The One Cowboy Ex-Player You Find It Hard to Forgive

[RustyBourneHorse]

Patrick Crayton for the 2007 match. All the QBs between Aikman and Romo (though, at least Bledsoe was serviceable........sort of).

 

[RustyBourneHorse]

Brett Maher. Enuf said.

Oh yes, Brett Maher is certainly on my list. Also, Jason Garrett......yes, I know he was the coach too, but he was a player once for us so it counts hehe.

 

[RustyBourneHorse]

Troy Hambrick : )... Not that he cost the Cowboys anything, but thinking he was better than Emmitt and could fill his shoes easily. I know Parcells was a component of Emmitt no longer being there, but I would have rather Emmitt finish up the 2 years here. I think Parcells would have figured out quickly even a 34 year old Emmitt would be a better option. Then the next season there would be no reason to bring Eddie in.

This

 

[RustyBourneHorse]

Demarco Murrays fumble against g.b when he had all that open field. Would have opened that game for us

Forgot about that

 

[GORICO]

Not that any ex-Cowboy player can only find redemption in my forgiveness, but there are those guys that really could have changed history by one routine play. There are those that were just in the wrong place at the wrong time with enough frequency that they destroyed a season.

The infamous include guys like Jackie Smith.....Phil Pozderic.....Craig Morton.....Joseph Randle......Chaz Green.....Dwayne Goodrich.......Babe Laufenberg.......


Which player is responsible for the gut wrenching loss or wasted season you can never forget? Here are my top 3.

Super Bowl 5 - Craig Morton, pathetic. 12-26-127-1TD-3INT....The 127 yards passing was actually his best performance of the three playoff games that postseason. He could throw long but he had zero touch and absolute zero escapability

Super Bowl 13 - Jackie Smith, no explanation needed.

1990 season - Babe Laufenberg. The Cowboys had their own destiny in their hands when they peaked late in the 1990 season, Jimmy Johnson and Jerry Jones's second.

They were on a four game winning streak when they faced the Eagles in game #15. They hit Aikman hard early in the first quarter and he was out. Enter Laufenberg who produced an 8.8 passer rating with a 36% completion rate. The defense held the Eagles to 10 offensive points when Laufenberg saved the worse for last with a pick six.

But this isn't the game that earned him notoriety. The Cowboys still would have clinched a playoff spot with a victory in game #16 against the 4-11 Atlanta Falcons. The Falcons defensive gameplan was simple, load the box against rookie RB Emmitt Smith. Laufenberg took advantage of the Falcons keying on Smith by delivering a 38.4 passer rating including 2 INT's the last one shockingly in the area of Deion Sanders. He returned it 61 yards for a TD. The Cowboys defense held the Falcons to 17 points but the Falcons shut out the Cowboys until the final minutes of the game.

i guess a tie between babe and Jackie Smith....i was so crushed when Smith dropped certain TD pass from Staubach in super bowl 13...and Staubach being the stand up guy said after game..."ahh i threw it behind him....not as easy as it looked"....and for years Jackie Smith was haunted by the drop....i actually began to feel sorry for him....Jackie was a stand up dude too but dropped the easiest pass ever thrown to him

 

[plasticman]

Joseph Randle - Drafted in the 5th round in 2013, RB "Klepto Joe" impressed some with his 6.7 Average Yards Per Carry in his second season.

It should probably be noted that this was the season in which RB DeMarco Murray broke the Cowboys record for yardage in a single season. Occasionally Randle would come in the game to spell Murray, typically to face a fatigued and demoralized opponent defense. His best run of 65 yards occurred with less than two minutes left in the 4th quarter against the Commanders with the Cowboys leading 43-17. His second best run of 40 yards came in the 3rd quarter of a game against the Jags with the Cowboys leading 30-7.

The fact that he got most of his yardage in garbage time didn't prevent Randle from stating, in public, that Murray had left "meat on the bone", insinuating that Murray should have been able to gain more than the paltry 1845 rushing yards he recorded.

Jerry Jones seemed equally unimpressed with Murray. This had been Murray's contract year and Jerry started the negotiation by lowballing his initial contract offer until he recognized league interest and raised it too late to stop the Eagles from signing him. Undaunted, Jerry Jones claimed that Randle could handle the job with this quote:

"We have a player that has the potential -- and we based that on, not on what he did at Oklahoma State or how we drafted him, but by literally being a teammate around here for the last two years -- but he has the potential to be the kind of back that would step in there and be your No. 1 back, If he were not here, then I wouldn't feel as good as we go into the season and what might happen."

He fdailed to mention that Randle was arrested for shoplifting underwear and cologne. He was arrested again for domestic violence.

When the season started and Randle needed to stop talking the talk and start walking the walk, he rushed for 5.6 yards a carry......in the first quarter. For the rest of the game he averaged 2.5 yards a carry. In November he was arrested for a third time for creating a disturbance at a casino. The Cowboys cut him.

What upset me the most was the stark contrast between Demarco Murray and Joseph Randle, both on and off the field. DeMarco did his talking on the field, the only place Randle didn't. When Randle made his quote about Murray, he didn't respond with any attack on Randle. You never heard of a single off field incident with Murray. Murray was always a class act.

 

[ClappingCarrot]

Brett Maher. Enuf said.

I don't fault Maher nearly as much as I do Jerry and Garrett for letting that charade last as long as it did.

Never in my life have I had to hold my breath during each kick the way I had to with Maher. Ironically, the guy who replaced him in the CFL set the league record for accuracy in a season (98.1%) and also made 69 consecutive field goals.

 

[plasticman]

And Rentzel.

Dude!

While married to Joey Heatherton!

THAT......cannot be forgiven.

For those of you who weren't around for the 70's, Joey Heatherton the was Hippie Sex Bomb of the Decade. And Lance Rentzel would rather....I'm not even going to say it.

 

[Bullflop]

I'm still a bit upset with Ratliff but in retrospect, Jerry was asking for trouble by hounding him like he did. He did the same with Larry Allen and he was never the same. Yet, Ratliff got paid and left the team holding the bag. I wondered if the players held it against him but they didn't appear to.

 

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Harvey Martin beat his wife never really was punished for it.

 

[OmerV]

Dude!

While married to Joey Heatherton!

THAT......cannot be forgiven.

For those of you who weren't around for the 70's, Joey Heatherton the was Hippie Sex Bomb of the Decade. And Lance Rentzel would rather....I'm not even going to say it.

Yep, Joey was incredibly hot ant Lance was severely screwed up.

 

[BackInTown]

This is such a good topic. I agree with most of the comments... We could honestly discuss this separately for every decade, but the 2000-2020 era has the most letdowns. There are many different kinds of letdowns, from contract issues, off field behavior, and injuries to poor effort, poor play, or just on-field mistakes that were too big to live down. Crayton let us down in the biggest moment of his career, ultimately allowing a Giants team we had beaten twice to pass us in the way to a SB. At least he wasn’t trying to give up, but this was a big disappointment for a player who you could usually rely on to run good

Ratliff overtly gave up on the team while taking his cash, and those two things contributed significantly to a downturn that left us wasting (or giving away) the twilight of the rest of the ‘05 draft class and the last sustained stretch of Romo/Witten excellence.

We could have a separate section on this just for kickers...

Marion Barber let us down in a different way... man, was he great, but he just never was going to be a guy who could play all 4 quarters, and again, we paid him right when his play fell off a cliff. I’ll always love the Barbarian though, so it doesn’t really fit the bill.

Speaking of play falling off a cliff, Roy Williams (SS) was a huge disappointment after his first few seasons, although much of the blame for that goes to changing rules and a changing game. Although he kept going to the ProBowl, he was a big liability for years.

 

[RS12]

Jim Boeke false start from the Packer one yard line in the 1966 NFL championship in a 2nd and goal situation.