Dunno, y'all think Landry couldn't have achieved anything more with Aikman, Emmit and Irvin? Or who knows what sort of team it would have been, maybe no Emmit or Aikman. Tough to tell but a football mind like Landry's
Landry was already on record that he was drafting Aikman. The difference is that he would not have drafted Emmitt because he would never have traded Herschel. It's often overlooked that Landry was putting together a pretty good roster of future pro-bowlers before he was canned.
Newton, Tuinei, Norton, Gogan, Herschel and Irvin were already in the fold. They were planning on adding Aikman to the mix in '89. Jimmy came in and ripped the bandages off when it came to aging veterans like Randy, Danny, Too-Tall etc. But I suspect Landry was going to do that too. Landry just would not have thrown Troy to the wolves the way Jimmy did and let him take that beating.. which in turn may have let Troy have a longer career. Jimmy turned the roster over quicker than Landry would have I think.. but I also think Landry was respectful enough not to pi$$ all over his boss unlike Jimmy. Of course with cancer taking him out not to long after it wasn't going to end well anyway..
I never bought into the notion that Landry had forgotten how to coach.. He had been too good for too long for me to buy that. Where the Cowboys failed in the 80's was talent evaluation. They missed on too many high picks .. Sherrard, Noonan, Cannon, "Hogenboom" as Landry liked to call him.. The list is long of guys who the Cowboys went in on but got little or nothing on the field.. Picking up the guys I mentioned above indicated that they might have been on the way to solving that.. Once you got him good players I think Landry would have done fine..
