Tag: Jimmy Johnson

Jerry Jones tells Jimmy Johnson he’ll go in Cowboys Ring of Honor

The outspoken owner finally declared on live TV that the two-time Super Bowl-winning coach will receive the franchise’s ultimate accolade.

There was much speculation the reconciliation would happen- finally- during Hall of Fame Enshrinement Week. But Cowboys owner Jerry Jones chose not to prolong the anticipation, popping the question to former college teammate, former Razorbacks roommate, and former Cowboys head coach Jimmy Johnson during Thursday night’s pregame broadcast.

Johnson will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame this weekend. And at some unspecified point after that, he will have his name added to the Cowboys Ring of Honor. Jones made it official on live TV.

“Tex Schramm, who started that Ring of Honor,” Jones began, “said, ‘Jerry, keep it kind of limited with people. But make sure it wasn’t just about the plays they made. Make sure they contributed to the story of the franchise.'”

Johnson, of course, took the Cowboys from the worst team in the NFL to Super Bowl champs in just four seasons. The dynasty he created with Jones won back-to-back world titles before ego battles and infighting over who deserved more credit resulted in an acrimonious divorce between the two just days after their second Lombardi Trophy win.

The roster Johnson assembled went on to come within one game of a three-peat attempt under coach Barry Switzer and then an unprecedented third championship in a four-year span.

The two men famously and publicly bickered in the years since, with many Cowboys legends and fans alike clamoring for Jones to put Johnson in the franchise’s exclusive Ring of Honor at AT&T Stadium, an accolade that’s been bestowed on just 22 men to date.

Jones milked the moment just slightly while seated next to Johnson on the FOX desk and with their very first draft pick, Hall of Famer and three-time Super Bowl winner Troy Aikman looking on.

“So are we making an announcement here?” host Curt Menefee asked after a bit of buildup from the billionaire owner.

“Well, we can,” Jones teased. “But we’ll be in the Ring of Honor.”

Johnson didn’t pass up the opportunity to play up the bad blood while sliding in one more of his trademark one-liners.

“While I’m alive?” the 78-year-old asked with mock incredulity.

Not to be outdone, Jones came back with a zinger of his own.

“Well, are you going to be able to make it through this Hall of Fame ceremony?”

Jerry Jones and Jimmy Johnson cutting up once again like it was the old days was a welcome salve to a generation of Cowboys fans who’ve known mostly sadness since the two parted ways.

But it was Aikman who- just as he did so often during his playing days- bridged the gap between the two and put a perfect bow on the moment.

“It wouldn’t have happened- our successes wouldn’t have happened- and every player that was on those teams knows that: Michael [Irvin], Emmitt [Smith], and everyone else. It took both of these guys. Jimmy couldn’t have been the coach that he was had it not been for Jerry and his ownership, and Jerry wouldn’t have been the owner that he was had it not been for Jimmy as the head coach. And we were the beneficiaries of that. And I’m just glad to see these two together. It’s what we’ve all been hoping for.”

It’s what millions of Cowboys fans have been hoping for.

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Emotional Jerry Jones opens Cowboys camp with stunning admission about Jimmy Johnson

“I should have had deference to something that was working,” Jones said of the 1994 episode that saw coach Jimmy Johnson leave the team.

The circus has come back to town. And the ringmaster was visibly emotional as the show got underway once again.

The Cowboys have re-assembled in Oxnard for training camp, with Wednesday’s opening press conference kicking off the proceedings before the first scheduled practice on Thursday morning. After 2020’s California trip was canceled by COVID-19, team owner Jerry Jones admitted that simply having the gang back together again for its 15th year at the River Ridge Playing Fields was enough to put him in a sentimental mood.

Over the course of the hourlong press conference in which he answered questions on everything from vaccination rates to his famously volatile relationship with the coach who brought him his first two trophies, the 78-year-old got noticeably choked up multiple times.

“Seriously, what you’re seeing is just how good it feels to be here,” Jones told reporters. “Doggone, just as much as I enjoy this stuff, I get to thinking, ‘Well, are you ever going to see that again? Are you ever going to be sitting up there talking to everybody again at the same time?’ I’m not going to apologize, but I am sensitive today and emotional about the whole show.”

It was a time for Jones to soak in some of the nostalgia surrounding the start of yet another football season and dust off a few of the memories that have come with having owned the Cowboys for over three decades, taking them from the league’s laughing stock to the most valuable sports franchise on the planet.

Winning three Super Bowls in four years shortly after taking the reins certainly helped create more than a few moments worth remembering. Jones recalled his first California training camp- then slightly east of Oxnard- shortly after purchasing the team.

“I remember coming out to Thousand Oaks, smelling that grass, being out where the great tradition that the Cowboys were for training camp, and it just… I just had to pinch myself to think that I got to be a part of that.”

Those were Jimmy Johnson’s earliest days as head coach in Dallas. Johnson will be enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in a few short weeks. Jones and the Cowboys will be present once again, as the team revisits its long rivalry with the Steelers in the accompanying exhibition game. The induction and the game were supposed to have happened last summer, before the pandemic and travel restrictions forced the league to postpone.

That it’s all come after so long a wait and so uncertain a time perhaps only adds to the emotion for Jones, who rolled unprompted into a remembrance about the shocking way their relationship ended when Johnson departed after the team’s second world title.

“Barry Switzer came in the office. And Jimmy had just left,” Jones shared, referring to the 1994 offseason. “Barry came down from Norman, Oklahoma, to talk about getting the job. And he comes in, and he said, ‘Where’s Jimmy?’ Now, Barry had coached us both. He said, ‘Where’s Jimmy?’ I said, ‘Jimmy’s gone.’ He said, ‘Well, that’s not right. Get him. Get him in here. Where’s Jimmy?’ I said, ‘Barry, Jimmy’s gone. We’re sitting here talking about you being the coach.’ I said, ‘What in the world are you so anxious to talk to Jimmy about?’ He said, ‘I just wanted to get both you little [expletive] on this couch and ask you both how could you [expletive] this up.’ That was Switzer.”

It’s a question most fans many around the football world asked at the time and in the years since. Switzer went on to win a Super Bowl of his own, but Johnson’s exit was the beginning of a long, slow, painful fade for the dynasty.

Jones knows it. And on Wednesday, he admitted his negligence in allowing it all to fall apart.

“I just think of those great times. And Jimmy’s a great coach. Great coach. Ridiculous that–,” Jones said before stopping himself and restarting. “My role here, it was my job to keep it together. It was my job. I should have had deference to something that was working good. So those are the things that come to my mind. We had a great run of it. He’s a great coach, and I’m proud to have him as a friend, and proud to have had the times that we had. We just had a great experience.”

That last sentence was a struggle for Jones to get out, choking up audibly as he did. Twenty-seven years after Switzer’s question, though, Jones still has no answer.

“I’ve never been able to know why I [expletive] it up,” Jones said. “Not just that, but anything else. No, I can’t answer those questions.”

Jones and Johnson still haven’t publicly made up, although Jones has softened in recent comments about his former coach and onetime college teammate. One of the most-anticipated storylines of the upcoming Hall of Fame ceremonies will be a possible reconciliation between the two.

And then talk will turn, as it always does, to Johnson’s inclusion in the Cowboys Ring of Honor. It’s an honor that Jones has not yet bestowed on Johnson, with many seeing the coach’s enshrinement in Canton as the final obstacle.

But Jones, ever the showman, is more than happy to prolong the drama and the leave that question unanswered, too, for the moment.

“You know, I don’t want to do anything that takes away from this year,” Jones said of Johnson. “He’ll have a year- provided everything goes good- he’ll have a year that we also honor his Hall of Fame, and it will be this year.”

Call it a cliffhanger of sorts, something perhaps for the assembled media to hound Jones about when they all reconvene in Oxnard in July 2022.

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Jerry Jones gets emotional, takes blame for Jimmy Johnson’s exit from Cowboys

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones got emotional discussing Jimmy Johnson’s exit

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones showed a highly emotional side on Wednesday when meeting the media. The feelings came about big-time when Jones discussed Jimmy Johnson leaving his role as coach years ago and how the owner feels he “bleeped” up the situation up.

Jones remembered telling Barry Switzer how Johnson was gone and they were about to talk about the college football legend at Oklahoma becoming head coach of America’s team.

Switzer, as Jones tells the story, wanted nothing but to put the owner and his coach on the couch to figure things out.

Some salty language was used by Jones:

Johnson was head coach of the Cowboys from 1989-93. He is one of six in NFL history to coach consecutive Super Bowl winners, winning Super Bowl XXVII in 1992 and Super Bowl XXVIII in 1993.

Jones hired Switzer and the Cowboys won Super Bowl XXX two seasons after Johnson’s departure.

 

Jimmy Johnson says Urban Meyer has been “frustrated” by lack of contact with players

Jimmy Johnson said the lack of contact with players due to COVID-19 has been an adjustment for Meyer.

Making the jump from the college ranks to NFL coaching is no easy feat, but if there’s one person who knows how to navigate it, it’s Hall-of-Fame coach Jimmy Johnson. A national championship-winner at Miami in 1987, Johnson also won two Super Bowls with the Dallas Cowboys.

And on a Zoom call leading up to his induction into the HOF, Johnson said that Meyer has been frustrated by aspects of coaching at the professional level, especially the limited contact with players as a result of COVID-19.

“He’s a little frustrated right now because he’s spent so little time with the players,” Johnson said Wednesday, according to USA TODAY’s Nate Davis. “He’s accustomed to being around the players all the time, and they weren’t able to do that because of COVID-19.”

The Jaguars were fined $200,000 earlier this month (with Meyer specifically fined $100,000) for violating off-season no-contact rules. As punishment, the team also forfeits two organized team activity sessions for the 2022 offseason.

Johnson said that the difficulties Meyer is facing aren’t unique to him. Every coach making the jump has to navigate the same areas that Meyer is now.

“There’s not a world of difference, there’s a galaxy of difference,” Johnson said. “As a college coach, I was a mentor, I was kind of a father figure, I did a tremendous amount of counseling with the players. They were young kids that had left home for the first time in their life, all the pressures of getting that college education, the pressures of the girlfriend, the pressures of living away from their family.

“So my relationship with the players was a heckuva lot different than professional players, who are really – they’re dictated by financial reasons, it’s a business, their agents are influencing them – so it’s a completely different relationship.

“It’s really a different world, professional football.”

However, Johnson believes that Meyer has what it takes to cut it at the professional level. He won three national titles between previous stops at Florida and Ohio State, and he’s not worried about the recent dubious track record of first-time NFL coaches.

“Urban’s very thorough. Urban has spent his due diligence getting ready for this job,” said Johnson, who spoke with Meyer on Wednesday morning and plans to attend part of Jacksonville’s training camp.

“He knew what he was getting into when he accepted the job. We had numerous conversations during the job process. And I think he’ll do a great job. He knows how important personnel is. He knows how to deal with people.”

Only time will tell if Johnson’s words ring true, but his praise is high for the new Jacksonville coach, who is expected to lead the team into the best era in franchise history with quarterback Trevor Lawrence on board.

Panthers coach Matt Rhule and his son went fishing with Jimmy Johnson

Panthers coach Matt Rhule did a pretty solid job in his first year in the NFL, all things considered.

Panthers coach Matt Rhule did a pretty solid job in his first year in the NFL, all things considered. Nothing comes easy for rookie coaches, and Rhule had the added difficulties of leading the most-turned-over roster in the league into an offseason where most of the work had to be done virtually.

The product on the field was shaky at times and the team only finished with a 5-11 record. That said, with a little more talent at quarterback and a bit more luck in close games, this Carolina team could have been in the mix for a wild card spot at least. That’s a pretty impressive turnaround considering the circumstances.

Heading into year two, Rhule sought out one of the most successful coaches in the business. Jimmy Johnson shared a photo on Twitter of Rhule and his son out fishing with him.

Johnson won a couple of rings with the Cowboys and was named Coach of the Year in 1990. His last coaching job in the NFL was with the Dolphins in 1999. Since then, Johnson has been working as a studio analyst on Fox NFL Sunday. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame last year.

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Breaking down the Eagles-Dolphins NFL draft haul using a trade value chart

The Eagles won their trade with Miami using Jimmy Johnson’s trade value chart.

The Miami Dolphins, Philadelphia Eagles, and San Francisco 49ers shook up the top of the NFL draft thanks to some Friday wheeling and dealing.

While most of the NFL was enjoying Zach Wilson’s pro day, Miami traded down from No. 3 in the NFL Draft order all the way back to No. 12.

Moments after that, the Dolphins used draft capital and jumped back up to No. 6 overall in a deal with the Eagles.

Miami got an extra 2022 3rd-round selection and an extra 2023 1st-round selection courtesy of the San Francisco 49ers.

While the Eagles landed the No. 12 overall pick, No. 123 overall, and the Dolphins 2022 1st-round pick.

The details of the trade can be found in the value of the moves, using the NFL’s trade value chart.

A system formulated by former Cowboys head coach Jimmy Johnson in the 1990s, the chart helps measure the value of draft assets and helps negotiate trades?

Jimmy Johnson’s harsh words for Cowboys over ‘unearned accolades’

Jimmy Johnson sat down with USAToday Sports and shared his thoughts on the Cowboys aura of entitlement despite their lack of recent success.

Additional limelight isn’t a bad thing by itself, but when the attention begins to negatively affect the culture of the organization, then there is potential for issues to arise, and that is exactly what former Cowboys head coach Jimmy Johnson believes is happening in Dallas.

The two-time Super Bowl champion spoke to Mackenzie Salmon of USA Today Sports this week, and delivered a surprisingly candid message about his former club.

Salmon asked Johnson if he believes the Cowboys should finally augment their decision-making process by bringing a new shot-caller (presumably meaning a General Manager not in the Jones family), and Johnson’s reply likely surprised Salmon.

“I don’t know that bringing in someone new will change things. It’s really a unique place to coach and work. There are so many accolades that go their way… unearned,” Johnson first replied.

He would elaborate on the interesting notion that the Cowboys receive unearned accolades, relating that statement to the media recognition the team collects,

“A lot of their players walk around like they have Super Bowl rings on because that’s the way in the public and throughout the country they are treated. They’re treated like, hey, you just won the Super Bowl, but in reality, they didn’t even make the playoffs.”

So how should the Cowboys reserve this mindset of entitlement? Johnson believes it starts with the head coach.

“And so the coach has got to be a hardline, no-nonsense type of guy, and sometimes he’s got to combat that.”

The Hall of Fame skipper didn’t give away whether or not he believes current head coach Mike McCarthy is the man capable of solving this potentially deep issue in Dallas, but he did lay out the framework for how he would handle the Cowboys if he were still in charge.

“I would start my very first practice like we were 1-15, and that’s how I’d treat those players, and we would be as physical as the NFL would let us be.

But I would grind on them. By the middle of the season they would hate to see me coming. But, hey, someway, somehow, you’ve got to bring them back down to earth and make them realize they only won six games or so.”

While the attitude most coaches have today is drastically different than how coaches were in Johnson’s hayday in the 1980’s and 90’s, if you’ve followed the Cowboys for long enough, you may see the merit in Johnson’s statements.

What do you think? Was Johnson too harsh on his former club, or was he telling them what they needed to hear?

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Jimmy Johnson has advice for Urban Meyer: ‘Bring in talent’

SportsPulse: Jimmy Johnson is well known for the success he had transitioning from college to the pros as a coach and has some sound advice for Urban Meyer who is about to do the same.

SportsPulse: Jimmy Johnson is well known for the success he had transitioning from college to the pros as a coach and has some sound advice for Urban Meyer who is about to do the same.

Jimmy Johnson says Cowboys get “unearned accolades” just for being in Dallas

SportsPulse: Former Cowboys head coach Jimmy Johnson spoke with Mackenzie Salmon about the culture in Dallas and how the leadership needs to be a lot tougher on the players.

SportsPulse: Former Cowboys head coach Jimmy Johnson spoke with Mackenzie Salmon about the culture in Dallas and how the leadership needs to be a lot tougher on the players.

Cowboys’ Jones has 2nd-worst win percentage among heavily-tenured GMs

Where does Dallas Cowboys Jerry Jones rank among NFL owners in 2020?

The easiest way to become an NFL General Manager is to just buy a team. That’s the path Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones took to the top. It worked out well for him early on mostly due to hitting a homerun with his first head coach Jimmy Johnson. Since then, it’s been tough sledding.

Despite taking a backseat in recent years to both his son Stephen and vice president of personnel Will McClay, the blame will always ultimately fall at the owner’s feet until they hoist another Lombardi Trophy. With that being the case, where does he rank among current GMs in the NFL? Mike Sando at The Athletic tried to figure that out. The list was broken down by tenure, with Jones falling in the first group, those with a decade or more on the job. Here’s his writeup:

The Cowboys won 63 percent of their games with three Super Bowl victories during the 1990s. They have won less than 52 percent of their games without reaching a Super Bowl since then, despite some successes in the draft. Jones earned a spot in the Hall of Fame on the strength of that 1990s success combined with his obvious business acumen, not for his accomplishments as a GM over the past couple decades. It’s no coincidence that the GMs with the worst won-lost records in this category own their teams.

It’s true that Jones has the second-worst record among his grouping, but it’s still .538 throughout the entirety of his NFL career. After all, people only keep their job that long if they’re successful or own the team. So where would Jones fall relative to the entirety of the NFL? Exactly in the middle at No. 16.

It becomes more dispiriting when looking at the amount of Pro Bowlers and First-Team All-Pros the Cowboys have selected since 1989, hitting at a rate near the top of the heap. His loyalty to Jason Garrett submarined the entirety of the last decade as well as the prime of former quarterback Tony Romo. Running the team like a family business might ruin the prime of Dak Prescott, too.

It’s time Jones heeds the words of another famous man with several facelifts by starting with the man in the mirror and asking him to change his ways.

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