-
-
-
2019-2020 Offseason: An Induction Overdue For He
Who Helped Dallas Begin Anew
-
-
January 15, 2020 At
11:14 PM CST
By Eric M. Scharf-
- Jimmy Johnson – former NCAA
Football National Champion and two-time NFL Super Bowl Champion head
coach – has finally been voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Of all the worthy, profoundly-patient candidates being considered –
no matter potentially “maybe next year” embittered – “The Tortured
Cowboys Fan” sees THIS exceptional entrance being associated with
almost no easier name.
 -
- After delivering better-than-average results during a five-year
slate at Oklahoma State, Johnson was hired to follow a legend at
the collegiate level (Howard Schnellenberger at the University of
Miami) and two more pillars at the professional level. All three
over-the-top opportunities required Johnson to renovate against
ridiculous roster upheaval.
Johnson would spend five years at “The U” architecting (with
exacting precision) just what to do, rebuilding their entire
program, narrowly losing the 1986 NCAA National Championship to Penn
State University, winning the 1987 NCAA National Championship over the
University of Oklahoma, and all-but-guaranteeing that – by the time
of his exit – years upon years of future Miami opponents would know
they had to competitively cram before the next head coach had to
lift a serious finger to fix it.
 -
- And for as well-known on the national college football stage as
Jimmy Johnson had unquestionably become, his next career stop would
leave normally-correct, college-to-pro naysayers feeling downright
glum, then dumb, then numb. After all, Johnson was far from the
first head coach to make the leap from college to pro. There was
certainly a risk of being overwhelmed by CBA bylaws that – even
decades ago – did not grant an NFL coach anywhere near the ironclad
collegiate control and young-man-molding infrastructure, and Johnson
would been forgiven (in time) for saying, err, screaming no, No,
NO!
Jimmy was asked by his former 1964 Arkansas National Championship
teammate and road game roommate (in name only), Jerral Wayne Jones,
to become the next head coach of THE Dallas Cowboys in 1989.-
-
 -
- The
opportunity (to follow an NFL legend in Tom Landry and breathe new
life into a truly GLOBAL name that had been undergoing steady, aging
strife) was simply too good to pass up and – eventually, routinely,
even gratuitously – on many of the NFL’s very best contenders, he
and his team would shamelessly dine.
Johnson would spend five years with “America’s Team,” rather quickly
rebuilding their entire roster (while also keeping and sometimes
trading select, still-valuable, Landry-era veterans who were no
performance imposters).-
-
 -
- Topped – in fact – by a historically
HUMUNGOUS Herschel Walker trade to help capture a collection of
(immediate and future) talent the Cowboys lacked, there were a
whopping 46 trades over Johnson’s first four seasons to help
solidify an accelerated, competitive backbone towards magical
results which proved super, Super, SUPER pleasin’.
Johnson ensured that – by the time of his departure (no matter how
inconceivably premature) – there were, indeed, “any one of 500
coaches who could have won a Super Bowl [with that team].” His
successor (“Bootlegger’s Boy” Barry Switzer) might, MIGHT have
procured a Lombardi Trophy PAIR “if only” – over the smallest
details and a larger number of not-so-self-propelled players – he
had been willing to similarly, respectively obsess and exhort before
eventually (rather than so immediately) losing the Cowboys’
dynastic, Super steam.
After a two-year break as a member of the Fox Sports game day crew,
Johnson would find something else slightly more engaging to do.
Johnson would then accept the honor of succeeding another NFL legend
in Don Shula (for undisputed personnel power and highest-paid
head-coaching moolah). He spent four years with the Miami Dolphins
while begrudgingly keeping Dan Marino (their
golden-armed-but-concrete-shoed, aging star quarterback) and
applying a SIGNIFICANT roster mod. The result brought Miami closer
(than they had been in quite some time) to having a truly balanced
squad. An improved offensive line and serviceable running game
helped carry a bit more of the offensive load, with the Dolphins’
long history of keeping their ground game inconveniently stowed
(absent, of course, fellas' like Larry Czonka and Mercury Morris).
A familiarly-aggressive, Dave-Wannstedt-designed defense helped
ensure a reasonable number of Miami opponents were
more-than-occasionally mowed. Though Johnson’s second attempt at
sensational South Floridian feats was not at all what he produced in
Big D, the idea that he (once again) laid a solid talent foundation
was one with which few would disagree. What his successor produced
with that foundation, of course, had more to do with Wannstedt’s
interdisciplinary inability to prevent player performance fragility
(before – as with the Chicago Bears and Pittsburgh Panthers – his
opportunity ended in divorce).
Johnson would return to Fox Sports to resume his game day duties
with what would eventually become a full set of Hall of Fame
cohorts. Johnson would also be inducted into the University of Miami
Sports Hall of Fame in 1996, as well as the College Football Hall of
Fame in 2012 (leaving perhaps only induction into the Pro Football
Hall of Fame and the Dallas Cowboys’ Ring of Honor – at that time –
as the missing pieces to his proper recognition mix, so undeniably
sublime).
Though Johnson ONLY spent nine years on his pro path, he still got
the call from the Hall once the selection committee did the
(achievement-based) math. Jimmy’s key accomplishments (primarily
with “America’s Team”) were so breathtakingly-quick, nothing else
was necessary for him to turn the Hall of Fame trick.
“This is so special to me. When you put in the work that we did,
it’s nice to know that people appreciate it. All the assistant
coaches that worked for me and all the players that played
for me,
THEY'RE the reason I’m here.” – Jimmy Johnson (surrounded by his Fox
Sports cohosts and fellow Hall of Famers, Michael Strahan, Howie
Long, Terry Bradshaw and Tony Gonzalez) on January 12, 2020
(understandably with neither a single reference to GM Jerry
nor his
now-and-since BRAND-only money).
Sin Of What Should Have Been
Like so many other members of “Cowboys Nation,” The Tortured Cowboys
Fan’s blood still rises to a BOIL (like the ritual of Pon Farr with
which a well-known Vulcan did once toil) at the painful memory and
failure of Barry Switzer to even try to clean up his college campus,
laissez faire, “let boys be boys,” coaching habit, [dagnabbit]! His
DIY approach “worked so well” for him for so many years in Norman,
Oklahoma until it did not, the diabolical deficiencies of which
began to be reported (about the Sooners’ significantly successful
and proud program) on the spot.-
- “Failure? What
do you mean by FAILURE?! Barry ‘may have contributed’
to the Cowboys’ inability to overcome their 1995 NFC Championship
Game mental fragility, but he ‘helped them’ them come right
back to secure a SUPER fix in 1996!” – say Switzer
apologists like skillful oncologists. Barry – as has been
exhaustively and obnoxiously well-documented – was handed a
largely-superior roster but, in his gravy-trained success, he
managed only to prove a coaching imposter (unable to even reasonably
provide the finer focus his predecessor did so carefully and
religiously foster).
 -
-
Jimmy Johnson, of course, was the take-no-prisoners embodiment of
the 007-themed “The World Is Not Enough.” Barry – by his own
admission – was not wired for delivering Jimmy’s fit-and-finish
level of coaching TOUGH and INTENSE precision. Switzer was satisfied
allowing his inherited roster of grown men to police themselves more
than every-now-and-then.
That
approach practically drove Johnson’s former field general out of his
mind. A LESS mentally-tough, physically-ready,
rigidly-guided Dallas team ultimately could not capture more than
one Lombardi Trophy in kind. The organization was unnecessarily
defaced and further winning chances were shortsightedly erased.
YES, Yes, yes, Barry Switzer – in more ways than one – is an easy
target for ridicule, but it was ultimately GM Jerry who ironically
empowered him to play [his] fool. GM Jerry’s wakeup-call with Jimmy
(further impacted by
misguided input from Al “Bunker Mentality”
Davis) convinced him that they only way he could get, err, give
himself credit for anything was to control everything. He just HAD
TO have a head-coaching MUSH rather than a confident, unquestioned
leader who could kick TUSH. He just HAD TO have the
false-suggestion-of-knowledge and pretend-to-be-involved “say” on
every decision in every way, with the not-so-indirect message to HIS
roster that a given head coach’s opinion no longer had the same
bedrock sway.
As soon as team owner Jerry got Jimmy out the door, he truly became
GM Jerry, effectively broadcasting to each and every Cowboys player
– as Randy Newman once sang – “You’ve got a friend in me (who can
and will tell the head coach of record to simply let you be).”
GM Jerry thought he knew his old “only by alphabet” teammate, but he
would completely underestimate Jimmy’s own control-driven,
non-interference, zero-tolerance trait. He clearly only saw
Johnson’s University of Miami RESULTS, rather than the
behind-the-scenes TOTAL CONTROL lightning bolts. Jimmy knew (and
still knows) no other way to live, breathe, and pursue his passion.
His motto in everything he does might as well be genetic, and he
views subordination for the sake of subordination (especially to a participation-trophy-seeking
non-expert) as being no way to successfully cash in.
 -
-
Barry Horn's piece,
"JIMMY JOHNSON ONLY WANTS TO BE IN CONTROL-TOTALLY"
(originally printed in the Dallas Morning News on September 20, 1992
and republished online through the Chicago Tribune) paints the clear
picture of anyone seeking a credit or management-sharing arrangement
with the always POWERFULLY-FOCUSED Johnson as an oblivious,
warning-blind loon.
-
-
What was that? Concern over tragic burnout with someone THAT
tightly wound? Sure, perhaps, but “the world [will] never know,” as
the old Tootsie Pop TV commercial used to proclaim, because
someone’s vanity knocked that possibility to the ground, and that
person continues to escape no blame.
While the sin of WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN is unevenly shared between
Jimmy, Barry, and GM Jerry, it is the team owner’s hunger – again
and Again and AGAIN – for team-building and game day credit that
killed it (and no amount of Ben Stein’s money, err, marketing-made
moolah has ever allowed him to learn it or earn it). GM Jerry – at
best (while receiving “input from a variety of sources within the
organization and around the league” and fiddles during meetings with
sodium-soaked McGriddles) – only ever really gets to rubber stamp it
(before and after he goes on interviews just to sound like Jed
Clampett).
No one – again and Again And AGAIN – debates
GM Jerry’s
BRILLIANT business acumen. His clever corporate mind,
however, is simply not the football-managing, team-constructing,
key-trade-devising kind, no matter how much he has wanted and still
wants that factual narrative to be artificially redesigned (and no
matter how much that made his relationship with Jimmy Johnson so
unnecessarily maligned).-
-
“Dude! Let it go! This event is almost THREE DECADES ago!” you
almost dismissively say (in an almost disconnected, fantasy football
kinda’ way). What? You thought there would FINALLY be a Jimmy
Johnson achievement missive that did not mention Jerry Jones or
paint him as even mildly divisive? The Tortured Cowboys Fan ain’t
from Philly, but don’t Be SILLY.
"NOTHING IS OVER! NOTHING! YOU DON'T JUST TURN IT OFF! It wasn't
JIMMY’S inferiority scar! GM JERRY asked Jimmy! JIMMY didn't ask GM
Jerry! And Jimmy did what he had to do to WIN! But 'SOMEBODY'
wouldn't let the Dallas Cowboys [with the best-available oversight]
WIN [even more conference championships and Super Bowls]!” – The
Tortured Cowboys Fan (with a painful reminder that, as long as GM
Jerry continues to disgracefully demand respect as chief football
architect, while insisting on YES-MAN head-coaching neglect, the
Dallas Cowboys' trophy case may, May, MAY continue to
display at
least a few Lombardi holes).
 -
-
Todd Brock put together a piece – entitled
"Not Happy Anniversary: How a failed toast sent a Cowboys dynasty
spiraling" – for USA TODAY SPORTS and COWBOYSWIRE that is
anything but satire. It is a patchwork quilt of all possible sources
within and on the peripheral. It is an all-in-one story of
sewn-together samples from well-known sports journalists / reporters
about an NFL team owner who – upon gazing at himself in his
money-lined mirror – felt (from a football standpoint)
intellectually inferior. It is a step-by-step timeline of how that
team owner allowed his desperation (to appear involved BEYOND the
jocks and socks) to destroy the greatest Possible WINNING potential,
and how that team owner effectively pushed his hyper-focused,
undeniably-capable employee towards a non-Cowboys vacation before
the team owner could even remotely insulate himself from being
called on his “football man” bluff.
Good Quote Or Garbage Bloat?
“YOU need to know this, that first decision I made was the best one
I ever made in this whole deal. That’s when YOUR ass came on board.”
– Jerry Jones to Jimmy Johnson (on the NFL Network’s “Jerry Jones: A
Football Life” broadcast on December 1, 2017) to the extent GM Jerry
was able to come clean.
“I wanted someone I knew, I wanted someone I knew well [?!]. I
wanted someone that could get it done to be our coach. I wanted
Jimmy Johnson. I said he’d be worth five first-round draft choices
or five Heisman Trophy winners. Of course, I sure did get laughed
out of town when I said it. It was my first experience as an owner
and general manager making a difficult and very unpopular decision.
Jimmy, it was a great decision.” – Hall of Famer GM Jerry to his
presenter Jimmy Johnson, during his Pro Football Hall of Fame
induction speech on August 5, 2017 (clearly pleased that, as he
tried to show appreciation for the Dallas Cowboys’ former head
coach, Johnson did not roll his eyes or turn green).
 -
-
"I don't know, but my guess is we probably would have [won more].
But I think even saying that minimizes how difficult it is to win a
Super Bowl. We would've been knocking at the door every year. We
would have been in the hunt and had a chance to win it all, and the
reason I say that is for two reasons: One, free agency was coming
into play, but Jimmy was a tremendous evaluator of talent, so I
don't know or doubt whether we would've continued to bring in young
talent. Two, he was so demanding on the details, that our attention
to that wouldn't have wavered." – Former Dallas Cowboy, Super Bowl
Champion, and Hall of Famer Troy Aikman on August 7, 2021
(reflecting on the key characteristics of Jimmy Johnson which, had
he stayed, would have ensured the team was at least consistently,
earnestly, heartily competing for being the NFL’s number one).
"No, no, no, not, 'What COULD'VE been,' [but] 'What the F--- could
have been?' Don't say it so easily. Not a day goes by that we don't
think about it. New England came in behind [us] and did what [we]
did TWICE. We could've won four in a row. We could've won five out
of six years. I really do believe that. And done something that had
never been done before, and it will never be done again. When you
have those opportunities in life, sometimes when you're young you
don't even understand that depth of the value of that. And then you
get more time in life, you say, 'Wow, we blew it.' You know?
We BLEW
IT. We should've done more. We should've won more." – Former Dallas
Cowboy, Super Bowl Champion, and Hall of Famer Michael Irvin on
August 7, 2021 (lamenting, over and over, what more could have been
done).
“I do know that not being in the Cowboys Ring of Honor is a major
disappointment to him. It’s a major disappointment to ME, for that
matter. The guy turned the franchise around and brought back
America’s Team and made the Cowboys relevant again. I ran into a lot
of people when we began to win, and they said they were big Cowboys
fans, but that stadium was not selling out in 1989. It probably
wasn’t in ’88, the year before I got there, either. Jimmy was a BIG
part. He certainly was [the] architect of putting together those
teams and drafting those players that you could argue was maybe the
most talent in the history of our sport. I hope, eventually, it will
happen. I’m sure at some point it will. I’m hoping it happens, and
he goes into the Ring of Honor while he’s still alive, and I hope
Jerry’s still alive when it happens. I hope they’re able to hug it
out on the 50-yard line and acknowledge what they did together.” –
Troy Aikman on 1310AM “The Ticket” on 12-05-2018.
“With tears in my eyes I watched my coach @JimmyJohnson get what he
so rightfully earned. My Coach has turned men into CHAMPIONS on
every level. Congrats Coach and welcome to the @ProFootballHOF!!!!!”
– Michael Irvin on Twitter on January 12, 2020 (right on the money).
“It was emotional for me, because I KNOW what he meant to those
teams. I know that HE built those teams. HE deserved to be in it
before anyone else was in it from [that team of the 90’s] group. I
think he’s gonna’ look [really] good in gold.” – Troy Aikman on
January 12, 2020 remarking on Jimmy Johnson’s Hall of Fame selection
(and sincerely pleased without exception).
 -
-
“My relationship [with] Jimmy Johnson spans over 35 years. He was
the first to recruit me out of Henryetta High School when I was 17
while he was the head coach at Oklahoma State [University]. Two
years later when I was transferring from [University of] Oklahoma,
he recruited me to the University of Miami. I chose UCLA. After
turning him down twice, the Dallas Cowboys chose me as the number
one overall draft pick in 1989. We had a rough start, went through
some difficult times, had stretches when we didn’t speak. What I’ve
learned though in life is we remember those who make us better.
Jimmy made me better, but more importantly, he made the Dallas
Cowboys better. He was the architect of our 1990’s dynasty and while
as our leader and coach, he should have been the first to be
enshrined, I am so grateful he will have his rightful place in the @profootballhof
- congratulations Coach! You’re gonna look good in gold!” – Troy
Aikman on Instagram on January 13, 2020 (sharing great commentary
wrapped in a heartfelt pleasantry).
Will They Or Won’t They?
Jerry Jones may NEVER be absolved by the greater portion of Cowboys
Nation for effectively forcing Jimmy Johnson to resign (knowing that
– had he chosen to stay – his organizational autonomy would have
been irreparably on the line). A mellowness and willingness to
forgive tends to come with maturity and age, but GM Jerry’s rather
robust sense of self (which does so much harm to his otherwise
magical ability to sell, err, charm) continues to make it impossible
for a number of fans to turn the page.
The late Robert Irsay was never forgiven (by older Colts fans) for
the then-outrageous sight of moving the Baltimore Colts to
Indianapolis “in the middle of the night.” The late Art Modell was
never forgiven (by older Cleveland Browns fans) for moving the
Browns from Cleveland to Baltimore (where just five years later, a
Super Bowl victory the renamed Ravens would score). No, the
“encouraged” departure of a beloved, psychologically-impactful head coach is not the same as a
team owner taking away a devoted fanbase’s free time joy, but it sure does
[similarly] annoy!
Will GM Jerry keep his promise to induct Jimmy Johnson into the
Dallas Cowboys’ sacred Ring of Honor, or will “everyone” be forced
to wait (for another addition to the Cowboys’ Lombardi display or)
until – GASP – somebody is a goner?
Cowboys Nation is collectively champing at the bit. Will GM Jerry
put an overdue end to this “Gotta’ succeed without Jimmy, first!”
[snit]?
And if GM Jerry DOES allow Jimmy in by the hair of his
chinny, chin, chin, will that benevolence magically lift the
Cowboys’ nearly THREE DECADE championship curse, or
will Dallas still see the arrival of an early postseason
hearse?-
-
We shall see. We always do.
|
