4. October 31, 1993: Emmitt’s record-setting Halloween in Philly
Weeks after his 64-day absence that began the 1993 season, Smith still hadn’t truly quieted the critics. The defending Super Bowl champs had limped to an 0-2 start during Emmitt’s contract holdout, and it was enough of a scare to prompt Jerry Jones to give Smith the biggest deal ever (at the time) for an NFL running back.
The team ripped off five wins in a row upon Smith’s return, but Emmitt hadn’t turned in the kind of performance that justified his outrageous (to many) four-year/$13.6 million deal. [Ed. note: Read those dollar amounts again. Just think about how far contracts have come since then. Whew.]
But at Veterans Stadium on Halloween, Smith showed the Eagles what a monster he could be.
Chilly temperatures and steady rain forced a ground-heavy plan of attack, with Aikman attempting just 19 passes all game long.
“It was not a day to throw the ball,” wide receiver Alvin Harper commented. “It was a day to sit back and let Emmitt do the job.”
The lead draw was the play du jour, and the Cowboys dialed it up over and over to smashing success. Smith was practically unstoppable. Thirty carries later, he had totalled a whopping 237 rushing yards. The highlight of the jaw-dropping clinic was his 62-yard touchdown run in the final quarter to seal the 23-10 win.
The 237-yard effort broke Tony Dorsett’s franchise single-game record, and was at the time, the sixth-highest single-game rushing total ever. To this day, it is still in the top 20.
It would remain Smith’s highest one-game yardage total as a pro, the only time in his remarkable career he topped the 200 mark.