Landry was already on record that he was drafting Aikman. The difference is that he would not have drafted Emmitt because he would never have traded Herschel. It's often overlooked that Landry was putting together a pretty good roster of future pro-bowlers before he was canned.
Newton, Tuinei, Norton, Gogan, Herschel and Irvin were already in the fold. They were planning on adding Aikman to the mix in '89. Jimmy came in and ripped the bandages off when it came to aging veterans like Randy, Danny, Too-Tall etc. But I suspect Landry was going to do that too. Landry just would not have thrown Troy to the wolves the way Jimmy did and let him take that beating.. which in turn may have let Troy have a longer career. Jimmy turned the roster over quicker than Landry would have I think.. but I also think Landry was respectful enough not to pi$$ all over his boss unlike Jimmy. Of course with cancer taking him out not to long after it wasn't going to end well anyway..
I never bought into the notion that Landry had forgotten how to coach.. He had been too good for too long for me to buy that. Where the Cowboys failed in the 80's was talent evaluation. They missed on too many high picks .. Sherrard, Noonan, Cannon, "Hogenboom" as Landry liked to call him.. The list is long of guys who the Cowboys went in on but got little or nothing on the field.. Picking up the guys I mentioned above indicated that they might have been on the way to solving that.. Once you got him good players I think Landry would have done fine..
This is a very interesting take. People always remember the mid and latter years of the 80’s as bad seasons. However, after losing three consecutive NFCCG from 80-82, in 83 they were 12-4 and lost in the WC game v. LA Rams. In 84 they famously missed the playoffs for the first time since the 60’s but they rebounded in 85 and won the NFCE only to lose to the LA Rams again in the playoffs.
Now 86 was an interesting year. The Cowboys were legit in that year, they started the season as a power offensive team. Paul Hackett was brought over from San Francisco to run the offense, which was further turbo-charged by adding Herschel Walker, after the USFL folded, and by adding a pretty nice WR in Mike Sherrard. Now that 86 team was scoring 30 + points In almost every game and the record at mid season was 6-2 and leading the division. They have already beaten the NY Giants on MNF.
However, It was during the second game v giants @ NY (whom eventually won the SB that year) when Danny White suffered a season ending injury. From there the Cowboys only scored 20 + points only once the remainder of the season and unsurprisingly won only one more game. 1987, the year of the strike was a mediocre year (7-9) and 88 was a terrible year with Pelluer as the starting QB.
By then Danny White was in his mid 30s and the Cowboys didn’t have a legit quarterback. The backups, Pelluer, Sweeney et al. were all JAGs. Nobody to power the offense during those years after so much investment on that side of the ball. To me that was the difference in those years. The failure of addressing the QB position until 89 when Aikman became available. But by then it was too late for Landry.
Nevertheless, it would have been interesting to see a Cowboys team led by Tom Landry with many of the building blocks that had success in the 90’s as you mentioned above already in place and a young stud at QB. Granted perhaps there were no more Super Bowls, however I’m not that sure.
