1980 was a very tough year for Cowboys fans as Roger Staubach was no longer with the team. Most were behind Danny White, who had a very good year, but he was no Roger Staubach.
We finished with a 12-4 record, tied with the Eagles but they won the division title on a very close tie-breaker. Too Tall had returned from his failed attempt to become a professional fighter and Charlie Waters had come back from his knee injury but his mate at Safety, Cliff Harris had retired.
Along with Waters the defensive backfield was made up of a bunch of no-names: Dennis Thurman, Aaron Mitchell, and Steve Wilson. Benny Barnes and Randy Hughes were still around but were hampered by nagging injuries all year. Thurman would turn out to be the best of the newcomers but we struggled in pass defense all season.
The D-Line of Harvey Martin, Randy White, John Dutton, and Ed Jones, with the veteran Larry Cole playing in spot duty played very well as did the LB corps of Bob Breunig, Mike Hegman, and Anthony Dickerson. D.D. Lewis was still around but at 34 he had lost some quickness as well as his starting job.
On offense, we led the NFC once again but Danny threw more INTs than Roger did and cost us a couple of games with them. Dorsett, Newhouse, and Ron Springs did a good job running the ball and Tony Hill was once again our top WR.
In the playoffs, we once again faced the Rams and got revenge on them for last year's loss by stomping them 34-13 in the first round despite White throwing 3 picks in the game.
Danny would redeem himself in imitation of Staubach against the Falcons in the 2nd round as he brought the team back with 3 4th quarter TDs after being down 24-10, to pull out a 30-27 victory in what most consider the best game of his career.
In the NFC Championship game we faced our division rival Eagles and played terribly on both sides of the ball as we allowed Wilbert Montgomery to run at will and pick up 194 yards against us. White didn't throw many INTs, just 1, but he only completed 38.7% of his passes as the Eagles defense completely shut us down. Dorsett and Newhouse could only muster a little over 40 yards each.
Our pass defense played well and kept Jaworski from being a factor, picking off two passes and limiting him to 31% completions and 91 yards through the air but they ran on us at will and beat us 20-7. Three fumbles kept us down as did their control of the ball.
The good thing was that the Eagles would go on to be crushed by the Raiders in the SB.
Captain Nathan Brittles: "Only the man who commands can be blamed. It rests on me... mission failure!"
"Jerry Jones is a billionaire fan who bought his own team for the express purpose of buying his way into the game. He wants to hang out with the players, stand in front of the cameras, be the face of the team (yech), make personnel moves as if this were a video game, and more than anything else, be seen as the guy who made it all happen."
THUMPER 10/14/2009
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