Category: Cowboys History

Stars of the Cowboys’ Past: Super Bowl drop doesn’t define Jackie Smith’s Hall of Fame career

Our series continues with the story of the Hall of Fame tight end who has indelible history with 2 teams, but is fully embraced by neither.

For most athletes who make it to the NFL, reaching the Super Bowl is the ultimate goal. Sure, every kid in the backyard pretends to catch the pass in the end zone to win the championship, but for the men who actually beat the tremendous odds just to suit up at the professional level, actually hoisting the Lombardi Trophy is almost too much to dare to dream.

Winning or losing any single game is usually beyond any one player’s control, and when the larger-than-life hype is stripped away, the Super Bowl is, at its core, like any other 60-minute gridiron battle between two teams. There will be a winner, and there will be a loser; just being in that rare position is enough for most men to call it a success.

Jackie Smith’s 16-year NFL tenure was a success, but it’s a career that included the highest of highs as well as the lowest of lows. He’s one of the sport’s all-time elites, with a gold jacket and records that still stand… but he’s also most closely identified for dropping an easy touchdown in the biggest game of his life, a momentary failure that follows him to this day, four decades later.

This is the extraordinary story of a Hall of Famer who has, incredibly, been shunned by a faction of both franchises he played for: by the ownership of one who won’t forgive him for comments made in the heat of the moment of an offseason negotiation, and also by the fanbase of the other who won’t forgive him for an on-the-field error he made in the heat of battle.

His time with one team earned him football immortality. His time with the other made him the poster child for letting the moment slip away when it matters most.

It almost defies explanation that a player who made just three catches in a Cowboys uniform is remembered at all, given all the larger legends in the team’s illustrious history. But not all tales have a happy ending, and sometimes there’s more to a player’s story than the catches he made. Sometimes, unfair as it is, the story ends up being largely about the one catch he didn’t make.

Every young football player dreams of making it to the Super Bowl. But Jackie Smith might tell them to be careful what they wish for.

Cowboys News: Preseason schedule finalized, former player linked to one of Watson’s accusers

How will Dallas far against the NFL Champs and runner-ups? Will history cause complications? Could Parsons make a difference?

The Dallas Cowboys continue to go about their offseason business. The club is tight against the cap, but is searching for veteran help in the QB department to back up Dak Prescott. Another one in, another one out without making a deal. Meanwhile, fans trying to plan their offseason travel plans now know what games are on the regular season and preseason schedule and for what dates. The opponents had been announced, but now the dates and times are locked in.

A player from the late 2000s-decade has been anonymously called out by one of the massage therapists who is suing Houston Texans’ QB Deshaun Watson for sexual assault, for a similar incident that went unreported at the alleged time. In other legal news, Ezekiel Elliott’s dogs were loose on Thursday.

Can Prescott return to form? Can the defense continue their late-season turnover trend? Will the matchup with this AFC opponent shatter records? All this and more in the latest edition of Cowboys news and notes.

Drew Pearson names his presenter for 2021 all of Fame induction

Cowboys legend Drew Pearson will be presented in the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2021 by Cowboys Hall of Famer Roger Staubach.

After a long wait, Cowboys legend Drew Pearson was elected into the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a member of the Class of 2021. The three-time Pro Bowler and First-Team All-Pro wide receiver will be enshrined in August with Cowboys Hall of Famer Roger Staubach being his presenter.

Staubach was a large part of the reveal for Pearson, collaborating with team owner Jerry Jones to trick Pearson into coming to The Star, where David Baker was waiting.

The pair of Staubach and Pearson was known for many heroics during their time together in the 1970s, including the first “Hail Mary” in 1975 against the Vikings in the playoffs. In 1978, the Cowboys won Super Bowl XII, led by the duo and legendary head coach Tom Landry.

On August 8, Staubach will present Pearson as part of the Class of 2021 Enshrinement, welcoming him to the Hall of Fame. The Cowboys will also be playing in the Hall of Fame game that weekend against the Steelers.

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

Bill Bates: From gritty underdog to Cowboys’ beloved overachiever

Despite being undrafted out of college, the hard-hitting Bates revolutionized special teams and earned a place in the Cowboys’ pantheon.

When the average fan watches a pro football game, they see gods. Ideal physical specimens come to life, performing athletic feats they themselves can only dream of.

On a field filled with larger-than-life superheroes, the scrappy underdog who looks like maybe he doesn’t belong always stands out and inevitably becomes a fan favorite.

The heart of a lion… trapped in the body of a mutt.

Think Rudy.

In sixty-plus years of Dallas Cowboys lore, perhaps no player personified that ethos more than Bill Bates.

“I think [the fans] could see some of themselves in me,” Bates said, as author Jeff Sullivan shares in America’s Team: The Official History of the Dallas Cowboys. “I wasn’t the biggest guy out there, oftentimes one of the smallest. I wasn’t the fastest guy out there. I was the gritty, hardworking stiff who was out there living his dream, and fans appreciated that.”

Appreciate it, they did. For fifteen improbable seasons, he was a fan favorite, even on rosters loaded with legends. But Bill Bates was always more than his stats; that’s the whole point. He was the poster child for playing with passion, for giving his all to the game and the team he loved, and for making dreams come true.

Cowboys News: Kyle Pitts smokescreen or real interest? Trading back in draft

The 2021 draft draws near for the Dallas Cowboys. Who will be chosen at No. 10? Which group in the draft has the most athletic ability?

Dallas continues to do work to gain information on a number of players to be possibly drafted at number ten during the 2021 draft. Often heard is the talk of infatuation Jerry Jones has for TE Kyle Pitts. Opposite discussions ponder if it is all a smokescreen to throw the media and other teams off balance.

Speaking of the draft in itself, where does each position group line up this year? The year of wide receivers? Cornerbacks? Quarterbacks? Who takes the number one spot with the most available and athletic players. More so, which team carries the title of drafting the best players in the first round for the past ten years?

With offense not being the only side of the ball played, after the draft could a player like Richard Sherman bring veteran help to the Cowboys? Announcements may be coming that allow certain skill set players to change their jersey numbers to ones not usually opened to their position. When new players join the team (or even current players) will any jersey number be off limits?

Toni Fritsch: The Austrian futbol star who helped change football as Cowboys’ kicker

Stars of the Cowboys’ Past continues with the first soccer-style kicker in the team’s history; how an Austrian hero changed America’s Team.

The true heroes of any revolution often go unremembered in the pages of time. Their contributions may have changed the world, but the details and the moments and the names are often reduced to mere trivia in the hindsight told by history books.

That’s a lot of buildup to tell the story of a placekicker.

But in the grand scheme of the evolution of the NFL, few parts of the game have changed as radically as kicking. As recently as the 1960s, a team’s kicker was often simply their best athlete. He generally starred at some other position and moonlighted at booting the ball only when the situation demanded.

Listed first as their squads’ most talented cornerbacks, quarterbacks, halfbacks, or linebackers, the kickers of yesteryear were often huge, physically speaking. The power required to drive the ball high and far into the air came from larger men, at least according to the traditional technique used for decades.

Actually splitting the uprights with any dependable accuracy, though, was largely still a crapshoot.

And then someone figured out a better way. Practically overnight, kickers looked different. They sounded different. They came from exotic places. They had entirely different athletic skills, because they had spent a lifetime playing an entirely different sport. And when they found the sport of football- or, rather, when football found them- they changed it forever.

This is the story of the unlikely little Austrian man who helped usher that revolution into Dallas.

Everson Walls: Cowboys takeaway artist’s true legacy lies in what he gave to teammate

Despite a historic rookie season and a role in two of the league’s greatest games ever, Walls greatest contribution was to an ex-teammate.

Legacy is a word that gets tossed around casually in the world of football. But what really makes for a lasting and meaningful legacy? Wins? Touchdowns? Championship trophies? Memorable moments? Mere statistics?

Yes, Everson Walls has all of those things attached to his name after a 13-year career in the pros. He’s probably most immediately remembered in the minds of Cowboys fans for his transcendent 1981 season when he snagged a whopping 11 interceptions as an undrafted rookie. Others may recall the freeze-frame images of his unique place in history in not one, but two of the biggest games of a generation.

The list of coaches who had a personal hand in Walls’s journey is a veritable who’s who of the sport’s most hallowed legends. But the legacy of the player himself is often lost in the fog of a decade’s worth of mostly lackluster Cowboys squads; he had to leave Dallas, for example, to earn the championship ring he unquestionably deserved.

He remains one of the Cowboys’ true greats, but none of his on-the-field accomplishments nor professional accolades tell the full story of Walls and what he meant to so many of his teammates… and one in particular.

Dat Nguyen: From son of a war refugee to leader of America’s Team

The latest in our historical series looks back at the amazing life story and football career of the first NFL player of Vietnamese descent.

Plenty of pro football superstars come from humble beginnings. But even the most creative and talented Hollywood scriptwriter would have a hard time inventing a more improbable path to the bright lights of the National Football League than the real one Dat Nguyen lived.

He was an immensely popular linebacker for just seven seasons, a punishing hitter who played the game with passion and intensity and football smarts that were obvious to anyone who saw him take the field. But the obstacles he had to overcome to reach the sport’s biggest stage should have stopped him long before he got there.

He was undersized. He was not terribly fast. Teammates had a difficult time understanding his accent as he called plays in the huddle. And, of course, most notably, there’s the not-inconsequential matter of being the child of Vietnamese refugees who fled their home in the middle of the night during a horrific war and survived a treacherous voyage at sea that included violent storms and actual pirates just to settle in a new country that, by and large, didn’t want them.

Those were the cards Dat Nguyen was dealt. And all he did with them was- against all odds- become the starting linebacker for the Dallas Cowboys. In the process, he changed the way many people in this country viewed people from his parents’ homeland. He’s inspired multiple generations of kids whose families have come from the other side of the world. And he continues to be a role model and a teacher to those around him, encouraging them to push forward and do exactly what the Americanized pronunciation of his own family name reminds them they can do, too.

Win.

Cowboys dominate list of 51 best HBCU alum to play in NFL

The Dallas Cowboys. thanks primarily to Gil Brandt, were leaders when it came to being innovative in where they would look to find players. Brandt didn’t limit his search to football players, rather he searched other sports such as track and field, …

The Dallas Cowboys. thanks primarily to Gil Brandt, were leaders when it came to being innovative in where they would look to find players. Brandt didn’t limit his search to football players, rather he searched other sports such as track and field, basketball and more. He didn’t only look where no one thought of looking, he looked where they refused to as well.

The Cowboys entered the NFL in 1960, the same year the AFL was founded, creating a rivalry for collegiate players. After the NFL had banned Black players for 13 seasons, integration was still very slow to return to the league as major college programs didn’t recruit Black players very often. To make matters worse, NFL teams would rarely if ever scout HBCU programs, which all of the best talent ended up going to. Historically Black Colleges and Universities had the nation’s best talent, but they had no avenue to the league.

The AFL didn’t have the same issues and the competition for talent led the NFL to loosen their unwritten mandates. The Cowboys, of course, weren’t a part of that past. Brandt had no such reservations and wasn’t afraid to challenge the norms, so when looking back at the best HBCU players to get a shot in the NFL, it’s no shocker the Cowboys have 7 of the top 51 players identified by Touchdown Wire.

Cowboys legend Deion Sanders dominates in 1st game at Jackson State, after Aikman cameos pre-game

Cowboys Hall of Famer Deion Sanders led Jackson State to a 53-0 win in his first game as a college head coach after coaching high school.

Hall of Famer Deion Sanders coached his first collegiate game on Sunday for Jackson State. The Tigers started their season with a dominant 53-0 win at home against Edward Waters College. Jackson State’s offense was running on all cylinders and the defense came through with a shutout in the former Dallas Cowboys star’s debut.

Jackson State’s season was postponed in the fall after the FCS decided to move their season to the spring and their eight-game slate began on Sunday.

Previously Sanders had been the offensive coordinator at Trinity Christian School in Texas before accepting the job at Jackson State as head coach. During his tenure, Sanders was a part of back-to-back state titles, coaching his son, Shedeur Sanders, at quarterback. Sanders’ son is a 4-star recruit and signed his NLI in December to play for his father at Jackson State.

Before the game, fellow Cowboys legend Troy Aikman surprised Sanders to congratulate him on his first college game.

Sanders and Jackson State will continue their season on February 27 at home against Mississippi Valley State.

[listicle id=663599][vertical-gallery id=663648][lawrence-newsletter]