The Long, Slow Fall from the Mountain

The football team upon whose wins and losses I once lived and died is again in the playoffs. But in the midst of a dismal post-season stretch that dates back twenty-two years, excitement is muted. Expectations sit at a table marked 'reserved'.

Once upon a time, such a thing was unthinkable. In the days of Tom Landry and Gil Brandt and Tex Schramm, the Dallas Cowboys were damn near invincible. A perennial power beginning in the mid-sixties and stretching all the way to the mid-eighties, they sustained their success with only an occasional first-round draft pick.

When they had one, they drafted unerringly: DT Bob Lilly in 1961. LB Lee Roy Jordan in 1963. G John Niland in 1966. DE Ed “Too Tall” Jones in 1974. DT Randy White in 1975 and RB Tony Dorsett in 1977.

But the bulk of their rosters were built with late-round picks and walk-ons. Like 1965 eleventh-round DT Jethro Pugh. And 1965 Baltimore Colt castoff OT Ralph Neely. 1967 seventh-round OT Rayfield Wright. Or the 1973 signing of the undrafted NFL 1970s All-Decade Team's wide receiver, Drew Pearson.

The 1968 draft was especially fruitful, yielding fifth-round OT Blaine Nye, sixth-round LB D.D. Lewis and sixteenth-round DE Larry Cole. And 1975 was even better, refueling the already-powerful Cowboys with deep-round gems like G Herbert Scott, LB Mike Hegman, OT Pat Donovan and LB Bob Breunig.

All were long-term starters who played with distinction. Many were named to Pro-Bowl and All-Pro squads. Some made it to the Hall of Fame.

The list goes on.

There's 1964 tenth-round QB Roger Staubach, who scared off many teams because of his Navy commitment. Come to think of it, perhaps those clubs knew more than the Cowboys. Because six Pro-Bowls, an NFL MVP, a Super Bowl MVP, two world championships, four Super Bowl appearances and enshrinement in the Football Hall of Fame is abundantly disturbing.

There's seventh-round pick Bob Hayes, who after gaining fame as a sprinter in the 1964 Olympics was chosen by the Cowboys in a decision that revolutionized the position of wide receiver.

Third-round SS Charlie Waters, who was selected to three Pro-Bowls. Third-round DE Harvey Martin, named to four Pro-Bowls. Fourth-round C John Fitzgerald. And finally, six-time Pro-Bowler slash walk-on FS Cliff Harris.

It was a remarkable time. No NFL team won more games over the course of the decade than the nineteen-seventies Dallas Cowboys. No team went to more Super Bowls. Only the Pittsburgh Steelers won more.

Inevitably, what goes up must come down. By the close of the seventies, many of the stalwarts cited above had begun to retire. Some were traded. Some sustained career-ending injuries. Equally-talented replacements weren't always found.

Even the masters of evaluation, Gil Brandt and Tex Shramm, began missing. But the biggest loss was the 1980 retirement of quarterback Roger Staubach.

An older-than-normal rookie owing to his Navy obligation, he was 27 when he debuted with the Cowboys in 1969. He was 29 when he secured the starting QB position over Craig Morton in 1971. As a full-time starter in just eight of his eleven seasons, Staubach made them count.

His discipline and conservative lifestyle were frequently at odds with his teammate's free-wheeling ways, but on Sundays Staubach had an uncanny knack for corralling them and leading all concerned to victory.

However talented he was, Staubach's successor—Danny White—never seemed capable of exerting the same kind of leadership. On momentum alone, the Cowboys visited the next three conference championship games but lost in successive years to Philadelphia, San Francisco and Washington.

The Cowboys continued to win, but never got close to another Super Bowl.

There was a brief and highly-celebrated resurgence in the early-nineties, when it looked as if new owner and GM Jerry Jones and coach Jimmy Johnson might re-create the glory days. But their dueling egos made this impossible, and Johnson resigned after the 1994 season.

With a talented core still intact (and still undiminished by injury and substance abuse problems), the Cowboys won another Super Bowl in 1995, making it three championships in four years.

But Jones' increasing involvement in the day-to-day operations of the team was a source of friction with a succession of coaches, even as Jones devoted more and more time to making the Cowboys a financial juggernaut. The grinding minutia of talent evaluation was pushed to the back seat.

With a few notable exceptions, the Cowboys' draft picks suffered accordingly.

The Cowboys have likewise ebbed and flowed. A good season here and there followed by repeated lapses into irrelevance. None of Tom Landry's seven successors have eclipsed his achievements, just as Jones hasn't made anyone forget Gil Brandt and Tex Schramm.

For every Brock Marion or Tony Tolbert there were three Shante Carvers or Ebenezer Ekubans or Bobby Carpenters. And however remarkable Tony Romo's story was, insofar as championships were concerned he was closer to Don Meredith and Danny White than Roger Staubach or Troy Aikman.

While Meredith's teams were derided as the team that “Couldn't win the big one”, Romo struggled even to win the little ones.

I suppose it was only natural that the Cowboys would return to earth. Inhabit again the land of mortals after twenty consecutive winning seasons and rosters stuffed with Hall of Famers and Pro-Bowlers.

All these years later, I'm left to wish the franchise wallowing in a team-record championship drought and saddled with a 4-10 post-season record (4-3 at home, 0-7 on the road. 4-4 in the wild card round, 0-6 in the divisional one) since their last Super Bowl had an owner as adept at enriching his team as he was at enriching himself.