For the first time, the team would fail to play for an NFL Championship at any point during the decade.ĭallas would go 5-5 in the playoffs and lose all three of the NFC Championship games they appeared in. The team would go 79-73 in the regular season and only make the playoffs in five of the ten seasons. It ended with the franchise in disrepair. The 1980s had begun with the Cowboys as annual players in the NFC Championship game. (Photo by Focus on Sport/Getty Images) The Decade In Review
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Johnson was the head coach of the Cowboys from 1989-93. CIRCA 1989 : Head coach Jimmy Johnson of the Dallas Cowboys in this portrait with his arms folded watching the action from the sidelines circa 1989 during an NFL football game. It would be the lone victory of the year for Dallas, as they would drop their last seven games to finish 1-15. In a Sunday night game, Palmer rushed for 110 yards and the game's lone touchdown for a 13-3 victory over the Redskins. Paul Palmer had been riding the bench in Detroit for the first six games of the year before the Cowboys traded a sixth round pick for him. The Cowboys fell to 0-8, Aikman was injured and would miss five games, and Walsh was the starter when the rolled into Washington. The Vikings never saw the Super Bowl and Walker departed Minnesota after the 1991 season. These are the key players the Cowboys ended up with due to those picks: Emmitt Smith, Russell Maryland, and Darren Woodson. The Cowboys? They drove away with five players and Minnesota's 1 st, 2 nd, and 6 th round picks in 1990.īy later cutting or trading those players, they picked up Minnesota's 1 st and 2 nd round picks in 1991 and the Vikings 1 st, 2 nd, and 3 rd round picks in 1992. San Diego ended up with running back Darrin Nelson by the time the dust settled on the wheeling and dealing.
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The Vikings picked up San Diego's 5 th round pick in 1990 too. Minnesota also got Dallas' 3 rd and 10 th round picks in 1990 and the Cowboys' 3 rd round pick in 1991. The Vikings felt Walker was the missing piece they needed for a Super Bowl run and sold their future to get him. In a series of deals that eventually involved the Chargers, the Vikings acquired Walker from Dallas. The Tradeįour days after the loss to Green Bay, Johnson committed grand theft trade. He decided to make a big move for the future while sacrificing the 1989 season. Steve Walsh would relieve Aikman in both games and then started a 31-13 loss to the Packers in Week 5.Īt 0-5, Johnson realized his team needed a lot of work, and it would take a long time to get it done. Aikman would get knocked out early in both losses to the Redskins (30-7) and the Giants (30-13). A 28-0 shutout loss to the Saints got the season started.ĭallas jumped out to a 21-10 halftime lead over the Falcons in Atlanta on Herschel Walker's two touchdowns and a 65-yard pass by Aikman to Michael Irvin.īut Atlanta rallied for a 27-21 victory. The Cowboys were a young team, and not a very good one, in 1989.
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Jones would play in 16 games, starting in 10 of them before retiring after the season. Only one player over the age of 29 would play for Dallas in 1989 – 38-year-old Ed “Too-Tall” Jones. Longtime veteran Randy White showed up with every intention of playing for a 15 th season.Īfter one day of Jimmy's way, White realized he was not going to survive the experience and retired. Then it was time to weed out the roster at training camp. It was the best draft for the Cowboys in years. Mark Stepnoski was taken in the third round and Tony Tolbert in the fourth. Dallas swapped second-round picks with the Raiders to land Daryl Johnston. Troy Aikman was taken with the very first pick. The Cowboys started the process in the draft.
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He knew how to build a winner.īut first - as the second-ever Head Coach of the Cowboys – he was going to have to tear everything down and rebuild it brick by brick. In Miami, Johnson had gone 52-9 and just missed earning a second championship in 1988. Johnson came to Dallas with a National Championship under his belt as coach of the Miami Hurricanes. Jimmy Johnson, a long-time friend of Jones, was named as Landry's successor. It was the way Landry was shown the door that made everyone mad. And it wasn't that everyone knew the game had passed Tom Landry by. It wasn't that changes didn't need to be made. If Jerry Jones' had hoped to ride into town and be proclaimed ‘savior of the Dallas Cowboys' he would be sorely disappointed.