1990s Cowboys-dynasty Zoners, how bad was the hate?

bandfan said:

You can't even imagine how important the newspaper sports section was back then....

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Or the Cowboys monthly (Star Magazine?). Loved that thing.

There was fan hate, I do not remember continually getting screwed by the officials and having an entire league office screwing us at every single turn.

The feelings towards the Cowboy was really no different back in the 90s then it is now. Either you love them or you hate them. It’s always been that way. The only real difference now is that the Cowboys fan base has grown increasingly frustrated with the team over the past 2+ decades. The word “haters” was never used back then to describe the teams own fans. Just look at this board, fans have been hating on the teams 2 best players. Dak and Zeke get bashed here all the time.

Thanks for the responses thus far. What about the hate from 1970-1982?

Red Dragon said:

I'm a Millennial Cowboys fan who grew up abroad and completely missed out on the entire 1990s dynasty.

How intense was the anti-Cowboys hate back then (especially during 1992-1995?) Was it thrice as bad as today? Did all of non-Cowboys America fervently wish for Dallas to lose?

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I was in my late twenties during that time period, and living in Escondido, CA. You have no idea how many Cowboys fan there are in CA, especially when they're dominating the NFL.
Jimmy Johnson and Jerry Jones couldn't do anything wrong. Even the haters had to acknowledge the greatness of the cowboys. However, the real avid haters were even more animated in their hatred of the cowboys.

Those were the days. Where have all the Cowboys gone?

The internet in its present form didn’t exist, so neither did social media.

Also, there were no national “hot take” shows. ESPN had The Sports Reporters on Sunday mornings and that was pretty much it. Everything else was highlights and analysis that was almost 100% devoid of intentional side-taking. Panelists weren’t pressured to argue and pick a side like they are now. They gave honest opinions on what they thought. It was pretty cool.

Did the Cowboys own fans hate their team as much as they seem to hate them today?
Did they have whipping boys on the team they hated?

I never ran across any fans saying bad things about them like I do today. Even after the triplets were gone and the Dave Campo era was in full meltdown, I did not see the hate as I see now from their own fans.

EGTuna said:

The internet in its present form didn’t exist, so neither did social media.

Also, there were no national “hot take” shows. ESPN had The Sports Reporters on Sunday mornings and that was pretty much it. Everything else was highlights and analysis that was almost 100% devoid of intentional side-taking. Panelists weren’t pressured to argue and pick a side like they are now. They gave honest opinions on what they thought. It was pretty cool.

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ESPN reporters also had to write their own scripts, and did not have a lot of time to do so as games ended.

Where I was in Texas, if someone hated the Cowboys, they didn't feel so free to express "hate" for the Cowboys back during the dynasty years. They had to do it in person because we didn't yet have internet or social media. Everyone I knew was Cowboys fans. It wasn't until the advent of the internet that these haters were brave enough to speak their minds.

The hate was there, it was always just wait til they play the Eagkes, just wait till they play the Niners offense or just wait till they play the k gun....talk radio haters didnt know what to say as the Cowboys kept winning.....oh what a great time for Cowboys fans.

bandfan said:

You can't even imagine how important the newspaper sports section was back then....

Click to expand...

And the Dallas Cowboys magazine/newsletter

To take the question a bit further:

1. For those of you who lived in rival territory, what was it like? (We already had folks chiming in from Eagles land; how about those living in Niners/Packers/Giants/Commanders country?)

2. Was there a massive outpouring of schadenfreude and glee over Cowboys defeats, such as the 1994 NFC title game?

Red Dragon said:

I'm a Millennial Cowboys fan who grew up abroad and completely missed out on the entire 1990s dynasty.

How intense was the anti-Cowboys hate back then (especially during 1992-1995?) Was it thrice as bad as today? Did all of non-Cowboys America fervently wish for Dallas to lose?

Click to expand...

No internet made it much more difficult to express hate ... in general

Red Dragon said:

How intense was the anti-Cowboys hate back then (especially during 1992-1995?) Was it thrice as bad as today? Did all of non-Cowboys America fervently wish for Dallas to lose?

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Meh.

I dished out a heck of a lot more than I took.

daboyzruleperiod said:

Internet was out two years prior (1991) Cowboys 90's dynasty.

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lol bet you were not posting cat pictures anywhere back then ! meow !!
i didnt have a computer back then

bandfan said:

You can't even imagine how important the newspaper sports section was back then....

Click to expand...

Oh yeah.
Mandatory to buy USA Today during opening week to get a printed version of all rosters.

A recurring refrain in this thread is: "It wasn't too bad, because the Internet didn't exist yet."


OK - suppose that the Cowboys had won Super Bowls recently, in the social-media Internet era, in exactly the same fashion as the Nineties. Suppose that Dallas won the Super Bowl in 2012, 2013, lost the conference championship game in 2014, then won it all again in 2015.

How bad would the Internet hate against Dallas explode? Would it reach supernova levels? Would the Cowboys have twenty million followers on Facebook? Would there be someone wearing a Cowboys jersey on every corner of every street? Would Twitter and Facebook have a million anti-Dallas posts every day?

It was a wonderful time we were busy enjoying the wins no internet no forums only news paper and TV ( ESPN CBS ABC Monday night .. and George Michael sports machine at 11 pm) ohh the good old days

Red Dragon said:

I'm a Millennial Cowboys fan who grew up abroad and completely missed out on the entire 1990s dynasty.

How intense was the anti-Cowboys hate back then (especially during 1992-1995?) Was it thrice as bad as today? Did all of non-Cowboys America fervently wish for Dallas to lose?

Click to expand...

why would you think there would be hate during a time like that ??
like some have said no internet was used much back then the only source of cowboys news
was during games
the news paper sports section and this was only during football season after the sb there was nothing !! lol nothing until draft then nothing again till TC
then there was news during season on tv sports and if you had cable espn channel

that was it there were no fan to fan discussions ! except in person

also the cowboys from mid eightys to when jimmy arrived had not been too good
no hate that i heard but people had blown them off or made fun of them
then they fired landry and hired jimmy when the hillbillys bought the team so a lot of fans
hated jerry for that and didnt like jimmy and thought no way he could make cowboys a winner.

at the time i had blown them off didnt really care they fired landry and i knew nothing about jimmy so didnt watch the first season
then i thought i would check out this new coach and watch some games in ninety
then in ninety one i watched whole season and started liking jimmy and the way he coached
and acted
and then in ninety two was totally back into cowboys and have been ever since

back during those @ sb seasons if anyone talked about the cowboys they would be smiling
and have a glow about them
it was great for two years then jerry ran jimmy off and it went downhill never to rise again
The NFL itself was better back then too and it has slowly gone downhill too.

Everyone that wasn't a Dallas fan HATED the Cowboys and was still rubbing in the 1-15 1989 season. Then within two short years we went 11-5 and lost in the divisional round to Detroit (I think) and you heard a collective 'uh-oh' from the haters. Then came 3 out of 4 (would have been 4 in a row if not for an injured #22 and a lousy coach in Switzer) Super Bowl Victories. It was a great time and the hate was even stronger minus the social media of today IMHO. Dallas in the last 20+ years has been largely irrelevant when it comes to contending for a title so even though the hate is still there it seems to be more of a laughing mockery hate than a 'I hate that team because their so good' hatred.