“I’ve had people say that, ‘Jerry, you subject yourself to so much criticism; you need a buffer.’ I don’t like it like that. I like the pain.” ~Jerry Wayne on why he won’t hire a real General Manager to run the Cowboys

I knew it was contrived. I knew the whole thing was mostly scripted. I knew Netflix paid Jerry Wayne $50 million two years ago for the rights and the access to produce this eight part documentary with the caveat that the show’s final episode would feature Jerry and Jimmy Johnson burying the hatchet on their 30-year feud and Jimmy finally being inducted into the Cowboys Ring of Honor. They were both mic’d up and the Netflix cameras were rolling when Jerry and Jimmy had that staged conversation in the owners box five months later. I know the only reason Jerry finally did the right thing was because Netflix paid him to do it. I know it was for the show, for a dramatic moment in Jerry’s self-proclaimed “24-hour soap opera.”

And I still cried when it happened.

The finale of “America’s Team: The Gambler and his Cowboys” was perfectly produced, just like each one of the previous seven episodes, to communicate to everyone watching that Jerry and Jimmy together created the perfect team at the perfect time and, because of Jerry’s continued malpractice, it will never happen in Dallas again. The episode revolves around Jimmy’s long overdue Ring of Honor induction–it’s emotional and tear-jerky and real. But it ends with that same hopeless feeling, that same dread. The Super Bowl days have been over a long, long time in Big D. Likely never to return.

Netflix follows old footage of Jimmy and Jerry saying mean things about each other with 2023 film of both men expressing regret about the state of their relationship. Remorse over some of the horrible things they said about each other. Reflection on what they did together. Admiration for each other’s talents. Jerry says, “I should have hung my hat on the fact that I knew that Jimmy Johnson wasn’t perfect and he knew I was one of the most imperfect people he’d ever been around.” Jimmy says, “It wasn’t just Jerry; we both screwed it up.” And then they cut to that December night in 2023 when Jerry put Jimmy in the Ring.

Johnson’s speech was energetic and gracious, kind and intense. He was surrounded on the field by some of the greatest Cowboys legends of all time, men like Roger Staubach, Bob Lilly, Mel Renfro, Drew Pearson, and Cliff Harris. But, more importantly, his own players were on the field with him: Darren Woodson, Charles Haley, Larry Allen, Troy, Michael, Emmitt. There’s something really special about the bond between a coach and his players, something unexplainable, especially a group like this that had worked so hard together to transform a loser into a three-time Super Bowl champion. Jimmy thanked everybody, including Jerry. He thanked the millions of Cowboys fans and the millions of fans who hate the Cowboys. He was so happy. He was so grateful. He was so satisfied. The vibe was over-the-top. Everybody was smiling, laughing, giggling.

Then Jimmy said, “I’ve got just one more thing to say!” And he milked it. Man, he milked it. With a massive ear-to-ear grin, he milked the whole thing, looking around at each of the players on the field, making direct eye contact with each of the triplets, moving closer to those three so that he was directly in front of them when he finally hollered out, “How ’bout them Cowboys!” and fell into the arms of Troy, Michael, and Emmitt.

And I cried. Man, they did a great job with that.

It’s a beautiful storybook ending to the docuseries. Netflix wrote it and produced it perfectly. Nice job. The problem is that the story’s not over. The Cowboys still play games every year and Jerry Jones is still the owner, president, and general manager.

There are a couple of quotes from this final episode that shine a bright light on the never-ending issue. The first one is from a conversation Jerry is having with Rams president Kevin Demoff at the beginning of a joint Cowboys-Rams training camp practice two summers ago. Jerry and his son, Steven, were recounting what they had just said in a news conference earlier that day, that they were tired of winning the regular season, that they wanted to win in the playoffs, they wanted to win Super Bowls. Then Jerry said to Demoff, “I don’t have the %#@!! to put it all out there the way y’all did on that quarterback! I won’t do that!” Jerry was referring to Demoff’s trade for Matthew Stafford and the Rams subsequent Super Bowl championship. No, Jerry, we know you won’t. He fancies himself a gambler. But he’s really not.

In another scene from this episode, Jerry tells the interviewer there is no limit to the amount of money he would spend to win a Super Bowl. “Put any amount on the check,” he says, “and I’ll sign it to win a Super Bowl. Whatever that number is, I’ll sign it. There goes the inheritance to the kids.”

We hear this line quite often from Jerry. He’s telling us that he’s doing everything he knows how to do to win a championship, that there’s nothing he wouldn’t give up to return the Cowboys to those Super Bowl days. But, he’s lying. I think you could promise Jerry a Super Bowl win for his Cowboys if he agreed to step back from the spotlight and he wouldn’t do it. Jerry, you’ll win the Super Bowl, guaranteed. But you have to give up your TV and radio shows, you can’t appear in any commercials, you can’t do press conferences, or stand on the sidelines or hang out in the locker room. If you do that for one year, your team wins the Super Bowl. Will you make that deal, Jerry?

No way. You and I both know he wouldn’t do it.

The final scene of the final episode is Jerry at that big fake desk with that big fake backdrop looking right into the camera and saying, “It’s impossible for me to think about doing something different. I’ll probably continue right on out ’til the end.”

Yeah, it’s impossible for any of us to imagine anything different. You’ve killed the whole thing, Jerry Wayne. The standard has been irreversibly lowered. The expectations are forever dulled. Yes, the Cowboys are all yours, Jerry, and you can have them. Congratulations on another chapter in your “soap opera that never gets canceled.”

Fly Eagles Fly
Allan

“After we won that third Super Bowl, it would never have occurred to me that I wouldn’t get another one in the number of years that have passed by.” ~Jerry Wayne

The number is 29. It’s been 29 years since the Cowboys won a Super Bowl. Shoot, it’s been 29 years since the Cowboys so much as won a divisional playoff game.

Episode 7 of the Netflix docuseries, “America’s Team: The Gambler and his Cowboys,” marks the official end of the dynasty. And, I would suggest, the end of the Dallas Cowboys as anybody 40 years old or older knew them.

The episode opens with Channel 5’s Marty Griffin’s hidden-camera footage of Michael Irvin buying crack cocaine. I still don’t know how he pulled that off and I’m not sure anything like that could ever happen again. It was so shocking at the time to see and hear Michael on video buying cocaine.  And then we move to the drug possession arrest of Irvin and backup tight end Alfredo Roberts and two dancers at that Residence Inn in Irving on March 5, 1996. Netflix interviewed the judge and the assistant District Attorney in the case, and it’s fascinating. The assistant D.A. recalls he couldn’t believe how many strippers he interviewed for the case. They both say the evidence against Michael was “overwhelming.” Irvin was charged with two counts of felony drug possession and faced up to 20-years in prison. To remind the prosecutor exactly who he was, Irvin showed up for the first day of the trial wearing a full length mink coat and sunglasses. Classy. One of the strippers claimed the cocaine was hers, to protect Michael, while another stripper testified against Irvin and spilled the tea on everything. A reporter covering the trial described the witness as “a topless dancer with seemingly bottomless allegations.” Good line. On the second day, the FBI charged in and cleared the courtroom because of a death threat against Michael. One of the stripper’s boyfriends, a City of Dallas police officer who claimed the dancer was his common law wife, was arrested and charged with putting a hit out on Irvin. Seriously. There were also allegations of strip searches and witness tampering. Troy Aikman showed up to offer his support. O.J.’s trial the year before seemed low-key compared to this three-ring circus.

In a shocking move that baffled the judge and the assistant D.A., Irvin’s attorneys worked out a plea bargain with the prosecutor. Michael pled “no contest” and received probation and a $10,000 fine. The assumption is that someone got to the D.A. It seems like the assistant D.A. has still not gotten over it. The harshest penalty was handed down by the NFL: a five game suspension to begin the 1996 season.

Netflix spends a full 25-minutes documenting the details of the sensational trial and all the gory particulars of the Playmaker’s off-the-field misbehavior: drugs, booze, sex parties, strippers, the “White House,” etc., Skip Bayless claims “the whole culture was rotten to its core.” Andrea Kramer, who covered it every day for ESPN, says the Dallas Cowboys were never the same after Irvin’s trial. “It’s the seminal moment,” she says, “when it started to collapse.”

Boy, did it.

On one hand, the Cowboys were losing good players and coaches to free agency and not replacing them. In the three seasons after Jimmy left, Jerry and Barry lost 31 players to free agency and signed only seven. That’s not going to cut it. The first four post-Jimmy drafts netted a total of one Pro Bowler. Disaster. Troy could tell the owner and the coach didn’t know what they were doing. A still agitated Aikman says, “Jerry was learning the business on my time.”

The incompetence of the front office to evaluate talent and maintain a championship-caliber team was a major problem (still is). But the off-the-field stuff became absolutely ridiculous. There were league drug suspensions for Leon Lett, Shante Carver, and Clayton Holmes; DUI arrests for Cory Fleming (2) and Erik Williams; Deion got arrested for trespassing while fishing on private property. We were seeing a new Dallas Cowboy mugshot every other day!

This was one of the more glaring differences between Jimmy Johnson and Barry. One can’t imagine Jimmy putting up with all the off-the-field incidents and the distractions they caused. Barry? He never acted like he cared. Pat Summerall quoted Barry as telling him, “I don’t want to know what’s going on.” Barry tells the Netflix crew, “I didn’t pay any attention to it. We had a job to do and, whoever was at practice that day, we’d go out and work and get ready to play the team we gotta play. You think they’d listen to a coach telling them, ‘Hey, don’t do that anymore?’ Nonsense!”

When the Netflix interviewer asks Barry the obvious question, “Did these kinds of things happen when Jimmy was the coach?” Barry responded incredulously. “Are you saying that because I was the head coach this happened? You ain’t gonna put this on me, that it was my fault all this happened, because it isn’t.”

Then then the very next scene is a television newscast reporting that Cowboys coach Barry Switzer has been arrested for having a loaded gun in his carry-on bag at the airport.

Episode 7 chronicles the end of the Dallas Cowboys.

Remember when Irvin stabbed rookie lineman Everett McIver at training camp in 1998? Several players were in line to get haircuts inside a Midwestern State University dorm room, when Irvin walked in and, citing veteran privilege, jumped to the front of the line. McIver took issue and Michael grabbed a pair of scissors and stabbed him in the neck. McIver almost died. And nobody on the Cowboys talked. Not Jerry. Not new coach Chan Gailey. Not any of the players. They called it an accident, horseplay, fooling around. Irvin avoided prison time only because everybody kept their mouths shut. And he knows it. Speaking of McIver, Michael says, “Had he not handled it the way he handled it, I was definitely going to jail.” Netflix did not report how much money McIver was paid for his silence.

The episode covers Irvin’s last game in October 1999 in which he suffered a neck injury that revealed a stenosis in his spine that ended his career. It’s interesting that Michael says if Jimmy and Norv were still coaching, he would have come back. But not for Chan Gailey.

They document the last straw that forced Aikman to walk away in the middle of the 2000 season. It wasn’t so much the concussions he was suffering because the team around him was so bad, it was more that he knew there was no hope. After Washington’s LaVar Arrington knocked Aikman out on that October afternoon, giving him his ninth career concussion, his fourth in 14 months, Aikman says he was mentally and physically exhausted. “There just wasn’t a light at the end of the tunnel,” he remembers. “There was no question who was in charge and I didn’t see anything that was being done that offered any hope.”

Emmitt Smith held on a little longer, surpassing Walter Payton in a 2002 game against the Seahawks to become the NFL’s all-time leading rusher. I was there at Texas Stadium that day to witness history. Emmitt was 92 yards away from Payton’s 16,726; he needed 93 yards to pass him. The Cowboys’ next two games were on the road; the Cowboys wanted him to break the record at home. So did Emmitt. And he did. It was the only time I’ve ever seen a press box full of announcers and reporters give anybody a standing ovation. It was beautiful. They stopped the game to give Emmitt the ball and to unveil a banner from the rafters at Texas Stadium. Payton’s family was there for the celebration and speeches afterward. The networks all offered extensive coverage of what was a national event. The Seahawks won the game and the Cowboys dropped to 3-5 on what would be a 5-11 season, the last of Dave Campo’s three straight 5-11 seasons. I remember interviewing Seattle coach Mike Holmgren in the visitors locker room afterward. I’ll never forget what he said about Emmitt’s record: “The Cowboys got what they wanted and we got what we wanted.”

Fitting. Poignant. What Jerry wants, the “other things,” don’t necessarily have anything to do with winning football games.

Peace,
Allan

“1995 was the happiest year of my life. It made me want more. I got a taste of other things.” ~Jerry Wayne looking forward after the Cowboys’ third Super Bowl title in four years

Episode 6 of the Netflix docuseries about the ’90s era Dallas Cowboys begins with the free agent signing of Deion Sanders, ends with the Super Bowl XXX championship over the Steelers, and, in between, reminds us of just how improbable that whole thing really was. The head coach and the future Hall of Fame quarterback weren’t talking to each other, Norv Turner and Dave Wannstedt had taken head coaching jobs with the Redskins and Bears, Ernie Zampese and Dave Campo were doing most of the coaching, and Jerry was facing a $300 million lawsuit from the other NFL owners for breaking the revenue sharing agreements.

Prime Time – Jerry gave Deion Sanders  a $35 million contract, including a record-breaking $13 million signing bonus, that made Sanders the highest paid defensive player in NFL history–he paid Deion more than he was paying Emmitt and Michael. Jerry claims that after suffering through the ’94 NFC title game in which Sanders completely shut down half the field, he realized he had to have him to get the Cowboys back to the Super Bowl. I believe it had much more to do with Deion’s over-the-top Prime Time persona. At the time, Deion was the most popular professional athlete in America, playing outfield in the major leagues, returning kicks and interceptions for touchdowns in the NFL, starring on his own hip-hop records and videos, and generally appearing in dozens of national ads for a variety of products and on every late night talk show on network and cable TV. Of course, that’s what Jerry wanted. The eyeballs, the attention, the interest. Jerry’s already told us what he believes is most important.

There is some great behind-the-scenes footage here of Deion meeting Jerry and Barry and the Triplets at Valley Ranch. The owner and the head coach are wearing suits and ties. Troy and Michael and Emmitt look like they just got through working out. But they’re all thrilled to see Deion in the building. Making small talk while sitting across from Deion in a coach’s office, Troy Aikman says, “Somebody asked me if Deion is a good receiver and I said, ‘I don’t know, I’ve never thrown him a ball.’ I guess that’s not totally true.”

I was struck by Deion’s insistence that his Prime Time personality was just a made-up, hyped-up, alter-ego he manufactured to sell sneakers and records. Yeah, I don’t know. Listening to Deion talking about himself now sounds just like Deion talking about himself back then.

Lawsuits – At halftime of the Cowboys season-opening game on Monday Night Football at Giants Stadium, Jerry Jones and the Cowboys distributed a press release titled “Cowboys Owner Bucks NFL Again.” It was an in-your-face announcement that the Cowboys had secured a seven-year apparel and sponsorship deal with Nike. Twelve minutes later, as the third quarter began, Jerry and Nike Chairman Phil Knight walked out of the visitors’ tunnel together, across the corner of the end zone, and over to the Cowboys bench. Knight was wearing a blue Dallas Cowboys cap; Jerry was wearing a gold Nike Swoosh on his jacket. It was classic Jerry Wayne showmanship. And classic Jerry putting his money-making sideshows ahead of his football team.

The controversy is that, at the time, the NFL controlled all merchandise sales for the 30 teams and forbid the individual teams from making their own deals. If the NFL had a deal with Coke, nobody could make deals with Pepsi or Dr Pepper. If Budweiser was the official beer of the NFL, no team could cut a deal with Coors or Michelob. That’s just the way they had done business for 75 years. The Cowboys, coming off two Super Bowl championships and three straight NFC title games, were selling one-fourth of all NFL merchandise, but they only received 1/30th of the profits. All the teams shared the revenue equally. And Jerry found his loophole.

The NFL had deals with Reebok and Apex. So Jerry made Nike the official gear of Texas Stadium. Not the team. The stadium. The NFL had a contract with Coke. Jerry made Pepsi the official soft drink of Texas Stadium. Visa had a deal with the NFL. American Express made a deal with Texas Stadium.

The other 29 owners were livid. Jerry was destroying the whole structure. He was doing his own thing, creating revenue streams the other owners couldn’t–or hadn’t–and probably creating a competitive imbalance. Did Jerry give Deion that outrageous $13 million signing bonus or did it come from Phil Knight? Those first  salary cap years of 1994 and 1995 allowed teams to circumvent the hard max with signing bonuses. Jerry “personally paid players,” he says, more than $45 million in bonuses in 1995. Did that money come from Nike and Pepsi and American Express through these rogue deals?

The other owners couldn’t handle it, so they sued Jerry for $300 million for violating the NFL’s revenue sharing agreements. Jerry countered with a $750 million anti-trust suit against the NFL.

Eventually, sometime in the summer after the Cowboys Super Bowl win, the two sides settled the suits and the NFL began allowing its teams to market and sell their own merchandise for their own profits. Jerry had completely restructured the way the NFL made money, by negotiating with FOX on his own and forcing TV to pay millions more in broadcast rights and by signing his own exclusive sponsorship deals for his team. Today, the NFL clubs are worth an average of $5.6 billion (with a B) and clearing almost $200 million per year.

They put Jerry in the Pro Football Hall of Fame for this.

Final Nail – In Week 5 at Washington, wide receiver Kevin Williams dropped a couple of passes, ran some bad routes, and suffered a crucial fumble in what was the Cowboys’ first loss of that ’95 season. And Troy Aikman let him have it. On the field, on the sidelines–Troy was just about the only one on the team holding folks accountable. The next day, Barry summoned his quarterback to his office and told him that some players were noticing that Troy only yelled at their Black teammates. Aikman was hard on the Black players and never got on to any White players. He wanted Troy to apologize to the team. Troy called it ridiculous. Barry wouldn’t back down. Troy calls that “the final nail that severed our relationship.”

They didn’t talk to each other the rest of the season. Three months. There’s footage of Troy and Barry openly ignoring each other and avoiding each other during games. During Super Bowl week, somebody leaked the “racism” story to the press and Barry refused to bury it. He didn’t have Troy’s back. All the Cowboys players defended Troy, to a man, without exception. But not Barry.

Switzer expresses some regret now that their relationship was so awful. Troy does not.

Larry Brown – The Cowboys probably don’t win that third Super Bowl in four years if Steelers quarterback Neil O’Donnell doesn’t throw two second-half interceptions directly to Cowboys cornerback Larry Brown. Dallas was clinging to a slim three-point lead with four minutes to play and Pittsburgh was moving the ball. They had all the momentum. The Cowboys were on their heels. And O’Donnell threw a pass into the flat that hit TCU’s Brown right in the gut. Brown ran it back 33 yards to the Steelers six-yard-line. Emmitt Smith ran it in from there and it was over. Brown had run a 3rd quarter interception 44 yards to the Steeelers 18 yard line, which led to another Cowboys touchdown.

Troy says that winning the second Super Bowl in ’93 was “relief.” The ’95 Super Bowl victory, he says, was “exasperation.”

During the trophy presentation, Barry repeats his obnoxious “We did it, baby!” Over and over. Gag. Michael Irvin grabs the microphone and tells the stadium crowd and the millions of fans watching on TV, with unparalleled intensity and colorful language, that it’s time to give Barry his due, that Switzer is a great coach, and he deserves all the credit for the championship. Michael steps to the side to reveal Troy giving a half-grin and a side-eye / eye-roll at the ridiculousness of it all.

Other Things – It’s surreal to think back to that February Sunday in 1996 when the Cowboys completed their third Super Bowl championship in four years in light of what has transpired since. Imagine what we would have thought if someone had told us that Dallas would not so much as even win a divisional playoff game for the next 29 years. And counting! If you had told me that every team in the NFC will get to at least one conference championship game before the Cowboys reach it again, that the 49ers and Packers will go to eight title games and three Super Bowls each, that the Eagles will appear in nine conference games and four Super Bowls, before the Cowboys win another division playoff game, I would have thought the team will be sold about six times and they’ll go through at least a dozen GMs. That would be a complete disaster. Why, the Cowboys have never gone more than six years in franchise history without appearing in a conference championship. How will they possibly go 29 seasons? And counting! I would think the team will be in the red and losing money every day, the stadium must be half empty, there must not be any sponsorship deals, no fans, nobody’s buying Cowboys jerseys, they’ll become the Browns or the Lions.

In the last minute or two of episode 6, Jerry calls 1995 the “happiest year of my life.” And he says it made him want more. It gave him “a taste of other things.”

Other ways to make more money. Other things to increase eyeballs, attention, and interest. Not football things. Not winning championships.

“Other things.”

Peace,

Allan