jump into it by reviewing a bit of past history in the NFL, both having to do with the Dallas Cowboys. The first will be this article, about the decline of a team that may have earned "Team of the Decade" honors, but likely should actually have won at least one more title, if not possibly two.
This is not a tragedy, or anything, even in terms of sports accomplishments. After all, the Cowboys did win three Super Bowl titles.
Yet, let us remember how dominant, and even unbeatable, the Cowboys looked in the early nineties, particularly in the immediate aftermath of their Super Bowl XXVIII win, which was their second straight Super Bowl title. It appeared that they, like the Chicago Bulls during that same era, were destined to dominate the decade, or at least most of it. Instead, they began a fairly consistent decline in talent and achievements, with the one exception of the 1995 season, when they probably lucked out with their playoff draw, helping them to win one last title before calling it a wrap.
But Dallas should not have been done as a dynasty. They were so good, so ahead of everyone else just a couple short years earlier, that you kind of wonder what happened, and what might have happened differently to allow the dynasty to continue, and even thrive. And the inescapable conclusion regarding how thoroughly the Cowboys declined, and what they might have done differently, was retaining their head coach, and likely genius behind the Cowboys dynasty of the nineties. They should have kept Jimmy Johnson as the head coach.
What might have happened had they done so? How would history in the NFL been different in the 1990's? Would it have been possible, or perhaps even, dare I suggest,probable, that the Cowboys find a way to beat the 49ers in the regular season, or especially in the NFC Championship Game? Do they become the first team in history to win three straight Super Bowls? Or maybe four? Ultimately, can Dallas win perhaps as many as four or even five total, as stars Troy Aikman and Michael Irvin feel they could and should have?
Of course, there are no answers. There simply is no way to know for sure about such things.
What I am fairly certain about is that the Cowboys would indeed have been a better, and far more disciplined, team. In one of the videos (see below), Troy Aikman says that they were already in decline by 1994, which seems apparent enough. But he also believes that they declines from the 1994 season into 1995, which was another Super Bowl championship season, and that might surprise people. By 1996, the Cowboys were pretty good, but nowhere near their championship level dominance of just a few years earlier, under Johnson. And by 1997, you would be hard pressed to notice any signs whatsoever that the Cowboys had been a truly great and monumentally talented team just a couple of seasons earlier, as they finished 6-10, well out of the playoff race. Despite boasts by Jerry Jones that Barry Switzer would be around for a long, long time, that was, in fact, his last season serving as head coach for the Dallas Cowboys. They were done, basically after that. Oh, they bounced back a little bit, making the postseason in both the 1998 and 1999 seasons, but they were hardly anyone's idea of a dominant team, and produced exactly zero playoff wins. The glory days were over.
So, I wrote this little piece trying to document what happened, and how this once historically talented team seemed, improbably, to underachieve in the long run. Winning three titles in a four year span is obviously not bad, and in fact, had not been done before in history up to that point (although the Patriots equaled that feat later, from 2001-2004), but most football fans still got a sense that something was missing, that this team likely should have won more.
Sometimes, I remember the Dallas Cowboys, as they were at the height of their powers in the early 1990's. That was the era of head coach Jimmy Johnson, and the triumvirate of offensive superstars in quarterback Troy Aikman, running back Emmitt Smith, and wide receiver Michael Irving, behind an overpowering offensive line, and with a young and hungry defense that was both the fastest and strongest in the league. The defense was anchored by Ken Norton, Charles Haley, Jimmie Jones, Leon Lett, and James Washington. Those were the names that you did not want to see when your favorite team played on Sundays back then. My team was, and still is, the Giants, and they got embarrassed numerous times by the Dallas Cowboys back in those days. I remember some of the scores: 30-3, 31-9, 38-10, and 35-0 on opening night at Giants Stadium! The Giants had exactly one win against the Cowboys from the 1992 season until 1996, when the Cowboys were in clear decline, and that one win came when the game was meaningless for Dallas, in the final week of the 1994 regular season. I was at that game, and cheered, although I knew that the 'Boys were hardly really even trying to win, as they had locked up the second seed, and could not either move up or down. That game meant everything for the G-Men, as they had the chance to get into the playoffs with a win and a Green Bay loss. The Giants won, but barely. The Packers still won, and the Giants still were out, but it felt a bit like a moral victory to see them finally beat the Cowboys after several years.
Dallas had been on the rise for years by the time that they knocked off the favored San Francisco 49ers in the 1992 NFC Championship Game and reached their first Super Bowl. They had acquired a ton of young prospects from a historical trade with Minnesota, and loaded up with very talented players on both sides of the ball. In three consecutive drafts, they acquired top wide receiver Michael Irvin, star quarterback Troy Aikman, and incredible running back Emmitt Smith. They built the biggest and most intimidating offensive line in the league, and they had tons of talent on a strong and fast defense. They had taken their lumps in 1988 and especially in 1989, when they bottomed out at 1-15. But from that point on, they built for the future, progressively getting better and better. The Cowboys were the youngest team in the NFL, and yet, they managed to enjoy steady improvement from 1990 on.
It was an amazing feat, and I remember not being able to help but feel impressed by it. How amazing was that turnaround? Jerry Jones, and especially Jimmy Johnson (I suspect that Johnson was more of the architect of that amazing team than Jones was, frankly) had reorganized and not only built a winner, but built what arguably might have been the most talented team in NFL history. I'm not kidding. Just think: they got three key offensive talents in three consecutive first drafts. Star wide receiver Michael Irving, then star quarterback Troy Aikman, and finally star running back Emmitt Smith. They had the biggest, most dominant offensive line that the NFL had ever seen to that point, and nobody could move them. And they had a young and dynamic defense that was the fastest and strongest of it's day, and which ranked number one in both 1992 and 1994. The offense was ranked the number one offense in 1993.
So no, it's no stretch to imagine that they were the most talented team ever assembled. And it was hard not to find some appeal in those efforts, to remember how bad the Dallas Cowboys had gotten during that disastrous 1-15 season in 1989, when they hit rock bottom, to just three short years later, when they soundly beat the favored 49ers in San Francisco, then whipped the Bills in the Super Bowl, establishing themselves as the team to beat in the decade that already seemed to belong to them. If they could reorganize themselves that quickly and that thoroughly, then could we not all take some lessons from that kind of effort? Sure, there was obviously some luck involved. What are the chances that another team like the Vikings were willing to gamble so much on the notion that they were literally one player away from winning a Super Bowl, and that Herschel Walker, the then star running back of the Cowboys who Johnson sensed was expendable, was the man that they needed and were willing to pay such a hefty price for? Much of the Cowboys team that dominated in the early nineties came just from that trade!
By 1992, they finished 13-3 and were NFC East champions, and went to San Francisco for the NFC Championship Game. The 49ers were fairly heavily favored, but the Cowboys played them fairly evenly through the first half, a half that ended with the two teams tied, 10-10. In the second half, Dallas really started to show what they were capable of, outplaying the 49ers and building up a solid lead. They were up 24-13 late in the game when the 49ers broke through for a touchdown, giving them a chance for a late comeback. But that chance ended quickly on the next possession by Dallas when Aikman found a wide open Alvin Harper, who sprinted down the field to inside of the San Francisco 10-yard line. Shortly afterwards, the Cowboys would find the end zone, ending any serious hopes that the 49ers and their fans had for a comeback, as the visiting sideline broke into smiles and celebrations.
It was a huge showdown, compared to the one 11 years earlier between the two franchises, which also had been at Candlestick Park for the NFC Championship Game. The first time, the upstart and unproven 49ers had beaten the more established, and considerably older, Dallas Cowboys to reach their first Super Bowl in franchise history, which they would win to launch a dynasty. In 1992, the Cowboys beat the 49ers, and went to the first of their three Super Bowls in the nineties, launching their dynasty.
Those Cowboys - particularly the first two championship seasons in 1992 and 1993 - were young and cocky, even arrogant. They had a swagger, and were not afraid to show it. That, coupled with the franchise reputation as the team that everyone loved to hate, elicited some strong reactions. But whether you loved them or hated them, the fact of the matter was that it was hard to dispute that they were the best team in the league. That was established once they beat the 49ers in San Francisco during that NFC title game. They obliterated the Bills in the Super Bowl. The next year, the Cowboys would reach the number one seed, and in the rematch with the 49ers, they completely dominated the game. They went on to beat Buffalo yet again in the Super Bowl.
Then, however, something strange happened. With the Cowboys having clearly established themselves as far and away the best team in the league, owner Jerry Jones and head coach Jimmy Johnson had a very public splitting up. On his way out, Johnson issued what amounted to a backhanded compliment, suggesting that the team that he was leaving was good enough to win a third straight Super Bowl, which obviously meant that the expectations should be that nothing short of a third straight title could be deemed a success. The new head coach who replaced Johnson was Barry Switzer, and if memory serves correctly, he too said something strange and, frankly, self-defeating, if he actually said it. What he said was that he had felt that the 49ers were actually the more talented, even better, team in the 1993 season. That would be a rather foolish thing to say, because it would suggest that Johnson was responsible for his team beating a better team not just once in 1993, but twice, and possibly even three straight times - convincingly each time - if Switzer felt this was true in the 1992 season as well. Then, going on and getting his butt kicked by San Fran the next two seasons in three consecutive meetings compromised Switzer's own credentials as head coach. After all, he was not able to do what Johnson had done, and he himself had likely cost his team a chance in the NFC title game when he was penalized for bumping into the referee at a critical point for what could still have been a Cowboys comeback. Still, the thinking when he was hired was that the Cowboys were so good, that almost any old idiot could take over and win at least one championship more, if not two. But there would only be one more title, and frankly, it sometimes feels like Dallas won Super Bowl XXX in spite of Switzer being the coach, rather than because of him being there.
Meanwhile, the 49ers did some strange things in the offseason, picking up talent. At the same time that the Cowboys had been slowly but surely picked apart (remember that 1994 was the first year of free agency), the 49ers loaded up on talent, and specifically set a new lineup to match one team: the Dallas Cowboys. They gambled that if they got past Dallas, they would go on to win the Super Bowl, and that was a gamble that they won. The Cowboys, now coached by Barry Switzer, were still good, but not as good as they had been the two prior seasons, and the 49ers were better than they had been. The 'Boys lost the regular season meeting between the two teams, giving the 'Niners home field advantage for the inevitable NFC Championship Game meeting between the two. This time, the 49ers won, jumping all over the Cowboys early, racing out to a 31-7 halftime lead, and then holding off the attempt at a comeback, ultimately winning 38-28.
Dallas had jumped out to an impressive 8-1 start in 1995, but then lost the regular season meeting to the 5-4 49ers. This loss seemed to somewhat derail Dallas, as they began suffering some setbacks. They were still good, but o longer looked unbeatable. Meanwhile, the 49ers, who had been struggling, pulled off six straight wins to reach a record of 11-4, and with a win in Atlanta, would once again secure home field advantage. But they were upset instead, and Dallas, finishing with a 12-4 record, earned the top seed throughout the playoffs. The Cowboys also lucked out when the Green Bay Packers, a young and rising team behind incredible quarterback Brett Favre, bounced San Francisco out of the playoffs. The Packers put up a strong challenge against Dallas in the NFC title game, but ultimately, the 'Boys mounted a comeback and won a third NFC title in four seasons. They then held off a surprisingly tough Pittsburgh Steelers team to become the first team to win three Super Bowls in a span of four years.
Indeed, the Dallas Cowboys were Super Bowl champions for the 1995-96 season. Yet, in the video below, Troy Aikman suggested something that might raise some eyebrows. He stated that the 1994 team that lost to San Francisco in the NFC title game had been weaker than the 1993 Dallas Super owl champions, which is obviously not shocking. But he went on to say that the 1995 Dallas Cowboys, although they won the Super Bowl, were actually weaker than the 1994 team that lost to the 49ers. It surprised me to here that, but then again, I do remember how lucky it seemed that the Cowboys kept getting the breaks, specifically with the 49ers. They had lost the regular season meeting, but lucked out with home field advantage anyway when San Francisco was upset by Atlanta in the final week of the regular season. How might things have been different had they won, and earned home field advantage, and the Cowboys played the Packers in the divisional round, with a trip to San Francisco for the NFC Championship Game likely the reward the following week? Would they have been able to win against a team that seemed to have masted them? But instead, the road to the super Bowl ran through Dallas, and the 49ers were actually upset by the Packers, a team that Dallas matched up better against, and seemed to hold a certain mastery over to that point. Luck sometimes plays a part in sports and destiny, and that Dallas team might have gotten seriously lucky in 1995-96. It was good enough to remove the biggest obstacle to another title, and they went ahead and won the Super Bowl, which is the last time that the Cowboys actually won the big game to date.
Still, Troy Aikman suggests in the video down below (check it out, it's interesting) that the Cowboys had been in a steady decline for a couple of years already by then. He said that the 1994 Cowboys had lost a step from the 1993 season, which is easy enough to believe. But then, he goes on to say that the 1995 Dallas team, which wound up winning the Super Bowl, was not as good as the 1994 team that did not. That surprised me, and kind of raised my eyebrows a bit.
And there's more. Michael Irvin suggested a few years ago that had Jimmy Johnson stayed on as coach of the Cowboys, that Dallas would have won five Super Bowls. Seriously, he feels that the Cowboys should have won five, at minimum, and perhaps even more than that. If he would have been right about that, and if they had indeed gone on to enjoy that much success, the Cowboys would have surely been considered the greatest team in NFL history. Maybe they would have been like the Chicago Bulls were in basketball at the time, just a team so dominant that they were almost in a league of their own. Maybe they were almost on that level indeed. Irving seemed to think so:
“When Troy (Hall-of-Fame quarterback Troy Aikman) and I get together we look at each other — and I’m telling you there’s not a time we don’t get together (and say) ‘We should’ve at least had five ourselves.’ “
“We should’ve won five. We should’ve at least walked away with a minimum of five Super Bowls. “That’s a minimum I really do believe that. You look back on it now, and if I had the sense I have now … if I had it then … we certainly would have won five Super Bowls. It just works out that way. It still gets to me, man. I’m telling you. It really does.”
Now, maybe that seems a bit high, or then again, maybe not. Really, for all of the seeming dominance in 1994, the 49ers did not obliterate the Cowboys as much as they should have. After all, they jumped out to a 31-7 halftime lead in that NFC Championship Game, and then held on to win 38-28. If you take away the atrocious start for Dallas on that day, when they fell behind 21-0, the Cowboys might very well have had a shot at winning. And let's face it, Jimmy Johnson seemed more in control with that team than Barry Switzer ever did. You got the sense that it was not fully Switzer's tam, that he won the Super Bowl with what remained of an incredible team that he himself had not built. Would it really be so crazy to think that Johnson might have gotten the Cowboys over that hump of the 49ers in 1994, and/or gone on to win the championship in 1995, or perhaps again in 1996. Remember, Dallas defeated both of their biggest rivals, and the top teams in the NFC, on consecutive weekends in 1996, beating the 49ers in 'Frisco, and then knocking out the Packers in Dallas. Maybe they would have won a couple of more games with Johnson at the helm, and they just might have had a playoff bye, and home field advantage in the divisional round, which would have helped their cause.
Remember, the Cowboys were the youngest team in the league in 1992, when they won their first title, and were close to the youngest still in 1993. Did they really age that much, that quickly, in 1994, and then 1995, and again in 1996, so that they were nowhere near as good? After all, the NFL was watered down by 1994, with the salary cap, and this was even more the case with each successive year for a while. Yes, perhaps Dallas could and should have won more. Perhaps Johnson might have brought out the best in his Cowboys, and maybe they possibly do win at least one more title, and perhaps even two. Yes, they were the "Team of the Decade," but almost all of that was based on their dominance in the first half of the decade, from 1991-1995, when they went from rising stars to established dynasty. Probably, they should have been better during the second half of their decade, no?
But they kept on declining with Switzer. Indeed, it is not that unthinkable to believe that the 'Boys were worse not only in '94 than they had been the championship year prior, but that they were worse in '95 than they had been in '94. It was hard to feel that the 1995 Cowboys were as dominant and unbeatable as they had seemed to be just two years prior, and had they lost to either Green Bay in the NFC title game, or to Pittsburgh in the Super Bowl (remember that the Steelers were very much in it until late in the fourth quarter), almost everyone would have readily accepted that they were indeed worse. They certainly did not dominate in the NFC title game or the Super Bowl that season like they had in their two previous title runs. And by 1996, the Cowboys were clearly no longer the favorites in the league. By 1997, they were no longer even a playoff team, dropping off to 6-10. Not surprisingly, Barry Switzer was fired after that season. Perhaps a sign of how much people felt that he had rode the curtails of the success of Jerry Jones and Jimmy Johnson, no other team seemed to express interest in him, despite him having coached a team to a Super Bowl title just a few seasons prior. And the Cowboys, despite some playoff appearances in the late nineties, never looked anywhere near as good as they had in the earlier part of the decade, despite some of the same big names. Not even close, frankly.
In fact, the Cowboys began a long drought of any real playoff success following their final stand as defending champions in 1996. They won one playoff game against Minnesota, but then lost in Carolina the following week. They would not win another playoff game again for well over a decade, and still have won only a few playoff games since. But the Cowboys as a franchise have not returned even as far as the NFC Championship Game since that last Super Bowl season, which is going on a quarter of a century soon.
Clearly, that was the end of the Dallas Cowboys dynasty.
Michael Irvin: Cowboys would've won 5 Super Bowls with Jimmy Johnson Jimmy Johnson coached the Cowboys from 1989-1993 and in that time he led the team to two Super Bowl titles. Ryan Wilson mugshot by Ryan Wilson @ryanwilson_07 Apr 27, 2015
It was a huge showdown, compared to the one 11 years earlier between the two franchises, which also had been at Candlestick Park for the NFC Championship Game. The first time, the upstart and unproven 49ers had beaten the more established, and considerably older, Dallas Cowboys to reach their first Super Bowl in franchise history, which they would win to launch a dynasty. In 1992, the Cowboys beat the 49ers, and went to the first of their three Super Bowls in the nineties, launching their dynasty.
Those Cowboys - particularly the first two championship seasons in 1992 and 1993 - were young and cocky, even arrogant. They had a swagger, and were not afraid to show it. That, coupled with the franchise reputation as the team that everyone loved to hate, elicited some strong reactions. But whether you loved them or hated them, the fact of the matter was that it was hard to dispute that they were the best team in the league. That was established once they beat the 49ers in San Francisco during that NFC title game. They obliterated the Bills in the Super Bowl. The next year, the Cowboys would reach the number one seed, and in the rematch with the 49ers, they completely dominated the game. They went on to beat Buffalo yet again in the Super Bowl.
Then, however, something strange happened. With the Cowboys having clearly established themselves as far and away the best team in the league, owner Jerry Jones and head coach Jimmy Johnson had a very public splitting up. On his way out, Johnson issued what amounted to a backhanded compliment, suggesting that the team that he was leaving was good enough to win a third straight Super Bowl, which obviously meant that the expectations should be that nothing short of a third straight title could be deemed a success. The new head coach who replaced Johnson was Barry Switzer, and if memory serves correctly, he too said something strange and, frankly, self-defeating, if he actually said it. What he said was that he had felt that the 49ers were actually the more talented, even better, team in the 1993 season. That would be a rather foolish thing to say, because it would suggest that Johnson was responsible for his team beating a better team not just once in 1993, but twice, and possibly even three straight times - convincingly each time - if Switzer felt this was true in the 1992 season as well. Then, going on and getting his butt kicked by San Fran the next two seasons in three consecutive meetings compromised Switzer's own credentials as head coach. After all, he was not able to do what Johnson had done, and he himself had likely cost his team a chance in the NFC title game when he was penalized for bumping into the referee at a critical point for what could still have been a Cowboys comeback. Still, the thinking when he was hired was that the Cowboys were so good, that almost any old idiot could take over and win at least one championship more, if not two. But there would only be one more title, and frankly, it sometimes feels like Dallas won Super Bowl XXX in spite of Switzer being the coach, rather than because of him being there.
Meanwhile, the 49ers did some strange things in the offseason, picking up talent. At the same time that the Cowboys had been slowly but surely picked apart (remember that 1994 was the first year of free agency), the 49ers loaded up on talent, and specifically set a new lineup to match one team: the Dallas Cowboys. They gambled that if they got past Dallas, they would go on to win the Super Bowl, and that was a gamble that they won. The Cowboys, now coached by Barry Switzer, were still good, but not as good as they had been the two prior seasons, and the 49ers were better than they had been. The 'Boys lost the regular season meeting between the two teams, giving the 'Niners home field advantage for the inevitable NFC Championship Game meeting between the two. This time, the 49ers won, jumping all over the Cowboys early, racing out to a 31-7 halftime lead, and then holding off the attempt at a comeback, ultimately winning 38-28.
Dallas had jumped out to an impressive 8-1 start in 1995, but then lost the regular season meeting to the 5-4 49ers. This loss seemed to somewhat derail Dallas, as they began suffering some setbacks. They were still good, but o longer looked unbeatable. Meanwhile, the 49ers, who had been struggling, pulled off six straight wins to reach a record of 11-4, and with a win in Atlanta, would once again secure home field advantage. But they were upset instead, and Dallas, finishing with a 12-4 record, earned the top seed throughout the playoffs. The Cowboys also lucked out when the Green Bay Packers, a young and rising team behind incredible quarterback Brett Favre, bounced San Francisco out of the playoffs. The Packers put up a strong challenge against Dallas in the NFC title game, but ultimately, the 'Boys mounted a comeback and won a third NFC title in four seasons. They then held off a surprisingly tough Pittsburgh Steelers team to become the first team to win three Super Bowls in a span of four years.
Indeed, the Dallas Cowboys were Super Bowl champions for the 1995-96 season. Yet, in the video below, Troy Aikman suggested something that might raise some eyebrows. He stated that the 1994 team that lost to San Francisco in the NFC title game had been weaker than the 1993 Dallas Super owl champions, which is obviously not shocking. But he went on to say that the 1995 Dallas Cowboys, although they won the Super Bowl, were actually weaker than the 1994 team that lost to the 49ers. It surprised me to here that, but then again, I do remember how lucky it seemed that the Cowboys kept getting the breaks, specifically with the 49ers. They had lost the regular season meeting, but lucked out with home field advantage anyway when San Francisco was upset by Atlanta in the final week of the regular season. How might things have been different had they won, and earned home field advantage, and the Cowboys played the Packers in the divisional round, with a trip to San Francisco for the NFC Championship Game likely the reward the following week? Would they have been able to win against a team that seemed to have masted them? But instead, the road to the super Bowl ran through Dallas, and the 49ers were actually upset by the Packers, a team that Dallas matched up better against, and seemed to hold a certain mastery over to that point. Luck sometimes plays a part in sports and destiny, and that Dallas team might have gotten seriously lucky in 1995-96. It was good enough to remove the biggest obstacle to another title, and they went ahead and won the Super Bowl, which is the last time that the Cowboys actually won the big game to date.
Still, Troy Aikman suggests in the video down below (check it out, it's interesting) that the Cowboys had been in a steady decline for a couple of years already by then. He said that the 1994 Cowboys had lost a step from the 1993 season, which is easy enough to believe. But then, he goes on to say that the 1995 Dallas team, which wound up winning the Super Bowl, was not as good as the 1994 team that did not. That surprised me, and kind of raised my eyebrows a bit.
And there's more. Michael Irvin suggested a few years ago that had Jimmy Johnson stayed on as coach of the Cowboys, that Dallas would have won five Super Bowls. Seriously, he feels that the Cowboys should have won five, at minimum, and perhaps even more than that. If he would have been right about that, and if they had indeed gone on to enjoy that much success, the Cowboys would have surely been considered the greatest team in NFL history. Maybe they would have been like the Chicago Bulls were in basketball at the time, just a team so dominant that they were almost in a league of their own. Maybe they were almost on that level indeed. Irving seemed to think so:
“When Troy (Hall-of-Fame quarterback Troy Aikman) and I get together we look at each other — and I’m telling you there’s not a time we don’t get together (and say) ‘We should’ve at least had five ourselves.’ “
“We should’ve won five. We should’ve at least walked away with a minimum of five Super Bowls. “That’s a minimum I really do believe that. You look back on it now, and if I had the sense I have now … if I had it then … we certainly would have won five Super Bowls. It just works out that way. It still gets to me, man. I’m telling you. It really does.”
Now, maybe that seems a bit high, or then again, maybe not. Really, for all of the seeming dominance in 1994, the 49ers did not obliterate the Cowboys as much as they should have. After all, they jumped out to a 31-7 halftime lead in that NFC Championship Game, and then held on to win 38-28. If you take away the atrocious start for Dallas on that day, when they fell behind 21-0, the Cowboys might very well have had a shot at winning. And let's face it, Jimmy Johnson seemed more in control with that team than Barry Switzer ever did. You got the sense that it was not fully Switzer's tam, that he won the Super Bowl with what remained of an incredible team that he himself had not built. Would it really be so crazy to think that Johnson might have gotten the Cowboys over that hump of the 49ers in 1994, and/or gone on to win the championship in 1995, or perhaps again in 1996. Remember, Dallas defeated both of their biggest rivals, and the top teams in the NFC, on consecutive weekends in 1996, beating the 49ers in 'Frisco, and then knocking out the Packers in Dallas. Maybe they would have won a couple of more games with Johnson at the helm, and they just might have had a playoff bye, and home field advantage in the divisional round, which would have helped their cause.
Remember, the Cowboys were the youngest team in the league in 1992, when they won their first title, and were close to the youngest still in 1993. Did they really age that much, that quickly, in 1994, and then 1995, and again in 1996, so that they were nowhere near as good? After all, the NFL was watered down by 1994, with the salary cap, and this was even more the case with each successive year for a while. Yes, perhaps Dallas could and should have won more. Perhaps Johnson might have brought out the best in his Cowboys, and maybe they possibly do win at least one more title, and perhaps even two. Yes, they were the "Team of the Decade," but almost all of that was based on their dominance in the first half of the decade, from 1991-1995, when they went from rising stars to established dynasty. Probably, they should have been better during the second half of their decade, no?
But they kept on declining with Switzer. Indeed, it is not that unthinkable to believe that the 'Boys were worse not only in '94 than they had been the championship year prior, but that they were worse in '95 than they had been in '94. It was hard to feel that the 1995 Cowboys were as dominant and unbeatable as they had seemed to be just two years prior, and had they lost to either Green Bay in the NFC title game, or to Pittsburgh in the Super Bowl (remember that the Steelers were very much in it until late in the fourth quarter), almost everyone would have readily accepted that they were indeed worse. They certainly did not dominate in the NFC title game or the Super Bowl that season like they had in their two previous title runs. And by 1996, the Cowboys were clearly no longer the favorites in the league. By 1997, they were no longer even a playoff team, dropping off to 6-10. Not surprisingly, Barry Switzer was fired after that season. Perhaps a sign of how much people felt that he had rode the curtails of the success of Jerry Jones and Jimmy Johnson, no other team seemed to express interest in him, despite him having coached a team to a Super Bowl title just a few seasons prior. And the Cowboys, despite some playoff appearances in the late nineties, never looked anywhere near as good as they had in the earlier part of the decade, despite some of the same big names. Not even close, frankly.
In fact, the Cowboys began a long drought of any real playoff success following their final stand as defending champions in 1996. They won one playoff game against Minnesota, but then lost in Carolina the following week. They would not win another playoff game again for well over a decade, and still have won only a few playoff games since. But the Cowboys as a franchise have not returned even as far as the NFC Championship Game since that last Super Bowl season, which is going on a quarter of a century soon.
Clearly, that was the end of the Dallas Cowboys dynasty.
Michael Irvin: Cowboys would've won 5 Super Bowls with Jimmy Johnson Jimmy Johnson coached the Cowboys from 1989-1993 and in that time he led the team to two Super Bowl titles. Ryan Wilson mugshot by Ryan Wilson @ryanwilson_07 Apr 27, 2015
Dallas' Jones Pushes For Salary Cap MIKE BALDWIN Published: Sun, July 30, 1995
Here's the thing about 1993: If they lose that season finale to your Giants, they may not have made that SB. They would have had to take the WC route, with a possible matchup @SF on the docket in the Divisional Round (I don't think they win that game).
ReplyDeleteAlso, Jimmy wanted out. It was his plan to leave after five years all along. In addition, he was sick of being the bad guy (that team was full of miscreants).
The Cowboys probably make more SB's if he would have stayed the rest of the decade, but by the late 90's, they would have been playing my Broncos, not Buffaluck (the Bills didn't deserve to be in those SB's against Dallas). They would have had a much tougher time winning, if they win at all.