How did the Cowboys fall in the 80s?

[DFWJC]

Some forget that when Jerry bought the Cowboys the franchise was in a world of hurt financially and competitively.
He solved the 1st issue for 25 years now, but after a fabulous start, he has plenty of work to do on the second part.

 

[mrmojo]

I have had a desire to write a book treatment on the Cowboys throughout their history, basically looking at 10 year sections. It seems that the years ending in 9 have been important years in Cowboy history.

To me, 1979 is one of those years. In that year:

• The Cowboys lost their final Super Bowl in the Landry era, and missed out on being the team of the 70s.
• The draft moved from January to May, then back to April, which robbed the Cowboys of a huge advantage in the draft. Now that teams had more time to actually scout college players, the information network built up by Brandt was no longer as effective. He began to reach for players, looking for "finds" along the lines of Calvin Hill. In 79, they drafted Robert Shaw, whose career ended in 1981 due to a car accident. They passed up Joe Montana in the third round, despite him being the highest rated player on their board, and selected Doug Cosbie instead - because they had Staubach, Danny White, and Glenn Carano. They deemed Carano to be worth more than Montana.
• Too Tall Jones retired for a year to box. The Cowboys traded multiple draft picks (1st and 2nd rounders in 1980) to the Colts to acquire John Dutton, who did not make up for Jones' absence.
  
• Tony Dorsett injured his foot in the preseason, after dropping a mirror on his foot (sign of bad luck to come?).
• Charlie Waters tore up his knee in a preseason game against the Seahawks, and missed the entire season.
  
• Hollywood Henderson's drug habit mushroomed completely out of control, and he was released after a loss to Washington where he was caught mugging at a sideline camera while the Cowboys were losing.
• Staubach's concussion issues became even more serious, as he was knocked out of games against the Steelers and Eagles.
• Drew Pearson injured his knee spiking the ball after a touchdown against the Giants, and was a shell of himself for the remainder of the season.
• The Cowboys lost the wild card round playoff game against the Rams on a deflected pass to Billy Waddy on a 50 yard pass play, and Staubach completed his final pass in the NFL.....to Herb Scott, the Cowboys LG.
• At the end of the season, Staubach, Cliff Harris and Rayfield Wright all retired.

They were never the same team again after that year. Yes, they made three straight championship games, but they could never get over the hump. The Eagles and Commanders both thumped them pretty good, and the Niner game ripped the heart out of the organization. To me, the biggest reason for failure beyond that year was the drafting falling completely off the cliff.

Great post! You got it all!

 

[BringBackThatOleTimeBoys]

So in your scenario if bright found a "better" buyer would the Super Bowls have happened?

And what if the search for a preemptive Jerry upgrade led to a worse owner?

Would we still be happy because the team probably has a real GM?

I find the premise of this thread to be a joke.

I think one of Jerry Jones's drinking partners has been identified.

I prefer asking this question to Romo's chances in the HoF.

Only reason Cowboys have won any SBs since 1989 is Jimmy was onboard until Jerry got jealous.

Many people fire without thinking how to make things better afterwards....it seems Bum Bright was one of those.

 

[Miller]

I've seen some good posts about drafts despite 3 NFC Championships, etc and I agree. But I honestly think much of it was Landry's innovativeness became outdated and people like Walsh took that mantle. The Flex Defense, linemen shifting on offense....none if it worked anymore.

 

[Doomsday101]

Poor drafting. Guys like Noonan and Brooks and some other 1st rd picks who turned out as avg to less than.

 

[Zimmy Lives]

Simply stated, the rest of the league caught up to us.

Where we fell off was in the draft and how most teams approached it.

This in a nutshell.

Gil Brandt gave the Cowboys awful 1st and 2nd rounds picks like: Kevin Brooks, Larry Bethea, Victor Scott, Jesse Penn, Howard Richards, Jeff Rohrer, Mike Walter, Darryl Clack, Danny "Buffoonan" Noonan, Ron Francis, Rod Hill, Aaron Mitchell, Doug "White Lightening" Donley. Combine that with bad luck -- career-ending injuries to Robert Shaw, Mike Sherrad and Billy Cannon, and the 80s became the dark ages with no elite QB and no talent.

Gil Brandt fell in love with himself and his computer process for drafting players that he failed to recognize that the player (mentality) was changing and the playing field (other teams) caught up.

 

[Yakuza Rich]

Had a lot of issues. Teams started to finally adapt to the Flex Defense and made it obsolete, particularly with the West Coast offense. I remember Everson Walls saying that they were completely unprepared for the WCO and were floored by all of this horizontal movement from the Niners. They started to adapt to the WCO, schematically, but then the Niners continued to bring in better offensive talent and other coaches started to get into the WCO and bring their own philosophies and strategies with it.

When the Murchison’s owned the team, a family that made a lot of money off of computers, they developed a computerized approach to the game that looked into things like scouting teams (i.e. Team X runs a draw 80% of the time on anything longer than 3rd and 8), scouting college players, etc. By the 80’s other teams finally started to follow suit. I remember 60 Minutes doing an interview on Belichick and discussing how ‘brilliant’ he was because he used this same computerized approach and thinking how much the media had their head up their arse when the Cowboys and Landry were using this same computerized approach 4 decades earlier.

We also had an outdated weight program. Jimmy mentions this when he took over and saw the weight program and was flabbergasted by how bad it was. This coming from a guy that just got done coaching at the U, which for years was considered to have one of the WORST weight rooms of major D-I college football.

And what gets overlooked often times is the Division got much better. The Giants started to put together really great teams under Parcells as well as the Commanders. And you can say what you want about Buddy Ryan, but his Philly teams were a headache for any coach to play against.

I think that is why we’ve only seen 1 NFC East team win the Super Bowl in recent years…the division (sans this year) is the toughest in football (look at the win-loss records since 2003). Much easier to get to the Super Bowl when you’re the Patriots and your division stinks to high heaven and you’re going to get HFA throughout the playoffs each year. So when the division improves like it did in the 80’s, that has a huge impact on the powerhouse team’s success.







YR

 

[big dog cowboy]

I have had a desire to write a book treatment on the Cowboys throughout their history, basically looking at 10 year sections. It seems that the years ending in 9 have been important years in Cowboy history.

To me, 1979 is one of those years. In that year:

• The Cowboys lost their final Super Bowl in the Landry era, and missed out on being the team of the 70s.
• The draft moved from January to May, then back to April, which robbed the Cowboys of a huge advantage in the draft. Now that teams had more time to actually scout college players, the information network built up by Brandt was no longer as effective. He began to reach for players, looking for "finds" along the lines of Calvin Hill. In 79, they drafted Robert Shaw, whose career ended in 1981 due to a car accident. They passed up Joe Montana in the third round, despite him being the highest rated player on their board, and selected Doug Cosbie instead - because they had Staubach, Danny White, and Glenn Carano. They deemed Carano to be worth more than Montana.
• Too Tall Jones retired for a year to box. The Cowboys traded multiple draft picks (1st and 2nd rounders in 1980) to the Colts to acquire John Dutton, who did not make up for Jones' absence.
  
• Tony Dorsett injured his foot in the preseason, after dropping a mirror on his foot (sign of bad luck to come?).
• Charlie Waters tore up his knee in a preseason game against the Seahawks, and missed the entire season.
  
• Hollywood Henderson's drug habit mushroomed completely out of control, and he was released after a loss to Washington where he was caught mugging at a sideline camera while the Cowboys were losing.
• Staubach's concussion issues became even more serious, as he was knocked out of games against the Steelers and Eagles.
• Drew Pearson injured his knee spiking the ball after a touchdown against the Giants, and was a shell of himself for the remainder of the season.
• The Cowboys lost the wild card round playoff game against the Rams on a deflected pass to Billy Waddy on a 50 yard pass play, and Staubach completed his final pass in the NFL.....to Herb Scott, the Cowboys LG.
• At the end of the season, Staubach, Cliff Harris and Rayfield Wright all retired.

They were never the same team again after that year. Yes, they made three straight championship games, but they could never get over the hump. The Eagles and Commanders both thumped them pretty good, and the Niner game ripped the heart out of the organization. To me, the biggest reason for failure beyond that year was the drafting falling completely off the cliff.

Post of the day.

 

[jazzcat22]

many reasons and opinions, all good.
But to me in 1986 we were 6-2 heading into the Giants game. Danny White broke his wrist. Lawrence Taylor I believe hit him. He was never the same after that. Then the slew of bad QB's after that, aging players. They finished 7-9.

 

[BringBackThatOleTimeBoys]

There have been many good/informative replies - thank you.

The pointing out of poor drafts seems to have been the biggest factor.

I see Murchison's failing heath as a big factor....he was relatively young. If a good succession plan was in place, the Cowboys would not have changed that much after him. We wouldn't have had Jimmy Johnson, but their would be continuity and a competitive team. I'd be fine with that.

 

[mmohican29]

many reasons and opinions, all good.
But to me in 1986 we were 6-2 heading into the Giants game. Danny White broke his wrist. Lawrence Taylor I believe hit him. He was never the same after that. Then the slew of bad QB's after that, aging players. They finished 7-9.

Pretty sure it was Carl Banks.

 

[BringBackThatOleTimeBoys]

On succession plans...you would hate to be a Bills fan. Their owner - Ralph Wilson is 95 and he plans to sell the team when he dies, so all bets are off. So the Bills could move to Toronto - anywhere.

 

[Alexander]

Pretty sure it was Carl Banks.

It was Banks. I still remember that game and how Phil Pozderac literally cost us the game. That was actually one of White's better years as he took to Hackett's system very well.

 

[burmafrd]

It was Banks. I still remember that game and how Phil Pozderac literally cost us the game. That was actually one of White's better years as he took to Hackett's system very well.

Pozderac. Hold me phil. He loved to hug.

 

[mrmojo]

Had a lot of issues. Teams started to finally adapt to the Flex Defense and made it obsolete, particularly with the West Coast offense. I remember Everson Walls saying that they were completely unprepared for the WCO and were floored by all of this horizontal movement from the Niners. They started to adapt to the WCO, schematically, but then the Niners continued to bring in better offensive talent and other coaches started to get into the WCO and bring their own philosophies and strategies with it.

When the Murchison’s owned the team, a family that made a lot of money off of computers, they developed a computerized approach to the game that looked into things like scouting teams (i.e. Team X runs a draw 80% of the time on anything longer than 3rd and 8), scouting college players, etc. By the 80’s other teams finally started to follow suit. I remember 60 Minutes doing an interview on Belichick and discussing how ‘brilliant’ he was because he used this same computerized approach and thinking how much the media had their head up their arse when the Cowboys and Landry were using this same computerized approach 4 decades earlier.

We also had an outdated weight program. Jimmy mentions this when he took over and saw the weight program and was flabbergasted by how bad it was. This coming from a guy that just got done coaching at the U, which for years was considered to have one of the WORST weight rooms of major D-I college football.

And what gets overlooked often times is the Division got much better. The Giants started to put together really great teams under Parcells as well as the Commanders. And you can say what you want about Buddy Ryan, but his Philly teams were a headache for any coach to play against.

I think that is why we’ve only seen 1 NFC East team win the Super Bowl in recent years…the division (sans this year) is the toughest in football (look at the win-loss records since 2003). Much easier to get to the Super Bowl when you’re the Patriots and your division stinks to high heaven and you’re going to get HFA throughout the playoffs each year. So when the division improves like it did in the 80’s, that has a huge impact on the powerhouse team’s success.







YR

I agree, I believe that having to go through the NFC East in the 80s and 90s was the hardest thing to do. I respect the 49er teams of the 80s but they didnt have to face the Commanders, Giants and Eagles twice a year, if they had they may not have won as many SBs.

 

[Risen Star]

 

[coogrfan]

Poor drafting. Guys like Noonan and Brooks and some other 1st rd picks who turned out as avg to less than.

In fairness we drafted in the mid-20's or lower every year for two decades. The fact that it eventually caught up with us is hardly surprising.

 

[cwbyfn1957]

Lets not forget.....team was 8-0 when Danny White broke his wrist. He was never the same, and didn't have decent QB play after that. Didn't make the playoffs after that either. Drafting at the bottom year after year didn't help.

 

[joseephuss]

Lets not forget.....team was 8-0 when Danny White broke his wrist. He was never the same, and didn't have decent QB play after that. Didn't make the playoffs after that either. Drafting at the bottom year after year didn't help.

I forgot that because Dallas wasn't 8-0 at the time Danny broke his wrist. They were 6-2. People like to say that White wasn't the same after breaking his wrist, but they seem to forget he was 34 years old at the time and had played 12 seasons with Dallas along with 2 years in the old WFL. Most QBs aren't the same at that point in their careers no matter if they are recovering from an injury or not.

 

[xwalker]

Bum Bright lost his a** in the S&L crash. Thus, what was once a cheap owner became a dirt cheap owner. Remember the QBs we had back in the mid-80's? Clint Stoerner? Gary Hogeboom? Where was the talent on those teams? This was before FA and the cap came into existence, so Bright CHOSE to not spend money on players. When Jerry Jones bought the team, the only player of any value was Hershel Walker.

As another poster put it, it didn't help that the league caught up in the scouting department. The things that set Gil Brandt and the Cowboys' personnel office apart from the rest of the league were no longer unique to Dallas.

I don't necessarily thing the game had passed Landry by, but I think he'd lost the edge he once had on other teams.

This.^

Bum Bright didn't want to spend money on players, coaches, scouts, etc..

Bright destroyed the Cowboys then Jerry came in and the Cowboys won 3 Super Bowls in 4 years, yet everybody hates Jerry. Bright should be the most hated guy ever by Cowboys fans.