Category: Cowboys History

‘Bounty Bowl’ 30th anniversary and Cowboys-Eagles still at it

There’s no love lost between the Dallas Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles. 1989’s Bounty Bowl didn’t start the feud, but it sure deepened it.

November 23, 1989. “Blame It on the Rain” by Milli Vanilli was the No. 1 song in the country. Harlem Nights starring Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor had just unseated Look Who’s Talking from a month-long run atop the box office. The Berlin Wall had come tumbling down two weeks prior. A gallon of milk cost $2.34. A gallon of gas was just over a buck. And, at least on the visitors’ sideline of Texas Stadium that Thanksgiving Day, the price for laying out Cowboys kicker Luis Zendejas was $200.

Saturday marks the 30th anniversary of the “Bounty Bowl,” one of the ugliest incidents in team history, an unfortunate stain on the league’s rich Thanksgiving Day tradition, and one of the most notorious chapters in one of the nastiest rivalries in the National Football League.

“Why would I place a bounty on a kicker who can’t kick worth a damn?”

The Cowboys were a dismal 1-10 entering the Week 12 game of the 1989 season; Jerry Jones had just purchased the team in February. Jimmy Johnson had replaced the legendary Tom Landry as coach. The team’s best player, Herschel Walker, had been traded away a few weeks earlier, and Troy Aikman was nearing the three-quarter mark of his rookie campaign as starting quarterback of the league’s worst squad. Hosting its annual Thanksgiving Day contest was one of the lone chances that season for the struggling Cowboys to shine before a nationwide audience. The opponent that day? The 7-4 Philadelphia Eagles, helmed by coach Buddy Ryan.

Down by a 10-0 score coming out of halftime, Dallas kicked off to open the third quarter. Moments after sending the ball deep on his first kick of the game, Zendejas was leveled by Eagles linebacker and special teams player Jessie Small. Replays seem to show that Small bypassed several members of the Cowboys coverage team to get to Zendejas. Once there, he delivered a massive blow that sent the 175-pound kicker flying and left him wobbling as he tried to stand.

In today’s game, the hit would have drawn an immediate flag, resulting in not only a penalty for the Eagles, but a stiff fine for Small from the league. But on that day in Irving in 1989, it was- incredibly enough- Zendejas who was flagged, for a low block. (In retrospect, Zendejas was clearly crouching in anticipation because he knew a big hit was coming; more on that later.) And for his bone-crunching blow, Small actually made money- directly from Coach Ryan, no less- according to blockbuster accusations leveled after the 27-0 loss by Johnson and the Cowboys.

The first-year coach claimed that Ryan had placed a bounty on Zendejas, promising a $200 cash payment to the Eagles player who flattened the kicker. Zendejas, coincidentally (or not, depending on your interpretation), had been cut by the Eagles less than a month earlier and then signed by Dallas.

Ryan laughed off the accusation as absurd.

“Why would I place a bounty on a kicker who can’t kick worth a damn?” he asked, according to Mark Eckel of NJ.com. “The guy was in a six-week slump. I wanted him in the game.”

Zendejas had, in fact, missed two field goals in Dallas’s previous game versus Miami. He did not seem to be, at least on the surface, a dangerous playmaking threat truly worthy of the personal ire of the Eagles coach.

The Dallas kicker, though, felt he had proof of the bounty. Eagles punter John Teltschik had warned him before the game that he was a target for a big hit. But there was more.

“Watch out for yourself…”

“In the days leading up to the game,” wrote Ray Didinger in a 2014 piece on the Eagles team website, “a story circulated in Dallas that Zendejas had received an ominous phone call from Eagles special teams coach Al Roberts. According to Zendejas, Roberts told him that Ryan had instructed his players to go after their former teammate.”

Zendejas claimed that upon his release in Philadelphia, he had been notified by Roberts, not Ryan directly. At the time, the kicker took to the media to voice his disappointment, calling his coach’s move “classless.”

”Buddy didn’t have the decency to tell me to my face; he had an assistant coach do it,” Zendejas said of his termination. ”When I phoned to ask him about it, he hung up on me.”

Roberts’s warning for Zendejas to “watch out for yourself” on Thanksgiving 1989 in the game that was quickly dubbed the “Bounty Bowl” was just the latest evidence of bad blood between Ryan and the Cowboys. Ryan, in fact, harbored a hatred for the rivals from Dallas ever since taking over in Philadelphia in 1986. That hatred that grew exponentially the following season.

During the 1987 NFL players’ strike, Dallas saw several high-profile members of their roster cross the picket line to continue playing. Ryan accused then-coach Landry of running up the score on his replacement players in a 41-22 win. After the strike had ended and full-time players returned, Ryan got his revenge on Dallas. He instructed his starting offense to run a fake kneeldown play – after two actual kneel-downs – in the final seconds of a game the Eagles were already leading 30-20. The ensuing rub-it-in touchdown beat the Cowboys by 17 points. In 1989, Ryan saw a chance to kick the rebuilding team when they were down, in their own stadium and on national television.

But the notion of Ryan placing a price tag on the heads of opposing players wasn’t even a new one.

“Ron Wolfley, a Pro Bowl special teams tackler for the [then-]Phoenix Cardinals, disclosed [in 1988] that he had heard that the Eagles had a bounty on him during the 1987 season,” as per a 1989 New York Times piece by Dave Anderson.  He goes on to write that, in an Eagles-Bears game that same 1989 season, “similar bounties were whispered to be on Mike Tomczak, the quarterback, and Dennis McKinnon, a wide receiver,” and adding, “Ryan, who has feuded openly with Mike Ditka, also supposedly had offered a bounty if any of the Eagle players flattened the Bears’ coach on the sideline.”

To be sure, the Cowboys were well aware of the bounty rumors when they took the field that Thanksgiving Day. And Zendejas wasn’t the only Dallas player with a supposed price on his head.

“He never used the word ‘bounty.'”

In the first half of the game, Aikman was slammed to the ground by Eagles linebacker Britt Hager well after an aborted-play whistle. The hit, despite broadcasters Pat Summerall and John Madden clearly being entertained by the “fracas” that followed, necessitated X-rays for Aikman. Johnson claimed the Eagles had also put a $500 contract on his rookie quarterback.

Hager, a Texas alum, was quoted in a 2016 Dallas Morning News article by Rainer Sabin when asked about the oft-repeated whispers of Ryan’s bounties.

“As far as I know, he never pointed out a guy,” Hager answered. “I never heard, ‘Go take the kicker out.’ Who would say, ‘Go take the kicker out?’ That’s why we all kind of laughed about it.”

He admitted, though, that Ryan wasn’t above at least insinuating that opposing quarterbacks were fair game for his players.

Eckel explains, “Ryan would say to me after the fact that he would tell his players at times before games, ‘I want to find out who their backup quarterback is today.” But he never used the word ‘bounty’.”

Anderson adds that Zendejas himself “spoke of having seen ”Buddy call guys out and give them $100” for what the kicker called a weekly Big Hit award but what Ryan called a Big Play award.

“Ryan acknowledged those $100 bonuses to his Eagle players, but insisted they were for an interception or a jarring tackle that caused a fumble in the context of the game, not for leveling a certain opponent.”

But, Sabin writes: “At the time, Hager and the Eagles special teams and defensive players would collect a pool of money and redistribute it for big hits, ‘decleaters,’ sacks, and turnovers. It wasn’t an uncommon practice in the NFL during a bygone era when the league’s image was less sanitized and the game wasn’t as scrutinized. In fact, the Cowboys had a similar system, according to [Dallas fullback Daryl] Johnston.

“‘There was no intent of malice,’ Johnston explained.”

But to anyone watching the 1989 Thanksgiving Day contest, there was clearly intent of malice in the Eagles hit that left a diminutive kicker staggering off the field.

Didinger, the famed Philadelphia sportswriter, had a private film session with Jimmy Johnson at Valley Ranch several days after the Bounty Bowl.

“On the film, you could see Small take a straight-line course to Zendejas. He actually ran right past Bill Bates, the Cowboys’ best special teams player, to get to the kicker who never made a tackle in his entire career.

“‘Why would he do that,’ Johnson said referring to Small, ‘unless somebody told him to do it?’

“I had to admit Johnson had a point.”

“You all know what you were doing!”

The New York Times quoted Zendejas as saying of Ryan after the Thanksgiving Day game, ”If I could’ve stood on my two legs, I would’ve gone over and decked him… We’ll play again in two weeks. If I see him then, I’ll deck him then. Honestly, I will.”

Zendejas did share words with several of his ex-Eagles teammates when the Thanksgiving game ended. Small, in fact, was overheard by Didinger telling Zendejas, ”I was just doing my job.” The Cowboys’ kicker reportedly replied, ”You know what you were doing! You all know what you were doing!” An Eagles’ trainer offered his hand; Zendejas slapped it away.

Johnson himself intended to confront Ryan right there on the field after the final gun. But the Eagles coach hurried off the Texas Stadium field, skipping the traditional coaches’ face-to-face meeting.

According to Didinger: “It was true Ryan left the field as soon as the game ended, but he did that every week. He didn’t believe in postgame handshakes. Professional courtesy wasn’t his thing.”

Johnson famously said of the moment, “Oh, I would have said something to Buddy, but he wouldn’t stand on the field long enough. He put his big fat rear end into the dressing room.”

In his response, Ryan, as he did with most things, deflected the criticism with a joke.

“I resent that,” Ryan said. “I’ve been on a diet, I lost a couple of pounds. I thought I was looking good, and he goes and calls me fat. I kind of resent that.”

The teams played again two weeks later. It was not nearly enough time, though, for tempers to have cooled. “Bounty Bowl II” had become a promoted event, and it carried the animosity into the Veterans Stadium stands, with Philadelphia fans pelting Cowboys players, NFL officials, CBS broadcasters, and even their own players with ice-packed snowballs in one of the most chaotic game environments ever seen at an NFL venue.

On the field, Zendejas was left alone, and he never went after Ryan. But Aikman took several hits during the game along with Eagles quarterback Randall Cunningham; nine total sacks were recorded in a notably physical 20-10 Eagles win. Cowboys punter Mike Saxon was also roughed up during play, drawing an unnecessary roughness flag.

“He never truly admitted it.”

As for the initial Bounty Bowl accusations, NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue- on the job just one month when it happened- followed up by interviewing a handful of players. There was even talk of a recording Zendejas had supposedly made of the phone conversation where the Eagles assistant had warned him of the bounty, but the kicker never turned over any such tape.

In the end, according to the Dallas Morning News, “the league dropped the inquiry, saying it found no ‘convincing evidence of an intent to injure any Cowboys player or to make contact with any player outside the rules of the game.'”

The 1989 season ended with the Cowboys finishing 1-15, the second NFL team to ever do so. Their league-worst record would have given them the top pick in the 1990 draft, but the team had given up that pick by taking quarterback Steve Walsh in the first round of the previous year’s supplemental draft. The Cowboys eventually traded picks with the Steelers to re-enter the first round; they selected running back Emmitt Smith 17th overall.

The Eagles came in second in the NFC East in 1989 and lost to the Rams in the wild card round of the playoffs.

Ryan never admitted to a bounty system in the years that followed, maintaining that position until his passing in 2016.

Johnson, now a FOX studio analyst, recalled Ryan’s denials in a 2014 interview.

“He sloughed it off. He never truly admitted it,” Johnson said. “I think Buddy was trying to play games. I kid him, ‘You had one of the great all-time defenses, but you never won a playoff game.’ I had the last laugh.”

Johnson’s championships may have afforded him the luxury to find humor in it long after the fact, but the Bounty Bowl saga remains a seminal part of the lore of the Cowboys-Eagles rivalry any time the franchises meet. Thirty years of hindsight has perhaps turned the original controversy into just a colorful chapter from a distant era; nothing, though, has diminished the intense dislike the two teams have for one another to this day.

And to think, it all started with a kicker.

[vertical-gallery id=634743][vertical-gallery id=634702][vertical-gallery id=633628][lawrence-newsletter]

Garrett-Rudolph fight invokes memories of other helmet incidents, Cowboys involved

The fight that broke out at the end of Browns-Steelers wasn’t the first, nor will it be the last, helmet incident in the NFL. A recap.

The NFL world was placed on it’s head in the final moments of what should have been a celebratory situation for the Cleveland Browns in Thursday night’s win over the Pittsburgh Steelers. Only it’s the Cleveland Browns and nice things rarely happen to that organization. A few seconds before defeating their rivals for the first time in the same season they also took out the Baltimore Ravens, all hell broke loose when defensive end Myles Garrett took down QB Mason Rudolph a few ticks after Rudolph had released the ball.

The takedown was late-hit flag worthy, but on it’s own probably wouldn’t be much of a big deal. What happened after, certainly was. On the ground, Rudolph and Garrett tussled, with Rudolph attempting to take off Garrett’s helmet.

This could be Rudolph’s hand getting stuck in Garrett’s facemask and him trying to get it out, as some have speculated, but what is going on with Rudolph’s left hand cannot be seen by the currently available angles.

There is clear animosity here as Rudolph grabs the back of Garrett’s helmet and almost pulls it off. Just as none of us outsiders know the full intent of Rudolph’s hands, none of us outsiders know what was being said during this tussle and it’s irresponsible to speculate on the specific words being used.

It is, of course, doubtful the two were exchanging pound cake recipes.

As they rose from the ground, Rudolph appears to have made contact with Garrett in the groin area not once, but twice. The intent, and the intensity, is unknown.

Garrett went apoplectic and not only retaliated by trying to remove Rudolph’s helmet — it’s a safe bet to assume Garrett didn’t take Rudolph’s action as a mild-mannered attempt to remove a hand from a facemask — but succeeded, and then things turned surreal.

Rudolph, helmet-less, still decides to pursue confrontation. Garrett, backpedaling, winds up and makes a mistake that could have cost Rudolph his season, career or possibly worse, by swinging the QBs helmet and connecting with his head.

Fortunately, the  open end of the helmet where there is padding is what connected, and not the crown of the helmet, or things could have ended badly. The incident will now get turned over to the league and suspensions will likely be coming for all involved. Steelers’ OL Maurkice Pouncey will likely be suspended for throwing punches in defense of his quarterback, Rudolph will likely be suspended for trying to rip off Garrett’s helmet and moving the situation from a penalty-worthy play to a fight, and Garrett certainly will be suspended for escalating the fight to a place things should never, ever go.

Except, they sometimes do.

This is hardly the first helmet-swinging incident the league or organized football has seen, despite the over-the-top reactions some in the media are having. They happen from time to time, including earlier this season in practice, they just haven’t been on primetime television in front of a national audience and during the age of social media where one instance spawns 10’s of thousands of responses.

Kyle Long vs Jalen Dalton (August 2019)

This tiff wasn’t caught on publicly available camera, though as teams record their practice sessions, video of it does exist somewhere .

For The Win reported on it at the time:

Bears offensive lineman Kyle Long had himself an interesting day at training camp on Wednesday. And by interesting, I mean that he took off a fellow player’s helmet and tried to beat him with it.

No, really, he did.

The three-time Pro Bowler was ejected from a mock scrimmage session after he got into a fight with rookie defensive lineman Jalen Dalton. Long apparently took exception to an earlier block by Dalton during an interception return. And frustrations boiled over when Long removed Dalton’s helmet and started hitting him with the helmet.

Richie Incognito vs Antoine Smith (August 2013)

Smith, the Houston Texans defensive lineman, scuffled with notorious bad boy and the oft-maligned offensive lineman, then of the Miami Dolphins. Yes, the threaten-everyone-in-a-funeral-home-with-guns-and-is-back-in-the-NFL Richie Incognito.

As all can see, Incognito gets his hands into the face and helmet of Smith first, just like Rudolph and Garrett, and the response is the escalation of violence. Smith is able to successfully remove Incognito’s helmet, and swings it at him in retaliation. He just doesn’t connect.

Flozell Adams vs Marcus Thomas (Summer 2008)

The Cowboys aren’t immune to being in such instances. During a joint practice with the Denver Broncos, things got heated leading the Dallas lineman to swing a helmet in a big scrum.

The reactions at the time come courtesy of the Denver Post, including Broncos HC Mike Shanahan being pleased no one threw a punch.

“That’s all part of football,” Cowboys receiver Terrell Owens said. “When you get all this testosterone going out here, it gets a little out of hand.”

“When you’re going against other guys, guys that you’re not friends with, sometimes tempers flare,” Broncos linebacker D.J. Williams said. “I guess two guys got into it a little extra at the end of the play, and once that happens, your friends come, everybody’s friends come. It’s a big pile-on, just grabbing and pushing.”

Asked about the fracas, Broncos coach Mike Shanahan retorted: “That wasn’t a fight. It wasn’t a fight. You know what a fight is. That was just a little pushing. It happens all the time. But they kept their composure and they didn’t swing. And that’s what you want.”

Don Joyce vs Les Lichtner (1954)

These things are of course nothing new. Here, Twitter user @DanDalyOnSports finds an old-school incident involving a current Hall of Famer.

The league’s response? Very interesting.

Lyle Alzado also got frisky back in the 1980s.

Albert Haynesworth vs Andre Gurode (2006)

Of course the most notable helmet incident prior to this one didn’t involve a helmet swing, but did involve a member of the Dallas Cowboys.

After a Julius Jones touchdown, the then Tennessee Titans defensive lineman stood over the Cowboys center Andre Gurode, ripped off his helmet and unsuccessfully tried to step on his face. Undeterred, he went for a second stomp, causing several lacerations to Gurode’s face that would require multiple stitches.

Haynesworth was suspended five games the very next day. It will be interesting to see how long, and how quickly the parties in Thursday night’s events are punished.

Nothing happens in today’s world without being captured in a contemporary meme, and all should be grateful the scream-at-the-too-cool-cat meme is what’s hot right now. Enjoy.

[vertical-gallery id=634000][vertical-gallery id=633628][lawrence-newsletter]