Tag: Jimmy Johnson

Former Cowboys head coach criticizes Dan Quinn

Dave Campo happens to be the worst coach in Cowboys’ history.

The Dallas Cowboys have had nine head coaches in the 64-year history of the franchise. Only one of those coaches finished his tenure in Dallas with a losing record: Dave Campo.

Campo was the Dallas head coach from 2000-02 and had a 15-33 record in three seasons. Campo replaced Chan Gailey and was replaced by the legendary Bill Parcells.

To say Campo bleeds Cowboys’ blue would be an understatement. He arrived in Dallas with Jimmy Johnson in 1989. After serving as an assistant under Johnson, Barry Switzer, and Gailey, Campo got his shot at leading the franchise in 2000.

After he was fired and had stints with the Browns and Jaguars, he returned to the Cowboys in 2008 as the defensive backs coach for four seasons under Wade Phillips and Jason Garrett.

Since leaving Dallas after 2011, Campo served as an assistant with the Kansas Jayhawks and, most recently, a two-year stint with the USC Trojans (2018-19) as an analyst.

Campo still follows the Cowboys closely and is friends with Dallas’ new defensive coordinator, Mike Zimmer. Campo and Zimmer first worked together in 1981 at Weber State. They were reunited with the Cowboys in 1994 when Switzer hired Zimmer as a defensive assistant.

After six seasons as a defensive assistant, Campo promoted Zimmer to defensive coordinator in 2000 when he took over as head coach. When Campo was fired, Parcells kept Zimmer as his defensive coordinator.

Safe to say, Campo is happy to see his old friend back in charge of the Dallas defense.

But what about the Cowboys’ former defensive coordinator, Dan Quinn? Quinn departed after leading the Cowboys defense for three seasons to become the new head coach of the Washington Commanders.

Campo had some criticism for Quinn.

“From a culture standpoint…… I’ll just say one thing this way,” Campo said in an appearance on the San Antonio Sports Star, as transcribed by Blogging the Boys.

“I know Dan Quinn very well. I was not in the office, in the building, I’m here in Jacksonville, so I saw a bunch of the games. I saw that game. I’m going a little bit on some hearsay. But I think the one thing about Dan is he’s a fine gentleman, and he’s smart, and his scheme was okay, but he was a little bit too buddy-buddy, I think, with the players, and that’s part of it. You can’t have a lot of accountability if you don’t stand a little bit above it of the people that you’re trying to get to be accountable.”

Campo then criticized Quinn’s defense for being too small.

It’s fair to criticize Quinn’s unit for being too small and unable to stop the run, but his three-year run in charge of the Cowboys’ defense was the best three-year run that side of the ball has had in ages.

Quinn’s defense led the NFL in turnovers by a wide margin over the past three years and finished in the top five of FTN’s defensive DVOA in each of his three seasons. While many will remember the blowout loss to the Packers more than Quinn’s success, that isn’t a fair way to judge his tenure in Dallas.

His players will miss him. And fans, if the defense takes a step back under Zimmer, will miss him, too.

As they say, you never know what you have until it’s gone. Ask Eagles coach Nick Sirianni about that after losing both coordinators last offseason.

Campo sticking up for Zimmer is not a surprise. Once it was revealed that Zimmer would return to the Cowboys, Campo said the following on Twitter.

No one knows how Quinn’s tenure in Washington will turn out, but Campo’s comments are one-sided and well-timed. When you base your public comments on hearsay, that’s never a good look.

While Campo may be beloved by some segments of the Dallas fan base, he had a .313 winning percentage as head coach. As Parcells often said, “You are what your record says you are.”

Jimmy Johnson delivered a passionate pep talk during Fox’s halftime show after the Cowboys’ awful start

Jimmy Johnson is tired of watching the Cowboys choke in the playoffs.

Anyone who follows the NFL closely is accustomed to the Dallas Cowboys crumbling in the playoffs. It may as well be a January tradition. And after getting embarrassed by the Green Bay Packers so badly on Sunday that people started joking about Bill Belichick, one notable person decided enough was enough.

Former Cowboys coaching legend Jimmy Johnson.

During Fox’s halftime show, Johnson looked directly into the camera and delivered a weirdly passionate pep talk to the Cowboys with their season hanging in the balance. He professed that he’d keep it clean before saying the players need to get their “rear-ends” in order.

I’m not stunned this happened, but I love seeing Johnson still show this kind of emotion for the Cowboys:

Whether the Cowboys saw Johnson’s message is irrelevant. It’s apparent that all this consistent playoff failure is starting to wear on some Dallas franchise legends. We’ll see whether the Cowboys can change Johnson’s tune by the end of this Wild Card battle.

How 12 football head coaches fared as the replacements for legends like Bill Belichick and Nick Saban

Who replaced Bear Bryant, Don Shula and John Madden and how did they do?

During one of the craziest weeks of football in recent memory, we saw the end of an era for legends like Bill Belichick and Nick Saban.

Belichick, 71, and Saban, 72, are easily two of the greatest coaches that the sport has ever seen. Next season, college football will look very different without Saban coaching Alabama. Meanwhile, the NFL will also look very different without Belichick coaching the Patriots.

Both teams will have huge decisions about how to fill these massive shoes. While there are some interesting candidates for the gig in New England and the job in Tuscaloosa, can either live up to the reputation that Belichick and Saban built?

We looked back at some of the most legendary coaches in football history, both in the NFL and in college football, to learn how these replacements have typically fared.

The results are a fairly mixed bag but if there is one thing we learned, it is that it is not easy to replace someone as accomplished as either of these two Hall of Fame-caliber coaches.

Jimmy Johnson retrospective, Cowboys Ring of Honor induction photo gallery

A look back on Saturday night’s induction ceremony of the incomparable Jimmy Johnson. | From @KDDrummondNFL

Jimmy Johnson became the 24th person inducted into the Dallas Cowboys’ Ring of Honor on Saturday night. The halftime festivities included a ton of emotion for the two-time Super Bowl winning coach, who seems to have finally been able to bury the beef with owner Jerry Jones.

Several RoH members were on hand for the ceremony, including Roger Staubach, Tony Dorsett and Johnson’s own triplets: Troy Aikman, Michael Irvin and Emmitt Smith. Check out the pics from the festivities and a handful of other memories from Johnson’s tenure.

The Rock surprised Jimmy Johnson on the Fox NFL pregame show to fulfill a promise from their Miami days

The Rock waited nearly 25 years for this moment.

Jimmy Johnson’s weekend of honors and surprises didn’t end on Saturday with the Dallas Cowboys (finally!) placing the coach in their ring of honor.  His Fox NFL crew had a special guest waiting for him on Sunday’s pregame show before the Week 17 slate kicked off.

Yep. It was Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson.

The two former Miami Hurricanes finally had a chance to reconnect more than 25 years after the coach began recruiting him to The U. While The Rock eventually played defensive tackle at Miami — and was part of the school’s national championship in 1991 — he did so without Johnson on the sidelines.

The coach left for the Cowboys in 1989, just before The Rock committed to the Hurricanes. Which meant when The Rock delivered his letter of intent to play at Miami, it wasn’t to the coach who recruited him. It was instead addressed to Johnson’s replacement, Dennis Erickson.

On Saturday, The Rock finally got to rectify that in a heartfelt way.

What an awesome moment for these two. You can tell how much it meant to both of them to reconnect on this level all these years later.

Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson makes special presentation to Jimmy Johnson

Dwayne ‘The Rock Johnson with a gift for Jimmy Johnson

Jimmy Johnson was emotional on the set of FOX Sports’ NFL pregame show, the day after he was inducted into the Dallas Cowboys’ Ring of Honor.

The show had another surprise for the two-time Super Bowl-winning coach. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson came onto the set and had a special gift for Jimmy Johnson.

After explaining what Miami and Jimmy Johnson meant to him, Dwayne Johnson gave the coach his actual letter of intent to play for the Hurricanes.

Twitter reacts to Jimmy Johnson’s induction to Cowboys Ring of Honor

Check out the highlights, congratulations and memories as Jimmy Johnson is inducted to the Cowboys’ Ring of Honor. | From @KDDrummondNFL

It’s finally done. After revitalizing a downtrodden franchise in a few short seasons, but seemingly being exiled after their quick divorce, Jimmy Johnson is back home. The first head coach Jerry Jones ever hired, hit rock bottom immediately, going 1-15 in his first season after leaving the University of Miami. The turnaround didn’t take long though, as the club was in the playoffs in two seasons, and earning Team of the 90s accolades just two seasons later.

Johnson took Dallas to back-to-back Super Bowl wins before his relationship with the owner deteriorated to the point the two mutually agreed to part ways. Dallas won a third Super Bowl with Johnson’s roster, but soon after started a drought that has almost reached 30 years without seeing a conferene championship game. But Johnson is now home.

At halftime of the club’s Week 17 game against the Detroit Lions, Johnson is now the 24th member of the club’s hall of fame, the Ring of Honor. Twitter reacted to the ceremony and the speech.

Cowboys induct Jimmy Johnson into Ring of Honor

Jerry Jones and the Cowboys inducted Jimmy Johnson into the team’s Ring of Honor

A who’s who of Dallas Cowboys greatness was on the field Saturday at halftime of their game with the Detroit Lions. The team inducted two-time winning Super Bowl-winning coach Jimmy Johnson into its Ring of Honor.

The long overdue occasion occurred because team owner Jerry Jones and his former Arkansas teammate and coach in Dallas were able to put differences aside.

It was a great moment for America’s Team.

 

Dan Campbell using Jimmy Johnson’s RoH induction to motivate Lions vs Cowboys

From @ToddBrock24f7: Mike McCarthy enjoys the constant presence of Cowboys history; Dan Campbell will use Jimmy Johnson’s RoH induction to motivate his Lions.

Halftime of this Saturday’s game between the Cowboys and the Lions will feature a moment that’s been 30 years in the making.

The Cowboys will induct former head coach Jimmy Johnson into the Ring of Honor at AT&T Stadium three decades after he delivered a pair of Lombardi Trophies to Dallas and subsequently parted ways with owner Jerry Jones.

The 2023 Cowboys, of course, will be intent on taking care of business- notching their 11th win of the season and ending a two-game skid against playoff-caliber teams- but the significance of the ceremony within the framework of the franchise’s history isn’t lost on current coach Mike McCarthy.

“Those are big-picture moments,” McCarthy said Tuesday. “The history and the tradition of the Dallas Cowboys is impeccable.”

“There’s always a tribute to the past. I think it’s important. I think those are the guys that laid the foundation of the success of the Cowboys. I think it’s great when Jerry acknowledges those guys, and you see them around here. It’s part of the spirit and the blessing of being a Dallas Cowboy.”

But perhaps surprisingly, he won’t be the only coach in the building who’s looking forward to watching Johnson’s name become the 24th to grace the stadium’s inner façade.

Lions head coach Dan Campbell grew up “a huge Jimmy Johnson fan” in Clifton, Tex. and called being the team’s opponent on such a momentous day “awesome.”

“I feel like that was for us,” he told Detroit media, per Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press.

“I’ve always been fascinated with him,” said Campbell, himself a former Cowboys tight end who came to Dallas ten years after Johnson’s 1993 exit. “His style, the way he coached, what he was about, the way he built that roster. The way they played. And I just, I think he’s special. I think he’s one of these rare special coaches.”

Campbell won’t be star-struck, though; he’ll be looking for his high-flying Detroit squad to spoil the Cowboys celebration. Just crowned divisional champs for the first time since Johnson’s final year in Dallas, the Lions are still in play to capture the NFC’s top seed, but they have to win out to mathematically have even a chance.

Being there the night the Cowboys honor Johnson will be a part of Campbell’s message to his players, he says, ”cause I respect the hell out of the man.”

“To me, it’s like an honor that we get to go out there, cause that’s what I think of,” he said. “Obviously, our team, man, a chance to get a win, but do something that he’d be proud of. He can watch us play and be like, ‘I like that style. I approve of that.’ So I think it’s pretty cool.”

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McCarthy is also looking forward to welcoming Johnson. The two spent some time together in Florida earlier this year, McCarthy said, and even went out on Johnson’s boat. While on the water, the Hall of Fame coach shared a couple beers (Troy Aikman’s EIGHT brand, naturally) and even a little advice on helming America’s Team.

“He sure did,” McCarthy smiled. “He sure did. It was all good.”

And it will be even better if Johnson’s auspicious night also brings a vintage Cowboys victory reminiscent of the coach’s dynasty years.

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