Sports is often a microcosm of life; it’s one of the things that makes it so endearing to all. Rooting for our favorite teams often operate for us as a faith, with unbridled devotion. Fans defend their favorite players with ties sometimes thicker than how they view their own family members. Life lessons are often exemplified by what it takes to be successful on the field. Commitment, honor, valor and effort earn respect. Sometimes they earn accolades, like championships, other times the rewards are more internal but just as righteous.
These lessons can manifest themselves in different ways. One is when it comes to being commemorated for carrying oneself the right way. Parents will often tell their children that if you don’t respect yourself then how can anyone else respect you? Jerry Jones believes this. He knows that the Cowboys Ring of Honor, reserved for the best players and coaches in franchise history, is the gatekeeper to the Pro Football Hall of Fame for those who’ve come through Dallas. Without entrance to the Ring of Honor, it’s highly unlikely a person would make their way to Canton.
Jones knows this, but despite Jimmy Johnson bringing Jones his first two championships and setting the stage for the third and currently last one, Jones has not offered Johnson a place in the Ring.
Despite this, Johnson learned on Sunday the Hall will indeed open their doors for him and he will be the 328th member, joining this August. The fact that he’s in, clearly for the work he did with the Dallas Cowboys, and not in the Ring of Honor paints Jones as a petty person.
Said before that hearing I'm appreciated means more to me than hearing I'm loved. Jimmy knows he's loved. He just rarely heard he was appreciated from that one guy during his most accomplished stint in the NFL. That's why this was such an emotional moment for him https://t.co/AlmtmSnKSb
— Beyonce has an uncle named Larry Beyince. Bruh…. (@DragonflyJonez) January 13, 2020
The two have publicly buried the hatchet after they parted ways in the mid-90s. The rift began to develop as the team was on its way to winning back-to-back championships, with Jones at a bar saying anyone could win titles with the Cowboys’ roster. Things devolved from there and eventually led to Johnson wanting out and Jones wanting him gone.
Jones and the Cowboys offered congratulations to Johnson after the announcement.
“We’re so happy that the Hall of Fame has recognized Jimmy Johnson for what he is. A great coach,” said Jones, who hired Johnson as Cowboys head coach after buying the team in 1989.
“To Jimmy I say, ‘The stars were aligned and our dreams came true when we joined the Dallas Cowboys.’
“And on behalf of the Cowboys, and our fans all over the world, I say congratulations Jimmy. We’re proud of you.”
There’s plenty of talk over whether Jones fired Johnson, whether Johnson quit or whether they mutually decided to part ways. Whatever the case, Johnson left, Jones hired Barry Switzer and they won another Lombardi trophy.
The divide appeared to be bridged over the latter part of the last decade. Jones heaped mounds of praise on Johnson during his speech when the former was elected into the Hall of Fame in 2016. They played nice at a 25th anniversary celebration,
But the real talk, his real emotions towards the situation came out back in 2014, when he was speaking openly to ESPN feature writer Don Van Natta, Jr.
At the Ritz-Carlton, I first asked Jones why he had not honored Johnson; after all, he had coached the Cowboys to two Super Bowl titles in five years, while it took Landry 29 years to win the same number. Jones responded with a convoluted explanation about Johnson failing to meet the standards favoring players established long ago by Tex Schramm, whom Jones himself had put in the Ring of Honor in 2003. (Jones had honored Landry in 1993.) Weeks later, Jones struggled to answer the same question during our on-camera interview at Valley Ranch, insisting that his decision is not personal.
But it is.
Onboard his plane, with Gene sitting in a leather chair across from us, Jones spits out the reason Johnson isn’t in the Ring of Honor: “Disloyalty … I couldn’t handle the disloyalty. Whether it was right or not, by every measurement you can go, I had paid so many times a higher price to get to be there than he had paid, it was unbelievable. … By any way you wanna measure it, wear and tear, pain, worry, butt kickin’, the criticism — everything in the book!”
Petty.
Jones knows the Ring is the gateway. He added stellar tackle and six-time Pro Bowler Rayfield Wright – who played for Dallas from 1967 – 1979 – in 2004, opening Wright to be added to the Hall if 2006 from the veteran’s committee. He added longtime personnel savant Gil Brandt in November 2018, paving the way for his Hall invitation to come a handful of months later.
He’s made similar efforts for Drew Peason and Darren Woodson. But despite the flowery language he’s heaped on Johnson since that 2014 ESPN interview, he never made the move to have Johnson honored in front of Cowboys fans.
And now that the Hall has opened their doors, it makes Jones’ sustained beef seem overcooked and very, very petty.
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