Category: Cowboys History

Two bye weeks per season? Cowboys capitalized the only time it’s ever happened

From @ToddBrock24f7: An 18-game NFL season, many believe, would bring back 2 bye weeks per team. The only year that’s happened was a crazy one for the Cowboys.

The NFL’s release of its 2024 schedule had fans once again weighing- among the matchups and travel schedules and kickoff times- the merits or disadvantages of their team’s assigned bye week.

The rigors of a 17-game season are real, and the bye week is one of the first things each locker room in the league looks at when their slate is officially announced. For some, the week off this year will come as early as the first weekend in October, while some squads will have to grind all the way until early December for a break.

Fourteen teams- almost half the league- will have a stretch of 12 consecutive regular-season games either before or after their bye this season. (And then it rolls right into the playoffs… for the “lucky” ones.) Keep in mind that in 1960- the Cowboys’ first year of existence- 12 games was the season.

Many around the NFL have suggested that as the regular season has grown to 17 games- and will likely expand again to 18- each team should have two bye weeks to lessen the physical toll taken on players and cut down on injuries. San Francisco tight end George Kittle has been a vocal advocate of it, especially after missing time in 2022 with a lower-leg injury. ACL tears, in particular, hit a seven-year high in 2021, the first year that teams played 17 games.

It’s worth remembering that the league has played a two-bye season once before. And while it was a wild and often weird ride, it did end with a championship parade in Dallas.

The year was 1993. And for the first time ever, the NFL played an 18-week regular season, giving each team two bye weeks during their 16-game schedules. The primary reason? The new television deals that had just been signed. But then-commissioner Paul Tagliabue (shockingly) admitted that the league was also “sensitive to the possible over-exposure of our sport” and that the extra time off for teams would “allow for greater scheduling flexibility, ease the player injury factor, and reduce team travel burdens.”

The Cowboys had byes scheduled for Weeks 4 and 8 of the ’93 season, but the drama started on opening night. With running back Emmitt Smith holding out amid a contract dispute, the defending Super Bowl champions looked lost and dropped a 35-16 Week 1 game on the road in Washington.

A rematch of Dallas’s Super Bowl XXVII blowout win over the Bills (sevenĀ Ā  months earlier) went Buffalo’s way in Week 2. Defensive end Charles Haley famously threw his helmet at owner Jerry Jones following the 13-10 loss.

Smith had his new deal in time to suit up versus the Cardinals in Week 3. Although the Cowboys pulled out the win, most viewed the Week 4 bye as a chance to reset and start the season for real in Week 5.

Three straight wins followed, putting Dallas at 4-2 when their second bye week came in Week 8.

The back half of that 1993 season included some of the most memorable moments- both good and bad- in Cowboys history. Week 9 was the storied Halloween night game in Philadelphia, when Smith rushed for 237 yards, the most he would compile in a single game over the course of his Hall of Fame career.

Quarterback Troy Aikman went down with a leg injury in a Week 10 win over the Giants on the afternoon that Tom Landry was inducted into the Ring of Honor. Backup passer Jason Garrett was benched midgame in Week 11; Bernie Kosar came on in relief and guided Dallas to a close win over the Cardinals. The team was not so lucky in Week 12, losing to Atlanta on a day when Smith rushed for one single yard, his lowest total ever in a Cowboys uniform.

Then came Thanksgiving Day and the infamous “snow game” versus Miami at Texas Stadium. Defensive tackle Leon Lett’s misguided attempt to smother a blocked field goal gave the Dolphins an extra chance at the kick, which they made for a gutting 16-14 win.

At 7-4 with five games remaining, the NFC East was turning into a horse race, with the Cowboys trailing the Giants in the standings as December began. Dallas ripped off four straight wins heading into Week 18; New York went 3-1 over that same span, setting the stage for a winner-take-all season finale.

What happened at Giants Stadium that January afternoon is now remembered, simply, as “The Emmitt Smith Game.” Smith heroically played through a shoulder separation to rack up 237 yards of offense with only one usable arm. The three-point overtime win gave the Cowboys the division title and a first-round postseason bye.

Four weeks later, Dallas had dispatched Green Bay and San Francisco in the NFC playoff bracket and got their revenge over Buffalo and the Georgia Dome by winning their second straight Super Bowl.

Was it the two bye weeks? Probably not (though the first certainly gave Smith a little extra re-acclimation time to get himself up to speed).

But the NFL scrapped the double byes after just a single season. With just 28 teams in the league then, the off-weeks were distributed poorly (entire divisions had the same bye weeks) and left some weekends with just 10 total games. That left the networks trying to boost some putrid matchups as heavyweight showdowns for the national audience.

TV ratings actually dropped for the 1993 season, prompting the league to return to one bye per team the next season.

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But now with 32 teams, giving players an extra bye week during the season would be far more feasible while not watering down the TV lineup. But with the likelihood of an 18-game schedule coming in the near future, two byes per team may actually be a necessity.

An 18th regular-season contest would reduce the preseason schedule by a game. But the season almost certainly wouldn’t start any earlier; it would have to run later. That would, most analysts agree, push the Super Bowl to President’s Day Weekend, which would have the added benefit of keeping the Super Bowl on a Sunday while giving much of the country the next day off, thanks to the holiday.

And while that kind of hypothetical calendar would naturally have a snowball effect that in turn probably impacts dates for the scouting combine and NFL draft, it feels like the inevitable end result of the NFL desperately wanting to create an 18th game for every one of its franchises.

But, hey, it worked out for Cowboys Nation the last time players got an extra week off during the season.

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Former Cowboys DT Chad Hennings to announce team’s Day 2 draft picks

From @ToddBrock24f7: Hennings won 3 Super Bowls in the ’90s but is perhaps best remembered for the stint as an Air Force pilot that delayed his football career.

The NFL has releasedĀ its list of guest announcers who will take over for commissioner Roger Goodell on Day 2 of the NFL draft. If the Cowboys keep the 56th and 87th selections they currently own, their newest employees will be welcomed by former defensive tackle Chad Hennings.

Hennings was an 11th-round pick out of the Air Force Academy in 1988. If not for his military post-graduate commitment, the Outland Trophy winner, unanimous All-American, and UPI Lineman of the Year would have been taken much higher.

The Iowa native was deployed twice to the Persian Gulf, where he piloted A-10 “Warthogs” and was promoted to the rank of captain in 1992. Hennings had the final four years of his active-duty commitment waived after the Gulf War and was able to finally join the Cowboys in 1992.

But the team had undergone an ownership and coaching change since he had been drafted by Tom Landry, and Hennings- then a 26-year-old rookie- was reportedly nearly traded to Denver before even reporting to Dallas. But Jimmy Johnson changed his mind after watching just one workout.

The 6-foot-6 287-pounder was a wrecking ball on the field and a top-notch team leader off it. Hennings ended up being a key role player for the Cowboys defense that helped to win three Super Bowl trophies.

Hennings played nine years for the Cowboys before retiring after the 2000 season due to injuries. In 119 regular-season game appearances, he tallied 269 tackles, 27.5 sacks, five forced fumbles, six fumble recoveries, and one fumble return for a touchdown.

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In 14 playoff games, he added another 22 tackles and 4.5 sacks.

Now 58, Hennings does motivational speaking.

And he’s sure to motivate the Cowboys fans present in downtown Detroit on Friday night when he announces the team’s second- and third-round picks.

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Don Smerek, defensive lineman from ’80s-era Cowboys, passes away at 66

From @ToddBrock24f7: Smerek’s rollercoaster of a career saw him get shot in the chest and come back to play 6 more seasons, including through the 1987 strike.

The Cowboys family has lost one of the unsung mainstays of its teams of the 1980s.

Defensive lineman Don Smerek passed away earlier this week at the age of 66. Cancer was listed as the cause of death for the onetime undrafted free agent out of Nevada.

The versatile Smerek saw just seven seasons of action in the NFL, but he packed an entire roller coaster of a career into that time.

After joining the Cowboys in 1980, he missed out on his rookie season thanks to broken ribs suffered in training camp. Then in 1981, a knee injury put him on injured reserve, but the worst was yet to come. Four weeks after that injury, Smerek was shot in the chest while in the parking lot of a Dallas restaurant. Amazingly, he made a full recovery and was back in the huddle just 11 months later.

The 6-foot-7-inch Smerek played both defensive end and defensive tackle, though he was considered a pass-rushing specialist anytime he was on the field. Mostly a backup, he filled in at various points for an injured John Dutton, a just-retired Harvey Martin, and Hall of Famer Randy White during his 1984 holdout.

And when Smerek considered quitting football, it was White who convinced him to stay for a few more years. Like White, he was one of the few players who crossed picket lines to continue playing through the three-week NFLPA strike of 1987.

“He was a great teammate, a great person,” White said of Smerek. “He was just solid as a football player, and I can always count on him. He would come in on third downs and rush the passer, and the thing about Don as a football player, he was 100 percent.”

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After Smerek did finally retire in 1988- just before what would be coach Tom Landry’s final season- he and White remained good friends and fishing buddies.

Don Smerek finished his NFL career with 69 regular-season game appearances- all with the Cowboys- and 14.5 sacks. He also played in five postseason contests.

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Former Cowboys offensive lineman Char-ron Dorsey passes away at 46

From @ToddBrock24f7: After playing for a national champ FSU team and blocking for a Heisman winner, he opened holes for Emmitt Smith in a short Cowboys tenure.

A former Cowboys offensive lineman from the Dave Campo era has passed away at the shockingly young age of 46.

Char-ron Dorsey died earlier this week following complications from a stroke. Though his NFL career was an abbreviated one, Dorsey remained involved in the game as a coach at the middle and high school levels in the Jacksonville area, where he grew up.

Dorsey was a seventh-round draft pick in 2001 out of Florida State, where he played on an undefeated national championship squad and received All-ACC honors blocking for Heisman Trophy winner Chris Weinke.

His rookie summer with the Cowboys got off to a rocky start, though, with the 390-pound lineman leaving camp at one point after feeling pressure from coaches to drop some weight and improve his play. He returned and went on to see action in nine games during the 2001 season, including two starts (for an injured Solomon Page) late in a disappointing year for the 5-11 Cowboys.

2001 was Dallas’s first season without Troy Aikman, so Dorsey spent much of his playing time blocking for running back Emmitt Smith (in his final 1,000-yard season) in a run-heavy Cowboys offense that failed to find a real rhythm with first-year quarterback Quincy Carter.

Dorsey was waived after the Cowboys’ 2002 season opener and immediately picked up by the Houston Texans, who were playing their inaugural season. He would play in two games that year and logged one more start before being released. Dorsey made one more attempt to latch on to a roster with the New York Giants in 2003, but he missed all of training camp rehabbing from knee surgery and never made the team.

“Teams want offensive lineman to be pretty big. Maybe I got too big,” Dorsey once said in an interview.

“I battle this every year. I get question after question every year about it. It gets to the point where you get tired of hearing about it.”

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Dorsey returned to his native Florida and began coaching in youth programs, helping lead multiple programs to prominence. Over a 10-season tenure at his own alma mater, Matthew Gilbert Middle School went 87-5 and won three championships. Taking over a program in 2018 that hadn’t had a winning season in a decade, he led Parker High School to a district title in his second season.

“He’s had an impact on so many kids that have had the opportunity to make it to the next level,” said Michael Holloway, who had coached alongside Dorsey for nearly 20 years.

“No kid could come to him and tell him something that he didnā€™t understand. He could relate to them. I think he saved some kids,” added athletic director Brad Bernard. “If a kid came up to him and said they were going through hard times, he encouraged them to fight through it because he went through it.”

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Former Cowboys WR Golden Richards passes away at 73

From @ToddBrock24f7: The former second-round deep threat made a memorable TD catch in Super Bowl XII. He passed away from congestive heart failure at 73.

The Cowboys organization has lost one of its first generation of Super Bowl stars.

Wide receiver Golden Richards passed away on Friday of congestive heart failure at the age of 73.

Richards is perhaps best remembered for his fourth-quarter touchdown catch in Super Bowl XII that capped the scoring at 27-10 and earned the Cowboys a championship win over Denver. But despite an abbreviated NFL tenure, he still stands in the franchise’s top 50 in terms of receiving yards and the top 30 in touchdown receptions.

Born and raised in Utah, Richards was a three-sport star who started his collegiate career at BYU and then finished at Hawaii. He was selected by the Cowboys in the second round of a 1973 draft that also brought Billy Joe DuPree, Harvey Martin, and Drew Pearson to Dallas.

By his second season, Richards was named a starter at wide receiver over Bob Hayes, the former Olympic track champion whose jersey number Richards had worn in college. He quickly grew into a role as the offense’s deep threat, enjoying a career high that season in touchdowns.

Richards was targeted just once in the Cowboys’ Super Bowl X loss to Pittsburgh but put up no other stats. He was on the brink of a similarly meager outing in Super Bowl XII, sitting at two targets, one catch, and nine yards as the final quarter got underway.

Up 20-10 with seven minutes to go, Cowboys head coach Tom Landry went for the dagger, calling a halfback option play that saw Robert Newhouse lob an unlikely 29-yard throw to Richards, who reeled in the pass as he crossed the goal line for one of the most memorable plays of the franchise’s first 20 years.

Richards was traded to Chicago early in the 1978 season that followed. He played 20 games for the Bears and then signed with Denver in 1980. He never played in a game as a Bronco, as a season-ending injury in his first camp forced him into a premature retirement.

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A stint as host and producer of an ESPN outdoors show followed his gridiron days. He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2011, with doctors pointing to his football career as a contributing cause. A 2022 fall caused a hip fracture and required four surgeries, according to family members, and expedited a decline in health.

“My uncle Golden passed away peacefully this morning,” Lance Richards wrote on social media, per ProFootballTalk. “I will forever remember going hunting and talking Dallas Cowboy football. He was a kind and sweet soul, and Iā€™m so happy heā€™s not suffering anymore.”

Golden Richards played in 66 games for the Cowboys over six seasons. He has 90 receptions and 1,650 yards on his Dallas rƩsumƩ, with 16 touchdowns.

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49ers trick play offers remember-when nod to vintage Cowboys FB in Super Bowl XII

From @ToddBrock24f7: The TD pass thrown Sunday by Juaun Jennings made him the newest member of an exclusive club started by Robert Newhouse in 1978.

Apart from the satin jacket Post Malone was sporting from the luxury suites at Allegiant Stadium, Super Bowl LVIII was awfully thin for Cowboys fans hoping their team might catch some stray shout-outs.

But the game’s first touchdown (and the only touchdown until late in the third quarter) did dig up an all-but-forgotten asterisk that recalled one of the most memorable plays in the history of America’s Team… that was also made on the biggest stage of them all… and also by a rather unlikely character.

After a scoreless first quarter and toward the end of a mostly dull second frame that featured a long field goal as the lone highlight, the 49ers found themselves knocking on the door of the red zone. On 2nd-and-10, quarterback Brock Purdy turned and ripped a lateral dart to wide receiver Juaun Jennings, who had retreated nearly 10 full yards to collect the pass. Jennings used that cushion- and just enough blocking from his teammates- to lob the ball back across the field to running back Christian McCaffrey, who streaked 27 yards into the end zone.

The pass from Jennings was his first attempt as a pro. His last throw came in 2016 while at the University of Tennessee, a 4-yard connection to Joshua Dobbs versus Texas A&M.

CBS play-by-play man Jim Nantz pointed out of Jennings’s rainbow, “It felt like it took forever to get there.” Sidekick Tony Romo added, “It was scary.”

Unexpected, too, in the moment. But the Super Bowl, especially in recent years, has actually become the testing ground for wild and wacky play calls- especially, it seems, for random players chucking the rock around for scores.

The play marked the third time a non-quarterback has tossed a touchdown pass in the past seven Super Bowls and just the sixth time it’s ever happened in the big game.

The man who founded that exclusive club? None other than Cowboys fullback Robert Newhouse. In January of 1978, his 29-yard touchdown throw to wide receiver Golden Richards served as the dagger to seal a championship victory win over Denver and made Newhouse the first non-quarterback to ever throw for a touchdown in a Super Bowl.

Newhouse was perhaps the last man the Broncos would have thought of as a deep passing threat. Already a six-year veteran when that Super Bowl XII contest in New Orleans kicked off, the 5-foot-10-inch bruiser with the famed 44-inch thighs had started his NFL career getting minimal work behind ballcarriers Calvin Hill and Walt Garrison. He put together a 930-yard rushing season in 1975 but then saw his touches decrease once Tony Dorsett joined the team in 1977.

As for letting him put the ball in the air, Dallas had tried it just twice before. Over the first three weeks of the 1975 season, Newhouse went 1-for-2 passing. And although one of those attempts did go for a 46-yard touchdown to Drew Pearson, the Cowboys didn’t try a halfback pass again for their next 45 games (including playoffs).

Some of Newhouse’s teammates didn’t believe head coach Tom Landry should go back to it at all, based on how the play had looked in practice leading up to Super Bowl XII.

For starters, the play was designed to be run to Newhouse’s right, making a more natural throw for the right-handed back.

“We ran it to his right 10 times, which is a lot easier, and he went 0-for-10,” remembered Cowboys exec Gil Brandt. “He threw the ball wide, short, underthrown like you couldn’t imagine, sideways, it was a disaster. There was no way Tom was calling that play, never mind to his left.”

But Landry did call the play, with just over seven minutes remaining in the game. The Cowboys had just recovered a Broncos fumble at the Denver 29. With the score 20-10, one more touchdown would almost assuredly put the game out of reach. And Landry called Newhouse’s number.

“When Tom called the play, I said, ‘I can’t believe he called this play,'” Newhouse once stated. “I was nervous about throwing the ball. In practice the ball had been wobbling, but Danny [White, Cowboys backup quarterback] told me to get my hip around it. I kept thinking about that when I got the ball.”

Newhouse was so unprepared to pass that he had previously covered his hands in Stickum. Dorsett had gone down with a knee injury earlier, leaving Newhouse to take over in the backfield, and he wanted to be sure he didn’t fumble.

But with a halfback-option play coming, the now-banned gluelike goo was going to be a problem.

“I was shocked. I panicked,” Newhouse would say later. “I’ve never eaten so much Stickum in my life. I started wiping it off my pants and started licking my fingers.”

Once in the huddle, Newhouse could be seen wiping his hands on teammates’ towels and even loosening his arm and cracking his knuckles in preparation for his big pass.

“We were working on that play for two weeks, and ‘House didn’t throw a spiral once,” safety Charlie Waters said. “I’m honestly not sure I ever saw him throw a spiral before that pass in the Super Bowl. He threw wounded ducks. But he was a gamer, an absolute gamer.”

Quarterback Roger Staubach took the snap and immediately pitched it to Newhouse, who took a long backward angle on his run to the left side. He had good blocking- perhaps because half the Broncos defense had also seen him prepping to throw while in the huddle and had backtracked into coverage- and floated a high, arcing, even “scary” bomb to Richards.

Denver cornerback Steve Foley was actually in good position downfield, but Newhouse’s pass was perfect. Richards snatched the ball away from Foley’s outstretched hands, and the Cowboys’ second world title was all but secured.

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Newhouse would play another six seasons- all in Dallas- but he would never attempt another pass in the NFL.

The first non-quarterback to throw a touchdown pass in a Super Bowl was also the first former Cowboys player to be brought back to the organization by Jerry Jones after he purchased the team in 1989. A universally-loved personality, he worked for several years in the team’s player relations department. Robert Newhouse passed away of heart disease in 2014 at the age of 64.

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Cowboys great Darren Woodson once again passed over for Pro Football Hall of Fame

From @ToddBrock24f7: The Cowboys Ring of Honor member is the franchise’s leading tackler and has been up for enshrinement 8 times now.

The wait goes on. Cowboys safety Darren Woodson has been passed over for enshrinement in the Pro Football Hall of Fame after an exhausting eight times as a nominee.

The announcement of the Class of 2024 came at NFL Honors in Las Vegas Thursday night as part of Super Bowl Week. Julius Peppers, Devin Hester, Dwight Freeney, Andre Johnson, Patrick Willis, Steve McMichael, and Randy Gradishar will be inducted just prior to the 2024 preseason.

Woodsonā€™s achievements during his 12-year Cowboys career speak for themselves and should have punched his ticket to Canton long ago. The franchiseā€™s all-time leading tackler. Three-time Super Bowl champ. Five-time Pro Bowler. Four-time first-team All-Pro. Ring of Honor memberā€¦ since 2015.

“Iā€™m happy for the guys going in,” Woodson said, per Calvin Watkins of the Dallas Morning News. “Iā€™m disappointed Iā€™m not going in. Itā€™s something I canā€™t control.”

Woodson had been a finalist the past two years.

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“Maybe itā€™ll happen next year,” said Woodson. “You hope one day youā€™ll be elected. Itā€™s not my time.”

Woodson has four more years of eligibility remaining

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ESPN ranks Cowboys 5 Super Bowl winners among all-time champions

From @ToddBrock24f7: The Cowboys place 2 of their championships squads inside the Top 10 in NFL history, but they also lost to the worst Super Bowl winners ever.

Next Sunday’s game in Las Vegas will crown this season’s best team, but the very nature of the Super Bowl invites comparisons to champions past. Whether it’s Kansas City or San Francisco standing under the confetti shower at the end of Super Bowl LVIII, we’ll never truly know how they stack up against any of the 57 teams who have been there before.

Or can we?

ESPN recently took on the task of ranking every previous Super Bowl-winning squad to determine the best of the best. To do it, Aaron Schatz used his own proprietary DVOA (Defense-adjusted Value Over Average) ratings that look at a team’s efficiency on a play-by-play basis when adjusted for each situation and opponent. For teams that played before 1981 (when that metric was invented), estimates were calculated using stats from those years.

What results is a comprehensive ranking of Super Bowl winners, from the weakest team to hoist the Lombardi Trophy (sorry, Colts fans) to the greatest of all time (Cowboys fans, hide your eyes).

Here’s how Dallas’s five Super Bowl-winning rosters placed, plus how the three teams that beat the ‘Boys in a Super Bowl went on to finish.

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Cowboys can join ’80, ’81 clubs with this rare distinction; playoff success not guaranteed

From @ToddBrock24f7: A perfect home record has happened just twice before for Dallas; it has not translated to postseason success.

Mike McCarthy preaches the importance of winning home games. All of them. The Cowboys head coach has repeatedly said that if a team can win all of its home contests and at least split the road dates, they’ll generally be sitting in at least decent shape for the postseason.

But even just the first part of that equation is far more difficult than it sounds. In the 62 full regular seasons that the Cowboys franchise has been in existence, only two of those clubs have put together a perfect home slate. The 2023 edition has the chance to accomplish that feat on Saturday night when they host the Detroit Lions in the regular-season home finale.

While notching a win over the surging Lions would be exceedingly important from a morale standpoint in that it would snap a troubling two-game skid (both away games), going undefeated at AT&T Stadium would be nice icing on the year’s playoff-berth cake.

An unblemished home record, though, doesn’t seem to have much bearing on deep postseason success, especially if the team has to travel in the tournament. At least that’s the lesson the 1980 and 1981 Cowboys have to teach us.

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Cowboys, Lions met for ugliest playoff game in NFL history in 1970

From @ToddBrock24f7: The Cowboys’ and Lions’ postseason 1970 tilt was memorable for the wrong reasons, but it kickstarted the first great era of Dallas football.

The Cowboys, despite their 10-5 record and guaranteed spot in the upcoming playoffs, have been playing some downright ugly ball over the past two weeks. And now the suddenly-relevant Detroit Lions come to town for a late-December visit.

For old-school fans, that confluence of scene-setting factors might bring back memories of one of the strangest games in NFL history.

While this week’s primetime matchup between the two clubs will almost certainly outpace this one in terms of excitement and scoring, Cowboys fans wouldn’t hate it if the end result (and the after-effects) followed the same basic script.

Read on to learn how a run-of-the-mill field goal, a timely sack, and a lucky tip-drill interception created the ugliest postseason win ever… and kickstarted a beautiful legacy of unparalleled success for the Cowboys.

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