This day in history - Emmitt Smith - NFL All Time Rushing Leader

[big dog cowboy]

 

[CT Dal Fan]

I remember that game so vividly. There was a postgame ceremony for Emmitt and all I could keep thinking was the Cowboys just lost 17-14 to Seattle.

And yet there was nothing but smiles all around. Don't get me wrong, I was thrilled Emmitt got the record, but I wanted the win more.

 

[jazzcat22]

And I almost bought tickets to that game. there were 2 home games I thought he could get the record. Giants or Seahawks, but I really believed he would have got it on the road the game before.
I was going to get tickets to the Seahawks game, but at the time there was a good possibility I would be out of town also, but in town for the giants game. so I just kept putting it off, then when I decided, I couldn't get tickets. This was before all the online tickets sales explosion that goes on today. For as far as I knew anyway at the time.

I blew that one. Should have just got the tickets before the season when I could have.

 

[jazzcat22]

I remember that game so vividly. There was a postgame ceremony for Emmitt and all I could keep thinking was the Cowboys just lost 17-14 to Seattle.

And yet there was nothing but smiles all around. Don't get me wrong, I was thrilled Emmitt got the record, but I wanted the win more.

Yes that loss put a damper on the entire record. Everyone knew he was going to break the record, and it was just a matter of time. But losing kind of made it anti-climatic.
I have the game on video, it was one of the few losses I kept of all the games I have from Emmitt's career.

 

[jmac]

This was the day I realized that I was more a fan of the Cowboys team than any Individual player because I was more upset that Dallas lost than I was happy for Emmitt Smith

 

[CWR]

I was at that game. Crazy atmosphere waiting for him to take that record. It was loud from the moment the drive started and then errupted when he broke it. Sadly I was young and didnt stick around for the ceremony, too pissed off that we lost.

 

[SSoup]

I remember that game so vividly. There was a postgame ceremony for Emmitt and all I could keep thinking was the Cowboys just lost 17-14 to Seattle.

And yet there was nothing but smiles all around. Don't get me wrong, I was thrilled Emmitt got the record, but I wanted the win more.

The Cowboys would've certainly been better off if we hadn't kept him so long, and he ended up setting the record in another uniform.

I know the salary cap reality was relatively new back in those days, and people often excuse dumb salary cap mistakes in the '90s as a case of not knowing any better because "the cap was so new" and "how could we have known?".

But, knowing what we know now about how the league transformed under the cap, handing a 27-year old RB a huge 8-year contract extension was hilariously stupid.

He was never gonna run for 20 TDs again. Wouldn't even sniff the higher or the mid-teens again.

After averaging 1600 rushing yards per season the previous 5 years, he was never gonna sniff those kinds of yards ever again.

He was certainly never gonna run for 5 yards a carry again. Wouldn't even sniff the higher or the mid-4's.

He'd struggle to crack 4.0 yards per carry (and he got stuck in the 3's just as often) and he'd average single-digit TD runs per year after that extension. And he'd typically be in the 1000-1200 yard area. Not terrible, certainly. But also nowhere near being the player he'd been earlier in his career. And we spent 7 years paying him as if he was still that player he'd been before.

If you could hop into a time machine and tell Jerry anything, one of the smartest things you could do is show up the day after we won the Super Bowl against the Steelers, and tell Jerry how the league and how the cap is going to look down the road. Tell him he needs to trade Emmitt immediately for picks and devote that money elsewhere. We could've gotten more out of Troy's last years (kept him a little healthier, given him better weapons, prolonged his career a bit) and started to stock up on defense ahead of the new offensive NFL that was coming on fast. Instead, we doubled-down on Emmitt at the expense of our defense and our passing game (and even our o-line), at the exact moment when the NFL was about to start trending a completely different way.

Advising Jerry not to handcuff himself to an aging RB and torpedo his salary cap situation? That would probably be the best '90s advice you could give him after "Play nice with Jimmy" and "Don't pass on Randy Moss."

 

[Thomas82]

I remember that game so vividly. There was a postgame ceremony for Emmitt and all I could keep thinking was the Cowboys just lost 17-14 to Seattle.

And yet there was nothing but smiles all around. Don't get me wrong, I was thrilled Emmitt got the record, but I wanted the win more.

We would have probably gotten the win if we gave the ball to Emmitt just a little bit more......thanks Bruce Coslet!!

 

[Thomas82]

The Cowboys would've certainly been better off if we hadn't kept him so long, and he ended up setting the record in another uniform.

I know the salary cap reality was relatively new back in those days, and people often excuse dumb salary cap mistakes in the '90s as a case of not knowing any better because "the cap was so new" and "how could we have known?".

But, knowing what we know now about how the league transformed under the cap, handing a 27-year old RB a huge 8-year contract extension was hilariously stupid.

He was never gonna run for 20 TDs again. Wouldn't even sniff the higher or the mid-teens again.

After averaging 1600 rushing yards per season the previous 5 years, he was never gonna sniff those kinds of yards ever again.

He was certainly never gonna run for 5 yards a carry again. Wouldn't even sniff the higher or the mid-4's.

He'd struggle to crack 4.0 yards per carry (and he got stuck in the 3's just as often) and he'd average single-digit TD runs per year after that extension. And he'd typically be in the 1000-1200 yard area. Not terrible, certainly. But also nowhere near being the player he'd been earlier in his career. And we spent 7 years paying him as if he was still that player he'd been before.

If you could hop into a time machine and tell Jerry anything, one of the smartest things you could do is show up the day after we won the Super Bowl against the Steelers, and tell Jerry how the league and how the cap is going to look down the road. Tell him he needs to trade Emmitt immediately for picks and devote that money elsewhere. We could've gotten more out of Troy's last years (kept him a little healthier, given him better weapons, prolonged his career a bit) and started to stock up on defense ahead of the new offensive NFL that was coming on fast. Instead, we doubled-down on Emmitt at the expense of our defense and our passing game (and even our o-line), at the exact moment when the NFL was about to start trending a completely different way.

Advising Jerry not to handcuff himself to an aging RB and torpedo his salary cap situation? That would probably be the best '90s advice you could give him after "Play nice with Jimmy" and "Don't pass on Randy Moss."

I believe if he didn't get injured in the preseason in 1996, he would have gotten 1,500 yards and around 15 touchdowns. He would have led the league in rushing for a 5th time in 1999 if not for the broken hand and groin injury.

 

[SSoup]

I believe if he didn't get injured in the preseason in 1996, he would have gotten 1,500 yards and around 15 touchdowns. He would have led the league in rushing for a 5th time in 1999 if not for the broken hand and groin injury.

I mean, he finished behind Stephen Davis that year, if I remember right, and Davis missed even more playing time than Emmitt. If we're waving a magic wand to remove injuries from the equation, I don't think that propels him in front of everyone who also gets to be totally healthy.

But, even if I grant the premise that he'd have been closer to being worth his contract in 2 out of 7 of those years if not for injuries, I'm still calling it a lousy contract. Love what he did for us in 91-95, but we'd have been better off adapting to the changing league instead of doubling down with a huge 8-year deal for a RB. A younger, cheaper RB would've done just fine in our offense if we'd kept our passing attack dangerous and kept our o-line good.

On offense, we'd have been better off diverting the resources to the passing weapons and the o-line for Troy. A younger, cheaper RB would've plugged in just fine. (Heck, Chris Warren was even older than Emmitt and even he plugged in fine as the backup during the Gailey years.) Or we could've focused resources on keeping the defense afloat instead of them sinking just as offenses were getting more and more dangerous in the late '90s.

I know it's not popular to say, but we screwed ourselves by clinging to Emmitt so long at such an expensive price. The game changed and we took way too long to notice.

 

[ChronicCowboy]

Was there. Emmitt needed quite a few yards to break it that day and there were two road games upcoming. You could tell how bad he wanted to do it in front of the home fans.

 

[Thomas82]

I mean, he finished behind Stephen Davis that year, if I remember right, and Davis missed even more playing time than Emmitt. If we're waving a magic wand to remove injuries from the equation, I don't think that propels him in front of everyone who also gets to be totally healthy.

But, even if I grant the premise that he'd have been closer to being worth his contract in 2 out of 7 of those years if not for injuries, I'm still calling it a lousy contract. Love what he did for us in 91-95, but we'd have been better off adapting to the changing league instead of doubling down with a huge 8-year deal for a RB. A younger, cheaper RB would've done just fine in our offense if we'd kept our passing attack dangerous and kept our o-line good.

On offense, we'd have been better off diverting the resources to the passing weapons and the o-line for Troy. A younger, cheaper RB would've plugged in just fine. (Heck, Chris Warren was even older than Emmitt and even he plugged in fine as the backup during the Gailey years.) Or we could've focused resources on keeping the defense afloat instead of them sinking just as offenses were getting more and more dangerous in the late '90s.

I know it's not popular to say, but we screwed ourselves by clinging to Emmitt so long at such an expensive price. The game changed and we took way too long to notice.

Well, Emmitt was actually in the lead when he broke his hand. He finished 8 yards behind Stephen Davis, who played 14 games that season. Emmitt missed the 2nd half against the Vikings, the whole whole game against the Packers, and left the Eagles game after his first carry with a groin injury. That's basically the equivalent of 2 1/2 games that Emmitt missed.

 

[SSoup]

Well, Emmitt was actually in the lead when he broke his hand. He finished 8 yards behind Stephen Davis, who played 14 games that season. Emmitt missed the 2nd half against the Vikings, the whole whole game against the Packers, and left the Eagles game after his first carry with a groin injury. That's basically the equivalent of 2 1/2 games that Emmitt missed.

I'm betting Davis also missed time in other games that year, but since I'm not a Commanders fan I obviously don't know all their guys' injuries from 1999.

Either way, as I said, even if we assume Emmitt was good enough to have eked out one last league-leading rushing yardage total during this period, it still doesn't change that the 8-year extension was unwise.

I'm not saying the team should have known in 1996 exactly how the relatively new salary cap economics would play out. I'm just saying, in hindsight, it was a laughably dumb move. Overpaying anyone based solely on accomplishments from their earlier years, which they'll never repeat again, always hurts. Doing it at the RB position is the easiest landmine to avoid. Handing a veteran RB a massive 8-year contract is like intentionally stepping on that easily avoidable landmine. If we'd avoided it, perhaps we wouldn't have sunk into irrelevancy the way we did.

 

[John813]

GOAT.

Loved watching that live and still break a big smile to this day when that clip is played.

Was blown away back then when they paused the game for the celebration.

 

[haleyrules]

God bless Emmitt Smith. Cowboy hero.

 

[haleyrules]

I shouldn't say it on this thread..but I was a big Tony Dorsett fan too. The Cowboys have been blessed with great players.

 

[CowboyStar88]

Loved me some 22 he was special... The relationship he developed with Payton and his family was an incredible story. He truly was a special player. Glad I got to witness his career at Florida and in Dallas

 

[Melonfeud]

I shouldn't say it on this thread..but I was a big Tony Dorsett fan too. The Cowboys have been blessed with great players.

Copy! I never could bring myself to actually hate #35 Calvin Hill after he donned the skins jersey,,,and I hated the redskins

 

[haleyrules]

Copy! I never could bring myself to actually hate #35 Calvin Hill after he donned the skins jersey,,,and I hated the redskins

Hill was another favourite of mine...l still admire him. Walt Garrison was a boy l thought highly of. Too many great old time Cowboys.

 

[Melonfeud]

Hill was another favourite of mine...l still admire him. Walt Garrison was a boy l thought highly of. Too many great old time Cowboys.

LoL I remember #32 Skoal commercials, I dipped that stuff starting around 13-14 y.o. my mom had to buy me rolls of it,,(, I can remember it like yesterday she'd wing them at me cuz' I'd be outside waiting on her to come home from shopping,,,, thanks for the memories, WALT)