Troy Aikman is looking relaxed tonight in Chicago.
Troy Aikman and Joe Buck (who’s the GOAT of sports broadcasting) are in Chicago calling tonight’s big game between the Dallas Cowboys and Chicago Bears.
And the two shook things up a little bit by keeping things casual in the booth, as they ditched their suits for more relaxed looks.
Aikman’s casual wardrobe got the most attention on Twitter as he’s wearing hoodie and a nice coat. Many fans are used to seeing the Hall of Fame QB in a suit, so tonight’s wardrobe was a bit of surprise.
Some wondered if this hoodie look is a historic moment in sports broadcasting:
So, I’m thinking Troy Aikman left his suit at home and Joe Buck stepped up for his homie and went casual with him so he wouldn’t feel weird about it #bears#cowboys#nflpic.twitter.com/YE8J7WDJyE
Jerry Jones has a cryptic comment about his coach, a HOFer has harsh words for his ex-boss, and the team’s new triplets close in on history.
A Thursday gameday has Cowboys Nation already looking at final injury reports for both Dallas and Chicago in advance of their primetime meeting on Lake Shore Drive. Three Cowboys have been ruled out, along with one familiar face in the Bears secondary.
Khalil Mack has good things to say about the Dallas offense, but Troy Aikman isn’t as gracious when it comes to the Cowboys front office. Owner Jerry Jones offers a cryptic comment about coach Jason Garrett’s future, and a noted football insider has a bone to pick regarding the current playoff seeding structure. All that plus the Cowboys’ new triplets close in on team history, and a closer look at some killer cleats for some exceptional causes. Here’s your News and Notes slate ahead of Week 14’s game.
The trio of Cowboys who were on the fence for Thursday’s game in Chicago will now officially be wearing street clothes on the Soldier Field sideline. Linebacker Leighton Vander Esch is still dealing with a neck issue, defensive tackle Antwaun Woods has a knee problem, and safety Jeff Heath is working through a double shoulder ailment.
The ankle injury that kept running back Tony Pollard out of Tuesday’s practice is still a source of some concern; the rookie is listed as questionable for the Bears tilt.
Bears cornerback Prince Amukamara had some memorable meetings with Dallas when he was a member of the Giants from 2011 to 2015. Thursday night was to be the former first-rounder’s first time facing the Cowboys since leaving New York. But that rematch may have to wait; Amukamara is listed as doubtful for Week 14’s showdown due to a hamstring injury sustained on Thanksgiving Day in Chicago’s game versus Detroit.
The Bears’ official website lists offensive tackle Bobby Massie, wide receiver Taylor Gabriel, tight end Ben Braunecker, and linebacker Danny Trevathan as out.
Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott has had a stellar 2019 campaign, despite the team’s overall performance. The leader of Chicago’s defense thinks keeping him in check will be “a big challenge.”
Mack says of Prescott, “The guy knows how to put his team in a position to win games. He’s a hell of a ballplayer. He plays with a lot of heart, and you see it. You see it reflected in the film.”
But Mack and his defensive mates know they won’t be able to key solely on stopping the Dallas air attack. Of two-time rushing champ Ezekiel Elliott, Mack says, “He’s one of the most physical running backs in the league. It’s going to be a huge task. He’s a guy who runs the ball like he’s angry. It’s going to be our job to make sure he feels us.”
Troy Aikman thinks his former quarterback understudy Jason Garrett has “the hardest job in football” as head coach of the Cowboys and says he’s “done a really nice job” in that capacity over the past decade. But the Hall of Famer admits that sometimes a change at the top is needed. If the team doesn’t go on a late run and find postseason success, that change could be coming soon to Dallas.
Aikman even had some harsh words for his former boss and went on to talk about the unique front office situation that a prospective new coach would be walking into.
“It’s not run, traditionally, the way most organizations are. I think that’s to the detriment of the Cowboys. I don’t think you can look at three playoff wins in the last 25 years and surmise that all of the problems over that time have been a result of coaching.”
Aikman goes into detail of how Jones meddles, and one can’t help but wonder how this will impact any coding search.
The NFL’s annual head coaching carousel started turning a bit earlier than expected on Wednesday when Ron Rivera was shown the door in Carolina. Almost on cue, talk in sports radio circles turned to whether Rivera might be a fit in Dallas if Jason Garrett also gets his walking papers.
Even with a lackluster 6-6 record, Garrett’s team is- improbably- still favored to win the division title. Talk of a coaching change in Dallas might, then, seem premature. But it turns out the buzz had gotten a little louder just hours earlier, when owner Jerry Jones spoke with 105.3 The Fan that very morning.
The outspoken owner had plenty to say about Garrett’s aptitude and qualities. He talked about the high bar for NFL coaches in the chase to win Super Bowls. But he ended with the bombshell heard ’round the league: “In my opinion, Jason Garrett will be coaching in the NFL next year.”
Lots of room for interpretation there. Acres upon acres, in fact.
Somewhat lost in the disappointment of a middling 6-6 record has been just how statistically good the Cowboys offense has been. Quarterback Dak Prescott, running back Ezekiel Elliott, and wideout Amari Cooper are all putting up very good numbers. And while the individual totals might not be translating to as many wins as all involved would prefer, the trio of stars is on the cusp of doing something historic in the annals of Dallas football.
Ezekiel Elliott needs 10 yards to get to 1,000 Amari Cooper needs 29 yards to get to 1,000 Dak Prescott needs 212 yards to get to 4,000
This could all happen on Thursday night and it would mark the first year EVER in Cowboys history to have triplets all achieve those marks.
Dallas has played on the Thursday night after Thanksgiving in each of the past three seasons. They won all three contests. They also appeared on Thursday Night Football in 2014 and 2007. Both were victories. In fact, the last time Dallas lost on a Thursday night? 1978.
Also explored in this compendium of trivia: Randall Cobb’s prowess this season against his former NFC North rivals, Jason Witten knocking on the door of the franchise’s touchdown reception record, and a look at the coldest games in team history.
The winner of the NFC East- either Dallas or Philadelphia- will host a playoff game at their home stadium. Either San Francisco or Seattle will come in to that matchup with a much better regular season record, but as the runner-up in their division. That means they’ll be the visitors, with the lesser-performing team getting home field advantage for the first round of the playoffs. It’s happened before. And now that’s it’s happening again, it’s sparking discussion about whether that’s right.
As Mike Florio suggests, “Maybe the rule should be that the division winner has to have a winning record to host a wild-card game. Maybe the division winner should be required to generate a record of 10-6 or better. Whatever the formula, the current one is grossly unfair.”
Take note: If the existing seeding system benefits Jerry Jones and the Cowboys and helps them beat a seemingly-superior team and advance in postseason play, it just may be enough for another of the NFL owners to propose an official change during the league meetings in March.
For the fourth year in a row, NFL players will showcase their personal causes in the My Cause My Cleats campaign. More than 900 players will wear custom-made cleats with artwork highlighting the charities and initiatives they support off the field.
“For me to sport these cleats, it’s a big blessing and an honor.”
From children’s hospitals and anti-bullying programs to cancer research and youth services, the Cowboys’ cleats will give attention to a long list of worthy causes when the players hit the field in their artsy footwear prior to Thursday night’s game in Chicago.
Eagles, Cowboys rivalry celebrates the 30-year anniversary of ‘Bounty Bowl’
History tells a story for all of us and in 1989, the top songs from that year included ‘Right Here Waiting For You’ from Richard Marx, ‘Miss You Much’ from Janet Jackson and Blame It On The Rain’, from Milli Vanilli.
During the 1989 NFL season, two heated contest between the Dallas Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles shaped and helped define a rivalry that remains heated some 30-years later.
For these two storied franchises, the infamous ‘Bounty Bowl’ took place on this day 30-years ago, and it’s only fitting that the date is celebrated some four weeks from when another Cowboys and Eagles matchup will once again provide us with the winner of the NFC East.
On Thanksgiving Day, 1989, the 1-12 Dallas Cowboys faced off against the 7-4 Philadelphia Eagles at the old Texas Stadium.
In that ballgame, a 27-0 thumping by the Eagles, then Cowboys head coach, Jimmy Johnson, alleged that former Eagles coach, the late and great Buddy Ryan, put a $200 bounty on Cowboys kicker Luis Zendejas, who had been cut by Philadelphia earlier that season.
Ryan allegedly put a $500 bounty on Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman as well.
“I have absolutely no respect for the way they played the game, Johnson famously said.” “I would have said something to Buddy, but he wouldn’t stand on the field long enough. He put his big, fat rear end into the dressing room.”
There’s no love lost between the Dallas Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles. 1989’s Bounty Bowl didn’t start the feud, but it sure deepened it.
November 23, 1989. “Blame It on the Rain” by Milli Vanilli was the No. 1 song in the country. Harlem Nights starring Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor had just unseated Look Who’s Talking from a month-long run atop the box office. The Berlin Wall had come tumbling down two weeks prior. A gallon of milk cost $2.34. A gallon of gas was just over a buck. And, at least on the visitors’ sideline of Texas Stadium that Thanksgiving Day, the price for laying out Cowboys kicker Luis Zendejas was $200.
Saturday marks the 30th anniversary of the “Bounty Bowl,” one of the ugliest incidents in team history, an unfortunate stain on the league’s rich Thanksgiving Day tradition, and one of the most notorious chapters in one of the nastiest rivalries in the National Football League.
“Why would I place a bounty on a kicker who can’t kick worth a damn?”
The Cowboys were a dismal 1-10 entering the Week 12 game of the 1989 season; Jerry Jones had just purchased the team in February. Jimmy Johnson had replaced the legendary Tom Landry as coach. The team’s best player, Herschel Walker, had been traded away a few weeks earlier, and Troy Aikman was nearing the three-quarter mark of his rookie campaign as starting quarterback of the league’s worst squad. Hosting its annual Thanksgiving Day contest was one of the lone chances that season for the struggling Cowboys to shine before a nationwide audience. The opponent that day? The 7-4 Philadelphia Eagles, helmed by coach Buddy Ryan.
Down by a 10-0 score coming out of halftime, Dallas kicked off to open the third quarter. Moments after sending the ball deep on his first kick of the game, Zendejas was leveled by Eagles linebacker and special teams player Jessie Small. Replays seem to show that Small bypassed several members of the Cowboys coverage team to get to Zendejas. Once there, he delivered a massive blow that sent the 175-pound kicker flying and left him wobbling as he tried to stand.
In today’s game, the hit would have drawn an immediate flag, resulting in not only a penalty for the Eagles, but a stiff fine for Small from the league. But on that day in Irving in 1989, it was- incredibly enough- Zendejas who was flagged, for a low block. (In retrospect, Zendejas was clearly crouching in anticipation because he knew a big hit was coming; more on that later.) And for his bone-crunching blow, Small actually made money- directly from Coach Ryan, no less- according to blockbuster accusations leveled after the 27-0 loss by Johnson and the Cowboys.
The first-year coach claimed that Ryan had placed a bounty on Zendejas, promising a $200 cash payment to the Eagles player who flattened the kicker. Zendejas, coincidentally (or not, depending on your interpretation), had been cut by the Eagles less than a month earlier and then signed by Dallas.
Ryan laughed off the accusation as absurd.
“Why would I place a bounty on a kicker who can’t kick worth a damn?” he asked, according to Mark Eckel of NJ.com. “The guy was in a six-week slump. I wanted him in the game.”
Zendejas had, in fact, missed two field goals in Dallas’s previous game versus Miami. He did not seem to be, at least on the surface, a dangerous playmaking threat truly worthy of the personal ire of the Eagles coach.
The Dallas kicker, though, felt he had proof of the bounty. Eagles punter John Teltschik had warned him before the game that he was a target for a big hit. But there was more.
“Watch out for yourself…”
“In the days leading up to the game,” wrote Ray Didinger in a 2014 piece on the Eagles team website, “a story circulated in Dallas that Zendejas had received an ominous phone call from Eagles special teams coach Al Roberts. According to Zendejas, Roberts told him that Ryan had instructed his players to go after their former teammate.”
Zendejas claimed that upon his release in Philadelphia, he had been notified by Roberts, not Ryan directly. At the time, the kicker took to the media to voice his disappointment, calling his coach’s move “classless.”
”Buddy didn’t have the decency to tell me to my face; he had an assistant coach do it,” Zendejas said of his termination. ”When I phoned to ask him about it, he hung up on me.”
Roberts’s warning for Zendejas to “watch out for yourself” on Thanksgiving 1989 in the game that was quickly dubbed the “Bounty Bowl” was just the latest evidence of bad blood between Ryan and the Cowboys. Ryan, in fact, harbored a hatred for the rivals from Dallas ever since taking over in Philadelphia in 1986. That hatred that grew exponentially the following season.
During the 1987 NFL players’ strike, Dallas saw several high-profile members of their roster cross the picket line to continue playing. Ryan accused then-coach Landry of running up the score on his replacement players in a 41-22 win. After the strike had ended and full-time players returned, Ryan got his revenge on Dallas. He instructed his starting offense to run a fake kneeldown play – after two actual kneel-downs – in the final seconds of a game the Eagles were already leading 30-20. The ensuing rub-it-in touchdown beat the Cowboys by 17 points. In 1989, Ryan saw a chance to kick the rebuilding team when they were down, in their own stadium and on national television.
But the notion of Ryan placing a price tag on the heads of opposing players wasn’t even a new one.
“Ron Wolfley, a Pro Bowl special teams tackler for the [then-]Phoenix Cardinals, disclosed [in 1988] that he had heard that the Eagles had a bounty on him during the 1987 season,” as per a 1989 New York Times piece by Dave Anderson. He goes on to write that, in an Eagles-Bears game that same 1989 season, “similar bounties were whispered to be on Mike Tomczak, the quarterback, and Dennis McKinnon, a wide receiver,” and adding, “Ryan, who has feuded openly with Mike Ditka, also supposedly had offered a bounty if any of the Eagle players flattened the Bears’ coach on the sideline.”
To be sure, the Cowboys were well aware of the bounty rumors when they took the field that Thanksgiving Day. And Zendejas wasn’t the only Dallas player with a supposed price on his head.
“He never used the word ‘bounty.'”
In the first half of the game, Aikman was slammed to the ground by Eagles linebacker Britt Hager well after an aborted-play whistle. The hit, despite broadcasters Pat Summerall and John Madden clearly being entertained by the “fracas” that followed, necessitated X-rays for Aikman. Johnson claimed the Eagles had also put a $500 contract on his rookie quarterback.
“As far as I know, he never pointed out a guy,” Hager answered. “I never heard, ‘Go take the kicker out.’ Who would say, ‘Go take the kicker out?’ That’s why we all kind of laughed about it.”
He admitted, though, that Ryan wasn’t above at least insinuating that opposing quarterbacks were fair game for his players.
Eckel explains, “Ryan would say to me after the fact that he would tell his players at times before games, ‘I want to find out who their backup quarterback is today.” But he never used the word ‘bounty’.”
Anderson adds that Zendejas himself “spoke of having seen ”Buddy call guys out and give them $100” for what the kicker called a weekly Big Hit award but what Ryan called a Big Play award.
“Ryan acknowledged those $100 bonuses to his Eagle players, but insisted they were for an interception or a jarring tackle that caused a fumble in the context of the game, not for leveling a certain opponent.”
But, Sabin writes: “At the time, Hager and the Eagles special teams and defensive players would collect a pool of money and redistribute it for big hits, ‘decleaters,’ sacks, and turnovers. It wasn’t an uncommon practice in the NFL during a bygone era when the league’s image was less sanitized and the game wasn’t as scrutinized. In fact, the Cowboys had a similar system, according to [Dallas fullback Daryl] Johnston.
“‘There was no intent of malice,’ Johnston explained.”
But to anyone watching the 1989 Thanksgiving Day contest, there was clearly intent of malice in the Eagles hit that left a diminutive kicker staggering off the field.
Didinger, the famed Philadelphia sportswriter, had a private film session with Jimmy Johnson at Valley Ranch several days after the Bounty Bowl.
“On the film, you could see Small take a straight-line course to Zendejas. He actually ran right past Bill Bates, the Cowboys’ best special teams player, to get to the kicker who never made a tackle in his entire career.
“‘Why would he do that,’ Johnson said referring to Small, ‘unless somebody told him to do it?’
“I had to admit Johnson had a point.”
“You all know what you were doing!”
The New York Times quoted Zendejas as saying of Ryan after the Thanksgiving Day game, ”If I could’ve stood on my two legs, I would’ve gone over and decked him… We’ll play again in two weeks. If I see him then, I’ll deck him then. Honestly, I will.”
Zendejas did share words with several of his ex-Eagles teammates when the Thanksgiving game ended. Small, in fact, was overheard by Didinger telling Zendejas, ”I was just doing my job.” The Cowboys’ kicker reportedly replied, ”You know what you were doing! You all know what you were doing!” An Eagles’ trainer offered his hand; Zendejas slapped it away.
Johnson himself intended to confront Ryan right there on the field after the final gun. But the Eagles coach hurried off the Texas Stadium field, skipping the traditional coaches’ face-to-face meeting.
According to Didinger: “It was true Ryan left the field as soon as the game ended, but he did that every week. He didn’t believe in postgame handshakes. Professional courtesy wasn’t his thing.”
Johnson famously said of the moment, “Oh, I would have said something to Buddy, but he wouldn’t stand on the field long enough. He put his big fat rear end into the dressing room.”
In his response, Ryan, as he did with most things, deflected the criticism with a joke.
“I resent that,” Ryan said. “I’ve been on a diet, I lost a couple of pounds. I thought I was looking good, and he goes and calls me fat. I kind of resent that.”
The teams played again two weeks later. It was not nearly enough time, though, for tempers to have cooled. “Bounty Bowl II” had become a promoted event, and it carried the animosity into the Veterans Stadium stands, with Philadelphia fans pelting Cowboys players, NFL officials, CBS broadcasters, and even their own players with ice-packed snowballs in one of the most chaotic game environments ever seen at an NFL venue.
On the field, Zendejas was left alone, and he never went after Ryan. But Aikman took several hits during the game along with Eagles quarterback Randall Cunningham; nine total sacks were recorded in a notably physical 20-10 Eagles win. Cowboys punter Mike Saxon was also roughed up during play, drawing an unnecessary roughness flag.
“He never truly admitted it.”
As for the initial Bounty Bowl accusations, NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue- on the job just one month when it happened- followed up by interviewing a handful of players. There was even talk of a recording Zendejas had supposedly made of the phone conversation where the Eagles assistant had warned him of the bounty, but the kicker never turned over any such tape.
In the end, according to the Dallas Morning News, “the league dropped the inquiry, saying it found no ‘convincing evidence of an intent to injure any Cowboys player or to make contact with any player outside the rules of the game.'”
The 1989 season ended with the Cowboys finishing 1-15, the second NFL team to ever do so. Their league-worst record would have given them the top pick in the 1990 draft, but the team had given up that pick by taking quarterback Steve Walsh in the first round of the previous year’s supplemental draft. The Cowboys eventually traded picks with the Steelers to re-enter the first round; they selected running back Emmitt Smith 17th overall.
The Eagles came in second in the NFC East in 1989 and lost to the Rams in the wild card round of the playoffs.
Ryan never admitted to a bounty system in the years that followed, maintaining that position until his passing in 2016.
Johnson, now a FOX studio analyst, recalled Ryan’s denials in a 2014 interview.
“He sloughed it off. He never truly admitted it,” Johnson said. “I think Buddy was trying to play games. I kid him, ‘You had one of the great all-time defenses, but you never won a playoff game.’ I had the last laugh.”
Johnson’s championships may have afforded him the luxury to find humor in it long after the fact, but the Bounty Bowl saga remains a seminal part of the lore of the Cowboys-Eagles rivalry any time the franchises meet. Thirty years of hindsight has perhaps turned the original controversy into just a colorful chapter from a distant era; nothing, though, has diminished the intense dislike the two teams have for one another to this day.
