We didn’t have enough players.” Jimmy Johnson recently recalled, bluntly describing the state of the Dallas Cowboys when he became the head coach in 1989. The franchise was, indeed, a mess, and he had his work cut out for him. The Cowboys, known as “America’s Team” since they became perennial championship contenders in the ’70s, had fallen on hard times. Johnson was brought in to turn things around. But he and his new boss, the owner of the Cowboys (and his college pal) Jerry Jones, were, for a time, collectively, public enemy number one in Dallas.
THE JERRY JONES ERA BEGINS IN DALLAS (1989)
On Thursday evening, February 23, 1989, Cowboys head coach Tom Landry and general manager Tex Schramm became aware that the sale of the Dallas Cowboys was imminent. They learned about it in the same manner as hundreds of thousands of Cowboys fans and Dallas-area residents: through local TV, via a breaking report that aired during KXTV Channel 5’s 10 p.m. newscast. Earlier that evening, Arkansas oil tycoon Jerry Jones and Cowboys owner Bum Bright quietly shook hands on a deal for Jones to buy the team.
The big news didn’t deter Landry, still the team’s head coach, from going to the team offices the next morning and performing his head coaching duties as if it were any other day. However, if he knew the conversations that were taking place while he was there, he probably would have made different plans. While Landry was in his office watching game film, Miami Dolphins head coach Don Shula called Schramm and told him about a conversation his son, David Shula, just had with University of Miami head coach Jimmy Johnson. At the time, David was the Dolphins’ quarterbacks coach. According to Don, Johnson told David that Johnson was the new head coach of the Dallas Cowboys. Johnson then offered David a job as an assistant coach on his Cowboys staff.
On Saturday morning, the front page of the Dallas Morning News included a photo of Johnson and Jones, taken the night before, at Mia’s Tex-Mex Restaurant in Dallas, one of Landry’s favorite eateries (and where scads of pictures of Landry decorate the walls). The image depicts Johnson and Jones sitting in a booth, with their significant others, smiling contentedly and enjoying their Friday night dinner. On that Saturday afternoon, Jones finalized the purchase of the team.
“[TOM LANDRY] IS, A LEGEND, AND THEY TREATED HIM LIKE DIRT” (1989)
Jones’s next order of business was to push Landry, the only coach the Dallas Cowboys had ever had, out the door. Landry was hired before the franchise’s inaugural season in 1960. He led the Cowboys to a 270–178–6 all-time record and two Super Bowl championships. During one stretch under Landry, the Cowboys had 20 straight winning seasons. However, the team had just suffered through a 3–13 season, their third straight losing campaign.
All of the losing was affecting the Cowboys’ brand, and the fans were getting restless. According to sportswriter Gary Myers, who covered the Cowboys for the Dallas Morning News during the last eight years of the Landry era, an overwhelming number of Cowboy fans wanted to see Landry gone. “If you would have taken a poll in 1988,” of Cowboy fans, Myers said in 2021, “it would have run about 90 percent [in favor] of firing [Landry].”
Once the sale of the team was official, Jones hopped on his Learjet with Schramm, and headed to a resort west of Austin to visit Landry, who was playing golf. In what Jones described as a very awkward conversation, particularly for Schramm, who had been Landry’s right-hand man all of his 29 years as head coach, Landry was relieved of his duties.
The coaching shakeup was hardly a surprise. Throughout the previous month, Landry had been seeing rumors in the press about a potential team sale and his possible dismissal. The reaction to his firing, however, was dramatic. Landry was a beloved and legendary figure in Dallas, and many thought Jones failed to treat him with the deference he deserved during his firing. “They didn’t show Tom any respect at all,” said Cowboys offensive line coach Jim Erkenbeck. “Here he is, a legend, and they treated him like dirt.” Dave “Kidd” Kraddick, a disc jockey at Dallas radio station KEGL wrote a song, “The Landry Years” using the melody from the Mike and the Mechanics hit song “The Living Years.” Some of the lyrics:
The Landry Generation, is stepping out the door.
He goes with some frustration, but he’s seen it all before.
He’s been a Dallas hero for 29 long years
He gave us all the good times, and now it gives us tears
I just wish we could have told him… in the Landry Years…
… We’ve all felt the magic, as we watched him from the stands.
And now it seems so tragic.
The way they treated this great man.
“To see the man who pioneered the whole thing be thrown away like yesterday’s paper. It really hurts,” Kraddick told a Fort Worth TV reporter at the time. Landry’s friends and backers are still, to this day, angry about what went down. Longtime sports broadcaster Verne Lundquist, who worked in Dallas for WFAA-TV for many years and was the Cowboys’ radio play-by-play voice from 1967 to 1984, thought Landry deserved better. “Firings are hard, I know,” he later recalled, “but they can be handled with class, and Tom’s wasn’t.” In late April 1989, the city held a parade called “Tom Landry Day.” Fifty thousand people showed up in downtown Dallas to celebrate Landry’s career. There were 86 floats.
“THEY’RE TAKING AIKMAN TO SELL TICKETS… BUT [HE’S] NOT AN IMPACT PLAYER” (1989)
The same day Jones fired Landry, Jimmy Johnson was announced as the Cowboys’ head coach. Jones’s teammate at the University of Arkansas, Johnson was a successful college coach who led the University of Miami to a National Championship in 1987. However, in over 20 years of coaching, he had never even been on an NFL coaching staff. Jones had played football in college but had never been involved with an NFL franchise. And yet, he did not hire a general manager.
As soon as Johnson reviewed his roster, he knew that he had to immediately address the quarterback position. The Cowboys’ quarterback room was in desperate need of a revamp. In 1988, the team was led by veteran Steve Pelleur, who was 8–19 as a starter in his Cowboys career. Fortunately, Dallas had the No. 1 overall pick in the 1989 NFL Draft, where Troy Aikman was waiting in the wings.
Most draft experts thought Aikman should be the top choice in the draft. A 6-foot-4, 200-plus-pound All-American out of UCLA, Aikman had just led the Bruins to a 10–2 season and a 20–4 record in his two seasons as starting quarterback. He had all the tools scouts desired in a quarterback: a rocket arm, great size, and intelligence. “[He] could be the closest thing to a franchise quarterback since Denver drafted John Elway out of Stanford,” wrote Robert Sansevere in the (Minneapolis) Star Tribune. “Even Broncos personnel are saying that.”
Not all draft experts thought Aikman was the best choice. NFL Draft guru Mel Kiper Jr. loved Aikman but said he would have chosen Michigan State offensive lineman Tony Mandarich with the first pick and that the Cowboys’ division rivals were hoping Dallas would pick Aikman. “If [the Cowboys] took Tony Mandarich, he’d give Dallas a virtual 300-pound line for [the Cowboys’ superstar running back] Herschel Walker to run behind,” Kiper said. (The Packers ended up selecting Mandarich at No. 2, and he turned out to be one of the biggest draft busts in NFL history—read more about this in chapter 10.)
Dallas didn’t even wait until they were on the clock to lock up Aikman. They signed him to a six-year, $11.037 million contract three days before the draft. ESPN’s Joe Theismann thought it was a silly move. “They’re taking Aikman to sell tickets,” he said. “But Aikman’s not an impact player like [former Cowboys quarterback] Randy White or [Hall of Fame former Cowboys running back] Tony Dorsett.” Houston Chronicle columnist Al Carter had the same opinion, and he didn’t mince words. “The Cowboys blew it,” Carter wrote. He thought they went for the “quick fix” by choosing a quarterback instead of trying to improve their defense. “Had the Cowboys been able to live with Steve Pelleur, they could have drafted Tony Mandarich.”
A few months later, despite having signed their new franchise quarterback, the Cowboys shocked everyone and acquired another quarterback, Steve Walsh, through the NFL’s Supplemental Draft. Walsh was one of Johnson’s quarterbacks at the University of Miami, where he had a 23–1 record as a starter. He was the Hurricanes’ quarterback during the 1987 National Championship season. At the time, college underclassmen could choose to skip the college entry draft and enter a supplemental draft along with players who were barred, for whatever reason, from entering the NFL Draft. By rule, after picking Walsh in the supplemental draft, the Cowboys had to surrender a first-round pick in the 1990 entry draft.
Aikman wasn’t thrilled when Johnson acquired Walsh. It triggered an uneasy relationship between the two that lasted a couple of years. According to Aikman’s agent, Leigh Steinberg, leading up to the draft he and Aikman had multiple conversations with Jimmy and Jerry about their plans to build a team around Aikman. Upon learning that the Cowboys had drafted Walsh, Steinberg wondered, “How could we believe another word now?” Jones assured him that they would eventually trade Walsh.
“THE VIKINGS GOT HERSCHEL WALKER. THE COWBOYS GOT NOTHING MORE THAN A HUGE HANDFUL OF MINNESOTA SMOKE” (1989)
The Cowboys weren’t completely devoid of talent when Jones and Johnson took over. Their first two picks in the 1988 Draft, wide receiver Michael Irvin and linebacker Ken Norton Jr., each had solid rookie seasons. Their roster also included a reliable tackle in Mark Tuinei, a young guard in Nate Newton, and veteran defensive lineman Jim Jeffcoat.
At the time, the Cowboys’ most valuable asset was running back Herschel Walker. One of the game’s best-known stars and a former Heisman Trophy winner, Walker rushed for 1,514 yards in 1988. But, despite his obvious talent, he was more of a power runner, and Johnson thought his system favored a more elusive, more agile running back. Johnson considered Walker expendable.
Minnesota Vikings general manager Mike Lynn thought that his team had Pro-Bowl talent at almost every position except running back, and the lack of production from their running game was the one thing holding them back. He believed Walker was the Vikings’ “missing Super Bowl link.” Five games into the 1989 season, Johnson and Lynn agreed on a trade to send Walker to Minnesota. It turned out to be one of the most impactful transactions in NFL history and would change the fortunes of both franchises for years to come.
The deal involved many players and many moving parts. Minnesota, in return for Walker, sent Dallas a bevy of draft picks, along with linebackers Jesse Solomon and David Howard, cornerback Isaac Holt, running back Darrin Nelson, and defensive end Alex Stewart. While the group of players were unspectacular, the draft picks were the cornerstone of the deal. The Cowboys a received a first-, second-, and sixth-round pick in 1990 and five conditional picks over the next three years that included two first-rounders, two second-rounders, and one third-rounder.
Since the players coming to Dallas from the trade weren’t difference makers, the Cowboys’ haul didn’t look overwhelming on the surface. However, many—especially people with front-office experience who knew the power of draft picks—understood the need to rebuild. Former Washington general manager Bobby Beathard thought that the Cowboys “did the right thing” because they were going nowhere, even with Walker. For the same reason, Sports Illustrated’s Peter King wrote that “trading Walker was the smartest move Dallas could make.”
The next day, Johnson gloated and boasted that one “NFL voice” told him that he had just pulled off “the great train robbery.” Not everyone agreed. Randy Galloway, a prominent Dallas journalist and radio personality, thought Johnson was digging his own grave with the deal. He wrote a scathing column in the Dallas Morning News ripping the coach. “Yes, we have a prime suspect in this heist,” he wrote. “The Vikings got Herschel Walker. The Cowboys got nothing more than a huge handful of Minnesota smoke. And who knows if there will be any fire. Love that steal for Minnesota.” He went on to lament about the unexceptional players the Cowboys received in return and claimed the draft picks were a mystery. To him, relying on the draft as a major part of the rebuild was unwise.
Conversely, while he ripped Johnson, Galloway heaped praise on the Vikings. “[They] gave up nothing they could not afford to lose,” he wrote. “It’s a textbook example of how the strong fleece the weak in a blockbuster trade. All they had to do is find somebody dumb enough to fall for it.”
Galloway wasn’t alone. Longtime Dallas scribe Frank Luksa called the package the Cowboys received “a bag of beans and a cow to be named later.” Skip Miller, a writer for the (Newport News, Virginia) Daily Press, also had a laugh. “It’s a lot like giving up four Bob Uecker baseball cards for one vintage Mickey Mantle,” he wrote. “The Dallas rebuilding job seemed so simple a week ago. Build the offense around Walker… Any football coach will tell you once in a career a lucky coach will get a player like Herschel Walker. He then builds around that player.”
“THEY’RE PITIFUL. THEY HAVE NO CLUE. WITH HERSCHEL TRADED, THIS IS A SUB-EXPANSION TEAM” (1989)
Before the trade, the Cowboys were 0–5; by the end of October they were 0–8. They weren’t just losing, they were getting blown out, losing by an average of 16 points a game. They were also last or close to last in many offensive and defensive categories. “The town is just about ready to dump them,” Luksa told the (Oklahoma City) Oklahoman. “It’s sad to see what a wretched piece of business they’ve become. They’re awful. They’re pitiful. They have no clue. With Herschel traded, this is a sub-expansion team.”
Based solely on the team’s on-field performance, Luksa wasn’t wrong. But that should have been expected. When he made the deal with the Vikings, Johnson had not only given up Walker, he essentially gave up on being even remotely competitive for the remainder of the 1989 season. The team was bad with Walker. Without him, they were a complete Dumpster fire. A few days after the trade, Johnson foreshadowed how the rest of the year would pan out when he was asked about any possible alterations to their game plan without Herschel, and he simply said he would plug in the next man up: some running back named Darryl Clack. “Darryl Clack is our guy and he’ll jump right in there and play,” Johnson replied. “We’ll have the same offense, only Darryl Clack will be carrying the ball rather than Herschel Walker.” Clack didn’t last two months. He was released near the end of November.
Looking back on it, Galloway, now retired, remembers being caught off guard by Johnson’s markedly different approach to the rebuild. “To build a team through the draft,” he said in 2020, “was very unusual in those days… It was… considered a six-, seven-, eight-, nine-year process.” Johnson was trying to vastly accelerate that process, and Galloway was not convinced that Johnson and Jones would be able to execute such an ambitious plan. “I just didn’t respect Johnson’s ability to draft,” he said. Not because he didn’t think Johnson and Jones were smart, but because they were NFL rookies who had yet to prove they had the chops to do it. “I didn’t have a sample size.”
Turns out, Galloway said, if he would have known how good many of the players Johnson drafted in the 1989 Draft (months before the Walker trade) would become, he would have judged Johnson differently. Four of the Cowboys’ first six picks in that draft: Aikman, fullback Daryl Johnston, offensive lineman Mark Stepnoski, and defensive end Tony Tolbert were all integral contributors to the team’s forthcoming dynasty run.
HERSCHEL’S DAZZLING MINNESOTA DEBUT (1989)
While the Cowboys floundered during the first few weeks after the big trade, the Vikings were on cloud nine. Walker roared off to a booming start in Minnesota. Four days after the trade, Walker was dressed and ready to go for the Vikings’ home game against Green Bay. It was, up to that point, the largest crowd in Metrodome history.
Walker was on the sidelines for most of the Vikings’ first drive. But after the Packers scored to make the game 7–0 with 6:27 left in the first quarter, he was sent out to receive the Packers’ kickoff. On the CBS broadcast, Herschel appeared on the screen in the end zone standing alone, preparing for the kick. Play-by-play announcer Verne Lundquist, with the deep, soothing voice that helped make him one of the top voices in sports broadcasting for over 40 years, officially announced Walker’s arrival in Minnesota.
“He’s here.”
Moments later, Herschel returned the kickoff 51 yards down the sideline. The crowd went berserk. Unfortunately, an illegal block-in-the-back penalty nullified it. But it got the crowd going. A few drives later, Walker came in on second down to a huge ovation. Soon thereafter, he took a handoff from Vikings quarterback Tommy Kramer and scampered to a 47-yard run, losing a shoe in the process.
By the fourth quarter, the Vikings were leading comfortably 26–7. The Vikings’ defense, considered one of the best in the NFL at the time, swarmed Packers quarterback Don Majkowski on every play. At one point during the game broadcast, former Vikings running back Chuck Foreman was shown sitting among the Metrodome crowd. Foreman was (at the time) the Vikings all-time leader in rushing yards, and two-time NFL All-Pro. “That is Chuck Foreman,” Lundquist told viewers. “Until this afternoon, perhaps the greatest running back in Vikings history.”
Walker finished the game, a 26–14 Vikings win, with 148 yards rushing on 18 carries.
“MAYBE THE MINNESOTA VIKINGS DIDN’T GIVE UP ENOUGH FOR HERSCHEL… WHAT A BARGAIN”
After his debut, the Twin Cities were already hooked on Herschel. According to Peter King, who covered the game for Sports Illustrated, during a time-out in the third quarter, the Metrodome crowd broke out into spontaneous applause for the Vikings’ new running back. “Maybe the Minnesota Vikings didn’t give up enough for Herschel Walker,” pondered Michael Wilbon in the Washington Post. “What a bargain. The Cowboys ought to get on the phone pronto and demand that the Vikings send a couple more of those high draft picks south.” NBC commentator Paul Maguire felt similarly. “The Vikings just found the missing ingredient for the Super Bowl,” he said.
Later in the evening, after the Vikings’ triumph over Green Bay, KARE-11 Minneapolis 10:00 p.m. news reporter Mark Daly’s game story introduced viewers “to the phenomenon called ‘Herschelmania.’” During his report from the Metrodome, numerous Vikings fans yelled “Super Bowl!” in the background. Daly also spoke with famed Minneapolis sportswriter Sid Hartman, who said on camera that the trade is “going to mean a Super Bowl, in my opinion.” During another segment later in the 10:00 hour, KARE sports anchor Tom Ryther said, “I don’t know if I’ve ever attended a more satisfying Vikings game than today.”
After Herschel’s first two games in Minnesota, the Vikings were 5–2 and riding a four-game win streak. The community was riding the Herschel wave. A deli at the Riverplace Market in Minneapolis renamed its Veggie Supreme Sandwich the “Healthy Herschel.” At a St. Paul elementary school’s Halloween party, half the boys dressed as Herschel.
“THINGS JUST DIDN’T WORK OUT REAL WELL” (1989)
The Herschel hype train would fizzle quickly. Walker never came close to duplicating that first game. As the season progressed, his carries were dramatically reduced. Turns out, just as Jimmy Johnson didn’t think Walker was a good fit for the Cowboys’ system, Vikings head coach Jerry Burns began to realize that Herschel didn’t work for the Vikings offense, either. It partly stemmed from Walker’s preference to run out of the I-formation. The Vikings, who had used the “I” about 20 percent of the time before they acquired Walker, added more “I” plays once Herschel joined the team, but it wasn’t very effective. “We were a two-back, sweeping, trapping team,” Burns recalled 20 years later. “Things just didn’t work out real well… You know how it is in pro football, your team reaches a peak then levels off and goes down the tubes.”
According to Vikings defensive lineman Chris Doleman, Mike Lynn just outsmarted himself with the Herschel trade. “Sometimes you think that you are smarter than you really are,” Doleman said in 2017. “I think that’s what happened… Mike Lynn looked at it and said, ‘Hey, look, you know, I thought [Walker] could do x, y, and z, and he was limited.’”
The Vikings would go on to lose in the first round of the 1989 playoffs, and Walker lasted only two more seasons in Minnesota, both of them unspectacular.
When Minnesota acquired Walker, there were concerns about whether they would be able to keep him on the roster after his contract expired a few years later. But when that day came, in early 1992, the Vikings had no interest in retaining him. The following season, Herschel signed with Philadelphia. Ironically, he finished his career with the Cowboys.
On that glorious October afternoon when Herschel made his Vikings debut, after he officially gained over 100 yards, Lundquist casually remarked, “It won’t be his last 100-yard game,” implying that there would be countless others. Unfortunately, there weren’t many more. Walker played 41 more games for the Vikings after that first one, and only rushed for 100 yards in three of them. All three occurred two years later, during the 1991 season. By then, Herschelmania was a distant memory.
“TRADE AIKMAN, GET A GUY LIKE PELLEUR BACK, AND YOU’LL WIN SOME BALLGAMES” (1989)
Meanwhile, in Dallas, by the middle of the 1989 season, the Cowboys’ quarterback situation hadn’t looked any better than it had in previous years. Before the season, Johnson had pitted Walsh and Aikman against each other in a training camp battle for the starting job. Aikman won, but he struggled playing on a Cowboys team that had very little talent. “The team I left at UCLA had more talent than this professional team I was playing for,” he would later say about his rookie season.
After an 0–4 start, Aikman broke his finger and Walsh took over for the next five games. He led the Cowboys to their lone victory that season, a Week 9 triumph in Washington, but otherwise he wasn’t very good. Even in the win, he completed only 10 of 30 passes. As for Aikman, he finished the season 0–11 as a starter and had only nine touchdowns, while being picked off 18 times.
The Cowboys finished the 1989 season with a 1–15 record, and by its end, fans were predictably angry. Johnson, Jones, and Aikman received the bulk of the criticism. “I distribute liquor in Grand Prairie and make $12,000 a year, and I have to make decisions,” one fan wrote to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “These high-paid guys in the Cowboys organization should be able to make the same decisions. Trade Aikman, get a guy like Pelleur back, and you’ll win some ballgames.” Another fan wrote, “So [Jones and Johnson] thought they couldn’t do any worse. One-and-15 sounds pretty bad to me.”
Aikman was an easy target for derision. He had an up-and-down year. But during the season, it became clear who was the better quarterback—him or Walsh. Walsh was skinny, slow, and had a below-average NFL arm. Aikman was the prototypical NFL quarterback with the ability to make any throw. But Johnson had given up a first-round pick in the upcoming draft to acquire Walsh, and he wanted to get it back in a trade. He had been trying to trade Walsh throughout the 1989 season, to no avail.
Despite the appearances throughout the season of a legitimate quarterback competition, it was clear that Walsh didn’t have much of a chance to be the full-time starter because Aikman, unless injured, would ultimately always get the start no matter how badly he played. Johnson later admitted that he never publicly gave Aikman the full-time job because he wanted Walsh’s trade value to be as high as possible so he could soon unload him for another first-round pick. The whole charade wore on Aikman, who felt that his coach lacked faith in him.
SKIP BAYLESS: PRESIDENT OF “TEAM STEVE WALSH”
Few people actually believed Walsh was a worthy starter over Aikman. But there were a few exceptions. One of them: Local radio personality and Dallas Times Herald columnist Skip Bayless. These days, Bayless is a boisterous, brash TV personality. For almost two decades, has appeared (and, as of 2022, continues to appear) on shows on ESPN and, since 2016, Fox Sports 1, earning handsome paychecks for engaging in “debates” with other TV personalities about relevant sports issues. In 1989, he was in his 15th year as a sports columnist at a major-market newspaper and in his ninth year in Dallas, where he once had a column in the Dallas Morning News at 26 years old. He was also a local radio show host and appeared on local and national TV shows. Eventually, he started working for ESPN.
From the moment Aikman came to Dallas, Bayless was relentlessly and aggressively critical of him. “It’s almost like a vendetta,” Aikman said in 1992. “There’s very few days where I’ve picked up his column and he hasn’t taken a shot at me. It’s gotten to the point that it’s funny because it’s so absurd.”
Aikman’s disdain for Skip Bayless is well documented. He categorically detests the man. But that has less to do with Bayless’s lifelong criticism about his play, and more to do with what Aikman feels was irresponsible journalism in Bayless’s 1996 book Hell-Bent: The Crazy Truth about the “Win-or-Else” Dallas Cowboys.
In early 1996, after the Cowboys won their third Super Bowl in four years, Cowboys second-year head coach Barry Switzer (Jimmy Johnson’s successor) and many of his right-hand men on the coaching staff spoke with Bayless for Hell-Bent. Aikman had been embroiled in a bitter feud with Switzer during the 1995 Playoffs. Despite the tumultuous relationship between quarterback and coach, the Cowboys still managed to earn a trip to the Super Bowl. But the animosity between the two hit peak level just before the big game. There had been leaks to the media (Switzer’s staff was suspected) that Aikman hadn’t spoken to Switzer in months because Aikman found out that Switzer didn’t defend him when an assistant coach told Switzer that Aikman was perceived by many as racist, and that he chastised Black players during games using racial slurs. Further, staff members told Bayless that they had heard a rumor that Aikman was gay and that the media in Dallas had ignored it to protect his image.
Aikman steadfastly denied all the rumors and accusations, including the allegations of racist treatment of teammates. None of the rumors were supported by any credible corroborating evidence.
When Bayless published Hell-Bent, he included what the Switzer camp had heard about Aikman’s sexuality. Some folks in the media described it as Bayless accusing Aikman of being gay, and using the book to essentially out him, which is inaccurate. The information wasn’t even based on a first-person account. It was merely a rumor that some people in the Switzer camp told Bayless they had heard. But many, especially Aikman, thought that publishing those rumors with absolutely no corroboration was tabloid-like junk and irresponsible, as they resulted in Aikman having to answer personal questions from the media about his sexuality. Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy elaborated on this in a 1996 column. “It’s not fair to print the residue of ‘word on the street,’” he wrote. “It’s unattributed gossip of the worst kind.”
It should not surprise anyone that Bayless was on Team Walsh in the Aikman/Walsh QB “controversy,” and, at least a few times, advocated for the Cowboys to ditch Aikman for Walsh. To Skip, Walsh was the “un-Troy.” “[Aikman] didn’t have Walsh’s eye for speed reading defenses or Walsh’s feel for finding second or third receiving options,” Bayless wrote in 2006. Bayless also wrote that Cowboys coaches anonymously criticized Aikman and has repeatedly written that the majority of the players on his Cowboy teams could not stand him. Also, according to Bayless, “Jimmy [Johnson] didn’t think Aikman was all that football smart and didn’t love his intangibles.”
In a September 1992 profile of Aikman, D Magazine summed up Bayless’s criticisms of Aikman during his first four seasons in the NFL: “At one time or another, Bayless has written, said or implied that Aikman can’t throw long passes, isn’t a smart quarterback, is not a team leader (too reserved to fire up a team) and could never lead Dallas to a Super Bowl victory.” It wouldn’t take long for Aikman to disprove each of those theories.
“JIMMY JOHNSON, YOU’RE NO TOM LANDRY” (1989)
Johnson and Jones didn’t make many friends during the 1989 season. Adding to their frustrations, probably, was Tom Landry’s ascent back into Dallas popularity. All season long, Jimmy and Jerry were the targets of the Landry faithful. Losing did not make it better. Fans sometimes brought signs to the game expressing how they felt, like one a week after the Walker trade that read:
RIP DALLAS COWBOYS. RIP TOM LANDRY. RIP HERSCHEL WALKER.
Or the one with a 1988 Vice Presidential Debate reference:
WE KNEW TOM LANDRY; WE PLAYED TOM LANDRY; JIMMY JOHNSON, YOU’RE NO TOM LANDRY.
Throughout the 1989 season, Landry made public appearances across the country, including a commercial for the hotel chain Quality Inn that was aired during the Super Bowl. Post-retirement Landry was not shy about talking to the press. In one interview with ESPN, he expressed disappointment at how Jones had handled his dismissal. At a speech in Virginia, he told the attendees, who were mostly fans of Cowboys division rival Washington, “[You] ought to love me now.” After the Walker trade, Landry said he never would have traded a player like Herschel and questioned the value of the draft picks Johnson got in return.
The only Cowboys game Landry saw in person in 1989 was a road game in December against the New York Giants, after receiving a personal invite from Giants owner Wellington Mara. Landry told the media he promised he wouldn’t root for either team, although, right after, he admitted that he’d like to see the Giants get into the playoffs.
If that wasn’t tiring enough for Johnson and Jones, in mid-January, Landry was selected into the Pro Football Hall of Fame on the first ballot. “It shows they haven’t forgotten me,” he said shortly after he heard the news.
Each appearance would serve as a reminder to all the loyal Landry backers of how Jerry Jones ended the relationship. Some fans showed up to one game wearing T-shirts that simply said I HATE JERRY JONES. In January 1990, Galloway wrote, “[Landry] is more popular now in exile than he ever was as head coach.”
EMMITT SMITH: JUST THE ELUSIVE RUNNING BACK JIMMY JOHNSON WANTED (1990)
It was hard to find people who were optimistic about the new Cowboys, but there were a few who saw the bigger picture. Kevin Lyttle, a sportswriter for the Austin American-Statesman, understood what Johnson was trying to accomplish with all of his roster maneuvering. “Johnson could have kept Landry’s veterans and at least matched his 3–13 record [in 1988],” he wrote in February 1990. “Big deal. Instead he made a move for the future and discarded them.”
In the 1990 Draft, Johnson used the first-round pick the Cowboys received from the Vikings and traded up to pick University of Florida running back Emmitt Smith at No. 17. Although he was just 5-foot-9 and not an overwhelmingly fast sprinter, Smith was just the elusive running back that Jimmy wanted. Most experts thought selecting him that low was a steal at the time. They were right. He was an immediate game changer. Despite holding out the entire preseason in a contract dispute, he ran for 937 yards and 11 touchdowns in his rookie season in 1990, was named Offensive Rookie of the Year, and was a selection to the Pro Bowl. Emmitt ended up becoming the NFL’s all-time leading rusher (a title he still holds as of 2022) and is in the Hall of Fame.
Johnson made other pivotal moves during the 1990 Draft besides drafting his franchise running back. He also made trades to accumulate more draft picks for the 1991 Draft, and acquired additional unprotected players from what was then known as “Plan B” free agency (the system the NFL briefly used before unrestricted free agency was implemented in 1993). One of them was Phoenix Cardinals tight end Jay Novacek, who would become a crucial part of the Cowboys a few years later.
“THE SAINTS FOUND A WAY TO REMEDY THOUGHTS OF A SINKING FRANCHISE—TRADE FOR STEVE WALSH.” (1990)
The Cowboys’ 1990 season didn’t start off much better than the year before. With 10 minutes left in the Cowboys’ second game, a home blowout loss to the Giants at Texas Stadium, Johnson pulled Aikman in favor of Walsh. Aikman did not take it well, and after the game, he admitted that he was not comfortable being on the same team as Walsh.
Eventually, the quarterback room became untenable. Johnson knew he had to unload Walsh. In late September 1990, in what may have been one of the most lopsided trades in NFL history that nobody talks about, the Cowboys traded Walsh to the New Orleans Saints. In return, the Saints gave Dallas a first- and third-round draft choice in 1991 and a second-round choice in 1992. The Saints were desperate. Their regular starter, Bobby Hebert, was embroiled in a season-long holdout for more money. Hebert expected to be traded. But Saints general manager Jim Finks, on principle, refused any and all offers for him and doubled down, deciding he would neither pay Hebert nor trade him. After the Saints began the season floundering with an overmatched John Fourcade at quarterback, Finks tripled down on his Hebert stance and gave up a boatload of picks for Walsh.
Walsh’s first appearance for the Saints, and the reaction that followed, was similar to the one after Herschel’s debut in Minnesota. In mid-October, a few weeks after the Walsh trade, the Saints were 1–3, facing the Browns at home in the Superdome. Head coach Jim Mora benched Fourcade after two series and brought on Walsh, who proceeded to complete 15 of 26 passes for 243 yards and three touchdowns. The Saints won 25–20.
The reactions to Walsh’s New Orleans debut were predictable. The headline of the sports page in the Lafayette Daily Advertiser the next day read, WALSH JUST WHAT THE DOCTOR ORDERED FOR THE SAINTS. In his game report, Daily Advertiser sportswriter Kevin Foote wrote, “The Saints found a way to remedy thoughts of a sinking franchise—trade for Steve Walsh.” Another area writer, the Hattiesburg American’s Stan Caldwell, surmised that Saints fans may be thanking Hebert’s agent, Greg Campbell, because his “bad advice” to Hebert for him to hold out, ultimately led to the Saints trading for “a 23-year-old prodigy [Walsh] who can win Super Bowls for New Orleans.”
Further igniting the flames was the fact that Walsh’s Saints debut came on the same day as rock bottom for Aikman and the Cowboys. At the same time Walsh was leading the Saints over the Browns and endearing himself to New Orleans, Aikman’s squad lost 20–3 on the road to the lowly Cardinals. In the loss, Dallas managed to produce a franchise record–low 100 yards of offense. Aikman completed only 9-of-25 passes, finished with a paltry 61 yards passing, was sacked four times, and threw two interceptions. “This was one of Troy Aikman’s least memorable days as a pro, collegian or anything,” wrote Tim Cowlishaw in the Dallas Morning News. “Even Troy will tell you he didn’t justify his salary.” The next day, writers from the Los Angeles Times and the New York Daily News pondered whether the Cowboys had traded the wrong quarterback.
The remainder of Steve Walsh’s career in New Orleans never lived up to the promise of his first start. The Saints were able to sneak into the 1990 playoffs, but Walsh wasn’t particularly impressive. New Orleans scored 20 or fewer points in the eight games that Walsh started and lost 16–6 to the Bears in the Wild Card Round. That summer, Finks caved and signed Hebert. Walsh lost his starting job and only started eight games in his remaining three seasons in New Orleans before signing with Chicago.
Aikman was inconsistent for most of 1990, but found his groove near the end of the season and, for one stretch of the final two months, led the team on a four-game winning streak. He was playing some of his best football and the Cowboys were in playoff contention, when, unfortunately, he separated his shoulder early in the team’s 15th game. The offense sputtered without him and the Cowboys lost their final two games to finish 7–9 and miss the postseason.
“DID SOMEONE MENTION PLAYOFFS?… CERTAINLY NOT IN THE COWBOYS’ LOCKER ROOM” (1991)
The 1991 off-season was the most impactful of Jimmy Johnson’s tenure as head coach. First, finding the offense too inconsistent and Aikman not developing fast enough, he demoted offensive coordinator David Shula. He initially wanted Miami Dolphins offensive coordinator Gary Stevens, who was on Johnson’s staff at the University of Miami, to replace him, but Stevens declined. He settled on Norv Turner, the Rams’ wide receivers coach, who some say was Johnson’s fourth choice.
Johnson and Jones also made some moves before the draft. They traded up from the 11th pick of the 1991 Draft to the first overall pick. Also, through various trades and using the vast array of picks they had in their arsenal, the Cowboys were able to acquire additional first- and second-round picks in the same draft.
After all of Johnson’s maneuvering, including many of the picks they acquired the year before, the Cowboys made 18 picks in total in 1991, significantly increasing their chances of accumulating quality talent. The strategy worked: The Cowboys were able to acquire a slew of players who were key to the team’s eventual success. With the first overall pick, they selected Miami defensive tackle Russell Maryland, who had played for Johnson a few years earlier with the Hurricanes. Among the Cowboys’ other selections: wide receiver Alvin Harper (12th overall), Dixon Edwards (second round), linebacker Godfrey Miles and offensive tackle Erik Williams (third round), and offensive tackle Leon Lett and cornerback Larry Brown (seventh round). The picks all proved strong. Maryland, Williams, and Lett were Pro Bowlers. Harper was the Cowboys’ number-two receiver and was a perfect complement to Michael Irvin. Brown later became a Super Bowl MVP.
The 1991 season began about as well as the previous two. After splitting their first two games, the Cowboys were clobbered by the Eagles, who were playing without quarterback Randall Cunningham, 24–0. Aikman was sacked 11 times, threw three interceptions, and lost a fumble. The Eagles held the Cowboys to only 90 total yards. “Did someone mention playoffs?” wrote Rick Gosselin in the Dallas Morning News the next day. “Not this Sunday, and certainly not in the Cowboys’ locker room.” “The look on the face of… Norv Turner… was hauntingly similar to the one that sat on David Shula’s brow before Johnson ushered him out of town,” wrote Jim Reeves in the Star-Telegram.
Aikman eventually found his stride in Turner’s offense. The previous two seasons, he was getting pounded every game. Under Turner, Aikman started releasing the ball more quickly, taking less punishment. Also, Aikman developed a friendship with Turner that helped make him more comfortable with the staff.
Despite all the progress, the Cowboys had a rough November, losing three out of five games. In a late-November contest at Washington, Aikman suffered a partial knee tear and was replaced by veteran backup Steve Beuerlein. The injury would cost Aikman the rest of the regular season. His statistics up until his injury were stellar. He had a 65 percent completion percentage and threw for a total of 2,754 yards. By the time the regular season ended, Aikman had already been selected to his first Pro Bowl.
“NOW… YOU WONDER WHETHER JOHNSON MIGHT CONSIDER TRADING [AIKMAN]” (1991)
In the market all summer for a capable backup quarterback, Johnson acquired Beuerlein in a trade with the Los Angeles Raiders just before the 1991 season started. Beuerlein, a Notre Dame product, was a four-year league veteran with a solid arm who was a respected thrower but had little mobility. He was a productive part-time starter in LA for two seasons, and was the Raiders’ best quarterback in 1989, but was unceremoniously discarded after a lengthy holdout before the 1990 season. The Raiders eventually put him on the inactive list, where he remained the entire year.
In Aikman’s absence, Beuerlein led Dallas to five consecutive wins, including four as the starting quarterback. Three of those wins came against eventual playoff teams. Beuerlein didn’t blow anyone away; he threw only five touchdowns in those five games and completed less than 50 percent of his total passes. But he was able to lead the team to victories by not making mistakes. The Cowboys didn’t commit a single turnover for the first 15 quarters after Beuerlein took over for Aikman.
Aikman wanted to start the Cowboys’ first-round playoff game against the Bears in Chicago. His knee wasn’t 100 percent, but he swore he was perfectly capable of playing. After Aikman made clear to reporters that he expected to start, Johnson said he wasn’t ready.
Johnson’s decision to start Beuerlein worked out. With cameras often cutting throughout the CBS broadcast to a sullen-looking Aikman standing on the sidelines, Beuerlein led the Cowboys to a 17–13 win over the Bears.
A few days later, Johnson announced that he would ride the “hot hand” and start Beuerlein for their upcoming Divisional Round game in Detroit. Aikman wasn’t quiet with his frustration. “To say it doesn’t bother me would not be accurate,” he told reporters. “I feel like I should be playing right now.”
Despite Beuerlein’s success, as far as most were concerned, Aikman was still the Cowboys’ quarterback of the future. Beuerlein always understood his role. However, Aikman was getting restless, and his insecurity and uneasiness about the Cowboys’ faith in him were starting to come to a head. With Aikman noticeably unhappy, there were rumblings about what might be in store for the following season. Ed Werder, the Orlando Sentinel’s NFL beat writer, wrote, “During Aikman’s rookie season, the Cowboys were losing all the time, and Aikman wanted to be traded. Now they are winning all the time, and you wonder whether Johnson might consider trading him.”
Any thoughts of Beuerlein becoming the permanent starter were quickly quashed after the Cowboys were annihilated by the Lions. After trailing at halftime 17–6, Johnson benched starter Beuerlein for Aikman. It didn’t do any good, and Detroit won 38–6.
After the game, Randy Galloway ran into Aikman in the locker room, where the quarterback told him, “I’m gone. I’m asking for a trade. This is not going to work.” However, the next day, Aikman called Galloway after a meeting with Jimmy Johnson where Johnson told him, “This is your team. You are my guy. No more fooling around.’” From that point forward, there wouldn’t be another quarterback controversy in Dallas for the rest of the decade.
The Cowboys only had four total picks in the 1992 Draft, and essentially went 4-of-4. Cornerback Kevin Smith (first round), linebacker Robert Jones (first round), and cornerback Darren Woodson (second round) all turned out to be Pro Bowl players. Even wide receiver Jimmy Smith, also picked by the Cowboys in the second round, turned out to be a five-time Pro Bowler, though all those seasons came after his stint with the Cowboys, who cut him after the 1993 season.
In addition to the draft, Johnson was also able to pull off a tremendous coup when he traded San Francisco for eventual Hall of Fame defensive end Charles Haley. Haley and 49ers head coach George Seifert’s relationship had deteriorated so badly that the Cowboys only had to give up a second- and third-round pick to get him.
The 1992 Cowboys set a franchise record with 13 wins. Aikman had a breakout year. He hit career highs in yards and touchdowns. He also completed 64 percent of his passes. Emmitt Smith set the franchise record with over 1,700 rushing yards and won the league rushing title. Michael Irvin had almost 1,400 yards receiving. These gaudy statistics were partly made possible by what many feel was the best offensive line in the history of the NFL—“The Great Wall of Dallas.” In addition, the Cowboys’ defense was flat-out swarming. They finished first in the NFL in total defense, fewest first downs allowed, and preventing third-down conversions.
Aikman’s performance in the NFC Championship game against the 49ers was particularly memorable. It put him on the map as a big-game quarterback. The 49ers had boasted the best record in the NFL and MVP quarterback Steve Young. The Cowboys were heavy underdogs. At a muddy Candlestick Park in San Francisco, Aikman threw for 322 yards in a 30–20 Dallas triumph, including a crucial 70-yard pass to Alvin Harper after the Niners had cut the Cowboys’ lead to four. The defense also forced four turnovers. A few weeks later, Dallas destroyed the Buffalo Bills at the Rose Bowl to win Super Bowl XXVII.
For both Jerry Jones and Jimmy Johnson, the Super Bowl win was nothing short of vindication. During that first season in 1989, Johnson was taken to task at every turn, especially after he shipped off Herschel Walker, and the team labored to a 1–15 record. As Hartford Courant columnist Alan Greenberg put it: “[The Cowboys’] new management was about as popular as bubonic plague.” It was no walk in the park for Jones, either. The first couple of seasons, Jones was put through the ringer by many Cowboys fans and the local media for the manner in which he fired Tom Landry. After the Super Bowl triumph, Cowboys radio voice Brad Sham tried to put in perspective just how acrimonious it was for Jones during his first few years in Dallas. “[Jones has] taken more abuse than any person I’ve ever known,” he said.
Upon winning Super Bowl XXVII, expectations for the Cowboys skyrocketed. They had star players who were set to remain in Dallas for a while, alongside the youngest roster in the league, with average age of 26. America’s Team was poised to win for a long time. A long time that included 1993, the very next season, when the Cowboys won Super Bowl XXVIII 30–13 in a rematch over the Bills. Not even halfway through the ’90s, the Cowboys should have just been starting toward a decade of dominance. However, after that second Super Bowl win, the team slowly began to deteriorate. Jones and Johnson had a falling-out. It got so bad that Jones showed Johnson the door just weeks after the Super Bowl XXVIII win. He replaced Johnson with another of his buddies, former University of Arkansas teammate Barry Switzer. After a few years off, Johnson eventually moved on to the Miami Dolphins.
Switzer, like Johnson back in 1989, was a college coaching legend who had no NFL experience. In his 16 seasons as head coach at the University of Oklahoma, the Sooners won three National Championships; however, he had been retired from coaching for five years when he was called in by Jones to take over the most high-profile team in the NFL. He held the fort down as best he could, but he was often criticized as being in over his head and bailed out by all of the Cowboys’ talent. He also had a terrible relationship with Troy Aikman.
By the end of the 1994 regular season, confidence in Switzer was waning. “The Dallas Cowboys are not going to win the Super Bowl with Barry Switzer coaching,” wrote Tony Kornheiser in the Washington Post. Somehow, the team persevered and did manage to win another one—Super Bowl XXX—in the 1995 season. It was downhill from there. The following year, the Cowboys began to decline substantially, and after suffering through a 6–10 season in 1997, Jones fired Switzer.
FORWARD-THINKING STRATEGY
After the Cowboys traded Herschel Walker, and were losing every game, an editorial in a small publication, the Longview News-Journal, expressed befuddlement at how a team could favor its system over its best talent. The column offered this fateful analogy: “The new Cowboys are beginning to take on the look of a company acquired through a leveraged buyout that now finds it must sell off its assets to stay afloat.” It was, in their eyes, a “losing strategy.” But Jimmy Johnson knew he needed significantly more good players than he had, and the best way to accumulate them was through the draft.
Essentially, beginning with the Herschel Walker trade, the Cowboys chose to tank in the short-term in order to set themselves up for long-term success. In 2022, this isn’t out of the ordinary. While many teams that use this strategy are condemned for disrupting the competitive balance of their respective leagues, the approach is not criticized as being unintelligent. In 1989, however, it was taboo, and so unconventional that people couldn’t completely comprehend it. The Longview News-Journal seems to have been in that boat. They just did not understand the plan. The Cowboys were not “selling off assets to stay afloat”; they were selling off their biggest asset in order to accumulate a substantial amount of future assets to be used to rebuild. They were just ahead of their time.