Jimmy Johnson and Jerry Jones avoided discussing their contentious breakup nearly thirty years prior, when they had just collaborated as head coach and owner to win back-to-back Super Bowls with the Dallas Cowboys.
It doesn’t really matter to either Pro Football Hall of Famer at this point whether that breakup was the reason it took Jones so long to induct Johnson into the team’s ring of honor.
In the end, Johnson is joining Tom Landry and the 19 players and two executives who are part of an elite group of one of the NFL’s most illustrious teams as the only coaches.
At the halftime of Saturday night’s regular-season home finale against the Detroit Lions, quarterback Troy Aikman, running back Emmitt Smith, and receiver Michael Irvin—the Hall of Fame “Triplets” who headlined his Super Bowl teams—greeted Johnson.
Johnson thanked the audience, saying, “Thank you, Jerry Jones, for bringing me to the Dallas Cowboys.”
Johnson concluded his remarks in gratitude.
Before the game, Jones said, “You can say whatever you want to about my human reaction or frailties.” “He’s there because it’s the right thing to do, I say this today. Whether my kids or I entered him, he was always going in the ring of honor.”
A conspiracy theory suggested that Johnson’s tenure ended abruptly in 1994 due to a dispute over who should take the lead in Dallas’s remarkable recovery.
The Cowboys went from 1-15 in 1989—the year Jones acquired the team and hired Johnson after firing Landry, the team’s only head coach—to winning back-to-back Super Bowl titles to end the 1992 and 1993 seasons.
Who gets credit is outdated, in my opinion,” Johnson remarked. Together, the two of us created history. Working together meant that we spoke on a daily basis. I can’t remember ever having a disagreement with you.
Some argue that Johnson’s perspective is a revisionist account of history, citing his anger thirty years prior to comments made by Jones—who is also the team’s general manager—that any one of 500 coaches could have won a championship with the Dallas team.
Two years after Jones and Johnson, who had been teammates at Arkansas in the early 1960s, broke up, Barry Switzer did the same. However, detractors have never stopped claiming that Johnson’s players should have won the 1995 championship, and the Cowboys haven’t even advanced to the NFC Championship Game since then.
While covering the game for ESPN, Aikman hurriedly descended from the broadcast booth to attend the ceremony. During the presentation, which began with Johnson going through a greeting line, he stood with Irvin and Smith.
During the first half, Aikman said on ESPN, “It means everything to me and my teammates and everybody who was a part of those teams.” “And at halftime tonight, the circle was closed.
Johnson left football for two years before joining the Miami Dolphins again in 1996, where he played for four seasons, the last three of which he spent in the postseason. However, Miami failed to advance past the divisional round.
Three years after Jones, in 2020, the 80-year-old Johnson—a native of Texas—was inducted into the Canton, Ohio, cemetery. He has worked as a Fox studio analyst for the past 20 years.
Johnson’s name will now be on the inside of AT&T Stadium alongside that of Landry, who won two Super Bowls with the Cowboys in the 1970s and ranks fifth all-time with 250 regular-season victories.
“I don’t think anybody can ever imagine what this means to me,” declared Johnson, the Miami University college national champion from 1987. “This moment was unique.
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