Jackie Smith talks extensively about the drop that almost ruined his life

[Rockport]

There are plenty of other places Jackie Smith would rather we start this story. Hell, anywhere else would be better. For a man who considers himself the luckiest ever to live, why choose the one moment when his luck ran out? A moment that he hasn’t talked about—not in depth, not like he does as he drives around his old St. Louis stomping grounds in mid-November—in nearly 40 years?

But, come on. It always starts here, at the Orange Bowl in Miami, on Jan. 21, 1979.

Third-and-three. Ten-yard line. There were two minutes and 46 seconds left in the third quarter of Super Bowl XIII against theSteelers, and the man with more career catches and more receiving yards than anyone else on the field had his hand in the dirt on the right side of the Cowboys’ line. Smith had played in 215 games in his 16-year NFL career, catching nearly 500 balls for 8,000 yards (more than any tight end before him), and he already knew this would be his last. It was going to be the fairy tale ending: The kid from Kentwood, La., who was as surprised as anyone on the day he got drafted, who toiled so long and so hard for the middling St. Louis Cardinals, who retired and then reluctantly came back for one last ride with America’s Team. It was setting up so well for the old vet—older, at 38, than any other player in the game—that the Florence (Ala.) Times Daily predicted Smith would have “the best time of them all. . . no matter how hairy the going gets.”

http://www.si.com/nfl/2016/01/19/jackie-smith-super-bowl-drop

I remember the game well. The Cowboys had all the momentum at that point in the game and the drop changed everything. As a fan it was devastating.

 

[Rack]

And since Everson Walls got "beat" on the play they say he had a bad game. Check out the stat line he had for that game...

My memory is a bit rusty but I believe he had 2 int's and a fumble recovery that game.

My memory is correct:

http://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/198201100sfo.htm

 

[Alexander]

Back to Smith, even Staubach admits it was partially his fault and the pass was not the best he could have made.

 

[jimmy40]

should have caught it, absolutely no doubt but Roger (my hero) should have made a better pass, play was wide open and he made a 40 year old man go to the ground to catch it.

 

[ABQCOWBOY]

I have always liked Jackie Smith. He got raw deal from the fan base, no question. He was truly a great, great player. It's really a shame that his career ended the way it did. A story of a really good guy facing a bad situation.

That play still kills me but I hold no malice for Jackie Smith. Solid person and that's way more important then anything that happened in his playing career IMO.

 

[RS12]

Shows you how far scouting has come over the decades. A HOFer and freak athlete like Jackie Smith almost goes undrafted. Now a days he'd be splattered all over over the net as a prospect. BTW that drop never bothered me as much as others. Reason, I never got the feeling they were going to win that game. Doomsday never really got the necessary stops that day.

 

[ABQCOWBOY]

should have caught it, absolutely no doubt but Roger (my hero) should have made a better pass, play was wide open and he made a 40 year old man go to the ground to catch it.

38 and any receiver should have caught that. It wasn't the pass, although the pass wasn't perfect. The problem was that they called a play they really had not practiced. Big moment in the biggest stage in the sport and you clearly see Smith's feet coming out from under him on that play. A lot of things combined to make that play fail but I can't see how we could really say that it was the pass. It wasn't perfect but it's better then a lot of throws you will see in that situation.

It is what it is to me. Roger is a big man for taking the responsibility there and to be honest, it wouldn't have mattered what Roger said because everybody kinda sees it as a drop. It was a drop but I understand why. It's just a tough break in life for Cowboy Fans, the Team but mostly for Jackie Smith. At least, that's how I see it.

 

[Seven]

Guess I Should've read up on this lol. I was under the impression that he dropped the game winning catch.

You'd be suprised at how many people think that.

It's presented that way........if you didn't watch the game you'd have never known.

 

[Seven]

His life ruined???? What about MINE???

L.O.L!

 

[TwoDeep3]

I believe the story may have been told by Charlie Waters, but it has been a while since I heard it, so that may have been someone else.

When Jackie arrived at Dallas he expected the team to be serious and focused. This was America's Team, and surely Tom Landry would have them razor sharp. But as the season began and worked it's way to the play-offs, Smith noticed the attitudes were not what he expected.

Dallas lost the SB in 1975 to Pittsburgh. They came back in 76 with an 11-3 season only to lose their first play-off game to the Rams. 1977 found Dallas winning the Super Bowl against Denver. So when Smith arrived in Dallas, they were a team that could do great things. But the team seemed to be more focused on the press clippings and parties, and the notoriety of their previous successes, and wasn't giving maximum effort each week.

They opened the season with victories against Baltimore and the NY Giants, only to lose on the road to the Rams. The next week they beat the St. Louis Cardinals, but followed that with a loss on the road to the Commanders. Dallas then ripped off three wins against NFC East opponents - at home against the Giants, on the road against St. Louis, and again at home against the Eagles. But they had to take the 6-10 Cardinals to overtime and win 24-21, followed by the Eagles at home in a close game, 14-7.

Then the Cowboys laid two eggs, the first against Minnesota, losing 21-10, followed by the loss to the Dolphins 23-16. Their record was 6-4 and Smith was seeing a prima-dona attitude infiltrating the locker room. So he spoke out one day.

Smith told the guys about playing in St. Louis, a perennial losing franchise, and what it meant to him to play for the Dallas Cowboys. He told them how shocked he was they were simply going through the motions. The season was not a given and if they didn't get their minds right, he came out of retirement for nothing.

Evidently his speech, a grizzled veteran of the league for so many years, moved the team to refocus. The next game they lost was the Superbowl, as they ran the rack for the season, then followed it by beating the Falcons and then the Rams to get back to the dance.

Waters (I think) said that season turned because of Jackie Smith. His leadership galvanized the team to begin focusing on football and not celebrity. If Smith had not spoken up, there perhaps would be no SB, or even the play-offs for this team. And this saddened Waters (or Cliff Harris) that the Cowboy Nation would always remember the drop, but not the speech. And how much this one guy meant to that season.

 

[Plankton]

Without Smith's contributions in catching the game tying touchdown against the Falcons in the divisional round of the playoffs, the Cowboys don't even make Super Bowl XIII. Danny White was also huge in that game, leading them to the win after Staubach left with a concussion.

 

[TellerMorrow34]

It sucks he didn't catch it.

Yes he should have.

Yes Roger should have thrown a better pass.

No it's not the sole reason Dallas lost that game.

There were lots of reasons for that loss. It's one of many. Tying the loss to one play, and one player, is for simple minded fools who don't really understand football in the first place.

 

[Alexander]

It sucks he didn't catch it.

Yes he should have.

Yes Roger should have thrown a better pass.

No it's not the sole reason Dallas lost that game.

There were lots of reasons for that loss. It's one of many. Tying the loss to one play, and one player, is for simple minded fools who don't really understand football in the first place.

Much like the bobbled snap being how Romo has been defined for years.

 

[jimmy40]

38 and any receiver should have caught that. It wasn't the pass, although the pass wasn't perfect. The problem was that they called a play they really had not practiced. Big moment in the biggest stage in the sport and you clearly see Smith's feet coming out from under him on that play. A lot of things combined to make that play fail but I can't see how we could really say that it was the pass. It wasn't perfect but it's better then a lot of throws you will see in that situation.

It is what it is to me. Roger is a big man for taking the responsibility there and to be honest, it wouldn't have mattered what Roger said because everybody kinda sees it as a drop. It was a drop but I understand why. It's just a tough break in life for Cowboy Fans, the Team but mostly for Jackie Smith. At least, that's how I see it.

38 - 40 makes no difference,why did his feet come out from under him? because the pass started wobbling and flat out died, there's another view of this play showing nothing in front of Smith in the back of the endzone, Roger should have led him and he knows it. We all consider the play a drop because Roger threw it and Smith was a damn Cardinal.

 

[Super_Kazuya]

Horrible drop obviously, but boy was that one rotten pass by the normally reliable 4-time passing champ (which he has always owned up to). He could have struck out Wade Boggs with that diving, fluttering action. Jamie Moyer would have been proud.

 

[ABQCOWBOY]

38 - 40 makes no difference,why did his feet come out from under him? because the pass started wobbling and flat out died, there's another view of this play showing nothing in front of Smith in the back of the endzone, Roger should have led him and he knows it. We all consider the play a drop because Roger threw it and Smith was a damn Cardinal.

No. The play was designed for Smith to go to the back corner of the endzone. Because of the blitz, the pattern could not develop the way it was designed. The timing was off so you had to throw it earlier then you wanted. This is a classic situation where the TE sits down in the open zone and makes a catch. We've seen Witten do this how many times? Heck, he has made a career out of making that kind of catch. The ball is not thrown poorly. It is thrown low and to the open spot. Watch the ball, it has a slight flutter at the end but it's really a well thrown ball for the most part. It's low, which is what you want in that situation, so as not to allow for an INT and it's thrown to a spot and I don't say this because it was Roger. I would say this if it was any QB. It was not a hard adjustment to make if Smith can just get his feet under him. It's not the fault of the pass IMO. It's the other things I mentioned. The pass is one that Jackie Smith caught hundreds of times in his career. It is what it is but I would not say it was a bad pass. Was it perfect, no. But then again, the play was not perfect. It was not designed to be thrown as it was. It was a play that had to be made on the fly, and adjustment to what the Defense did.

 

[ABQCOWBOY]

Watch this clip. Pay particular attention to how Smith losses traction when he tries to sit down for the catch and watch his hands. It almost looks as if he closes them too quickly and that ball, essentially bounces off his hands there. I suspect that Smith had this ball all the way but because of the slip, he takes his eyes off the ball, trying to gain balance and that is what causes the drop. Who can say for sure but that's what it looks like to me.

http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-videos/09000d5d823b0423/Pick-six-Jackie-Smith-drop

 

[adbutcher]

His life ruined???? What about MINE???

LOL...

 

[mahoneybill]

Only by irrational people.

To put in a perspective the youngsters would understand, this is no different than pinning the loss on Patrick Crayton for his dropped football in the 2008 divisional playoff game against the Giants.

That play happened with 1:18 on the clock in the third quarter, yet gets the lion's share of the blame when many other things went wrong along the way (Fasano drop in the end zone, unnecessary roughness on Leonard Davis, McQuarters punt return, Romo intentional grounding).

In this case, Smith's drop was part of a storm that included the infamous Benny Barnes phantom interference as well as Randy White fielding a kickoff with his hand in a cast and fumbling.

Good to see someone else remembers the refs " making one up for Steelers" BB tripping call

 

[Alexander]

Good to see someone else remembers the refs " making one up for Steelers" BB tripping call

I don't see how anyone can forget that play.

It was just Bradshaw hurling it as far as he could, Barnes tripped and fell, his legs were up and Swann did an Oscar performance with a soccer player type flop over them. Just infuriating.