Boys Will Be Boys

by Jeff Pearlman

  “You don’t walk up in no professional organization in no polka-dotted two-piece short set on,” says Cowboys fullback Tommie Agee. “Everybody—absolutely everybody—gave him grief for that.”

  Eight hours earlier Smith had been sitting on a friend’s couch in Pensacola Beach, Florida, anxiously watching the NFL Draft and waiting for his name to be called. In his three years at the University of Florida, Smith had set school records with 3,928 rushing yards and 36 touchdowns. He had exceeded 100 yards in twenty-five of thirty-four games, including a 224-yard effort against Alabama in his first collegiate start. Smith knew he was a Top 10 pick.

  And yet, there were doubters. At 5-foot-9 and 200 pounds, Smith was significantly smaller than the prototypical NFL back. Of greater concern was the speed dilemma: Smith didn’t have any. In college, he was often caught from behind by cornerbacks and (egad) linebackers. To ease the minds of NFL scouts, in the weeks before the draft Howell held an open workout for Smith at Florida. His client excelled in all areas—blocking, pass catching, strength. Then he ran the 40 in a pedestrian 4.59 seconds. “Emmitt is so competitive that he’s arguing when they tell him the time,” Howell recalls. “Not only did they argue back, they told him he rocked the start, which makes the time faster. As he’s arguing I’m thinking, Emmitt, you have to stop this.”

  Smith did stop—and ran another disappointing 4.59. Still, in his mind the sluggish time made little difference. Smith kept a list of his professional goals on a piece of paper back home:

  LEAD NFL IN RUSHING

  NFL ROOKIE OF THE YEAR

  HALL OF FAME

  NFL’S ALL-TIME LEADING RUSHER

  GREATEST RUNNING BACK EVER!!!

  The list was equal parts admirable and wacko. To many of the men involved in collegiate scouting, Smith projected as a change-of-pace back who, after some seasoning, could maybe get fifteen carries a game. He certainly didn’t compare with Penn State’s all-everything Blair Thomas, the faster, stronger, more powerful tailback who would go No. 2 to the New York Jets.

  As the draft dragged on, Smith’s frustration mounted. “It was scary,” says Howell. “We thought he’d go between ten and thirty, but it was a deep draft. I was told the Falcons had him rated the sixth-or seventh-best running back.”

  When North Carolina State’s Ray Agnew was tabbed by New England with the tenth pick, Smith stormed out of his friend’s house and stared down at the soothing waves of the Gulf of Mexico. He was one of the first junior eligible players to apply for the draft, and perhaps it was a mistake. The negative thoughts flowed through his head. Maybe I should have stayed in school. Maybe I made the biggest blunder of my life.

  Approximately forty-five minutes later, Smith’s mother, Mary, frantically screamed for her son to return inside. Bob Ackles, player personnel director for the Cowboys, was on the phone. He wanted to talk.

  “Emmitt,” Ackles said, “how would you like to be a Dallas Cowboy?”

  With those ten words, a team’s history was forever changed. As the years passed and Smith emerged as an all-time great, we were often told that Dallas traded up from the twenty-first pick to the seventeenth to take Smith, and that everyone was gaga for him from the beginning.

  If it were only so simple.

  Johnson approached the draft intent on finding the best available pass rusher. His first two cravings, USC linebacker Junior Seau and Miami defensive tackle Cortez Kennedy, were off the board before Dallas picked. So, for that matter, was James Francis, the Baylor linebacker. Johnson was so opposed to the idea of selecting an offensive player that changing his mind required Joe Brodsky, the team’s crusty running backs coach, to stand atop the table in the team’s Valley Ranch draft room and scream, “This is the guy, dammit! Emmitt Smith is the guy!” Brodsky had studied tapes of every game Smith had played in college and high school. He loved what he saw.

  Johnson relented. “One of the best decisions I ever made,” he says. “How important was Emmitt to turning the thing around? He was vital.”

  There was just one problem: Emmitt Smith wanted money. Lots of money.

  Jerry Jones, on the other hand, was still aching from the abuse he took one year earlier, when he was crucified for paying Aikman $11 million—well above market value for a No. 1 pick. Though far from thin-skinned, Jones was sensitive to criticisms that he was an overmatched Arkansas hayseed. It hardly helped that, in the immediate aftermath of the draft, Jones raved to a local radio host that the Cowboys had Smith rated “fourth overall” on their draft list. “This is a bright spot,” Jones said. “It’s going to make Nate Newton block better, make Troy throw better, and make that defense a lot better, having this guy on our squad.”

  Rule No. 1 in potential contract talks: Keep your praise to a minimum.

  It didn’t take long to realize that Jones’s draft-day euphoria would not carry over into negotiations. As the team reported to its new training camp at St. Edward’s University in Austin, Smith returned to Pensacola and bunkered down for a lengthy process. Jones’s initial presentation was a five-year deal for $3.2 million—less than what picks No. 15, 16, 18, and 19 signed for. When Howell dismissed the offer as insulting, Jones went on the offensive. “Howell told me right from the start that he’s a litigator,” he told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. “All he’s doing is dragging something out that doesn’t have to be that way.”

  If Jones wanted to play hardball, Smith would play hardball. With the University of Florida about to begin its fall semester, Smith drove to Gainesville and enrolled in classes. A theraputic recreation major, he had long ago promised his mother that he would earn a degree. So why not be proactive?

  The tactic was brilliant. In Gainesville, Smith was strolling to and from classes, basking in the laid-back atmosphere, and even making local headlines for running down two thugs who vandalized a former teammate’s Corvette (EMMITT’S IN MOTION: HE MAKES THE CATCH! raved the St. Petersburg Times). In Austin, meanwhile, the Cowboys’ top running back was Timmy Smith, the former Redskin who, less than three years earlier, had rushed for 204 yards in Super Bowl XXII. Now fat and lazy, Timmy Smith was a disaster. Shula recalls one practice in which Smith was supposed to follow a pattern called “the Choice Route,” where he would run six yards and cut either left or right. Instead Smith bolted twenty yards down the field and made two or three jukes. When Shula asked Smith if he was confused, the back replied, “Coach, you said it was a choice route. I chose to do something different.”

  By the first week of September the Cowboys were desperate. Not only was Timmy Smith heading the depth chart, but the team sent two draft picks to Houston for fullback Alonzo Highsmith, a former standout for Johnson at the University of Miami who, in the wake of two arthroscopic knee surgeries, was a shell of his collegiate self. Johnson praised Highsmith as “one of the outstanding talents in the NFL,” hoping his words would reach Emmitt Smith’s ears.

  Perhaps they did.

  On September 4, 1990, one day after the Highsmith trade and five days before the Cowboys’ season opener against San Diego, Smith agreed on a four-year deal worth $650,000 annually. According to Howell, the final contract was a nod to Jones’s ego as much as it was about money. “Jerry was concerned about the reaction from other owners,” says Howell. “So we had a little outside deal for $50,000 per year that didn’t go in the main contract, we had a signing bonus of $40,000 and a reporting bonus of $40,000 and all sorts of incentives which were also gimmes.”

  But the key, from Jones’s vantage point, was that it at least appeared to others that Smith was locked up for four years and a reasonable amount of money. Hence, the provision for a fourth year at $495,000 that became void when Smith so much as stepped onto the field for one game at any point in his career.

  “Jerry was able to report a four-year deal,” says Howell, “and we were able to get Emmitt in uniform and ready to play. It was win-win.”

  When Smith finally joined the Cowboys, he discovered a team whose roster looked vastly different f
rom the 1–15 laughingstock of a season earlier. Dallas had brought in a league-high sixteen Plan B free agents, including safety James Washington from the Los Angeles Rams, wide receiver Dennis McKinnon from the Chicago Bears, and fullback Tommie Agee from the Kansas City Chiefs. The team also added a lightly regarded tight end from the Phoenix Cardinals named Jay Novacek. “Professionals,” says McKinnon. “We were professional football players who knew how to play the game right.”

  On the first day of camp, well before Smith had officially joined the team, Johnson called his players together and announced, “Our goal is to get to the Super Bowl…”

  Long pause.

  “…this season.”

  Was he nuts? The Cowboys had won a single game the year before. Surely, the Super Bowl was out of reach. “Yeah, it was out of reach,” says Washington, the new safety. “But I bought what he was saying. He wasn’t telling us that we would win the Super Bowl. He was telling us that if we don’t believe, we’ll never win the Super Bowl.”

  Following a 1–3 exhibition run (if the staff learned one thing, it was to pay the preseason little mind), the Cowboys opened at home on September 9 against San Diego. With Emmitt Smith watching from the sidelines for all but a handful of plays, the Cowboys slogged through three and a half quarters of mediocrity. But everything changed seven minutes into the fourth, when San Diego, leading 14–10, faced a fourth-and-6 from the Dallas 48-yard line. Instead of kicking the ball away, Chargers coach Dan Henning called for a fake punt. The ball was snapped directly to linebacker Gary Plummer, who ran two yards before being tackled by Dallas safety Bill Bates. Aikman proceeded to march his team down the field, then dive into the end zone for the 17–14 triumph. The quarterback was swarmed by teammates, who hugged and high-fived their young leader.

  The Cowboys were undefeated.

  Afterward, a distraught Henning took exaggerated pulls from his Marlboro. You don’t lose to the Dallas Cowboys. You just don’t. “I told the players, ‘I called it,’” said Henning. “‘It was my dumb mistake.’”

  A few hours after the win, Johnson and Shula agreed that Timmy Smith—who had gained 6 yards on 6 carries versus San Diego—would be released and replaced in the starting lineup by Emmitt Smith. The following Sunday, the new starter gained 11 yards on a half-dozen carries in a humiliating 28–7 loss to the Giants at Texas Stadium. This was the savior? “Emmitt just wasn’t that impressive,” says tight end Rob Awalt. “When you first see people, you’re measuring speed, size, strength, explosiveness—all the things that make up that ‘Wow!’ factor. Emmitt didn’t look like he had any ‘Wow!’” Smith spent much of the afternoon sulking along the sidelines. When the game ended, he rushed toward the locker room, frustration etched across his face. “I roomed with Emmitt, and I told everyone that I was sharing a room with the man who would make Cowboy fans forget Tony Dorsett,” says Crawford Ker, the offensive guard. “Emmitt just wanted a chance to play and show what he could do. Not getting it frustrated the hell out of him.”

  Smith was far from the unhappiest Cowboy.

  Through the ups and downs of a tumultuous rookie year, Troy Aikman believed that, inevitably, he would wind up the Cowboys’ starting quarterback. Granted, Johnson’s loyalty to Steve Walsh was more than a tad disconcerting. But if one thing became clear during the mono-win season, it was that Aikman was a far superior player. Teammates saw it. Assistant coaches saw it. Even Jones saw it. Aikman was simply too big, too powerful, too talented. “Steve had a lot of knowledge,” says Gerald Alphin, a veteran NFL receiver, “but he had an arm like a noodle.”

  Johnson remained unswayed. Against the powerful Giants in Week 2, Aikman had one of the better games of his young professional career, completing 10 of 18 passes for 109 yards. Four of his incompletions were drops. “In two years Aikman will be the best quarterback in the NFL,” Giants linebacker Carl Banks predicted afterward. “He’s strong, he’s full of confidence, and he never gets rattled.”

  Maybe so. But when one of Aikman’s fourth-quarter passes was tipped and returned for a touchdown by Lawrence Taylor, Johnson inserted Walsh. Afterward a furious Aikman stormed from the locker room, only briefly speaking with the media.

  Though he continued to publicly support Aikman, in private Johnson had little good to say about a player who, he was quite certain, would spend his career lathered in mediocrity. Johnson went so far as to call Aikman “a loser” to a handful of reporters—a scathing label for a professional athlete. When the insult reached Aikman, he was crestfallen. “Troy was stung by Jimmy’s actions and words,” says Awalt. “As a result, he wasn’t able to trust him.”

  In his five years at Miami, Johnson’s starting quarterbacks were Walsh, Bernie Kosar, and Vinny Testaverde—intelligent players who could improvise with the flow of a game. Aikman did not work in such a way. He needed a play called, he needed a primary target, and he needed to know that, after eight steps and a hard cut to the right, the receiver would be in the exact spot. When all went as planned, Aikman could be brilliant. When routes were blown or the line collapsed, Aikman could be Turk Schonert.

  “Jimmy wanted Troy and me to call our own plays to see how comfortable we were with the system and to let the coaches know what we liked and didn’t like,” says Walsh. “I thrived under it and Troy struggled. He said, ‘Y’all just call the plays. I’ll execute it—but I don’t wanna think about what to call.’ I was always the more cerebral quarterback, and thrived in that system of picking plays and designing ideas.”

  Had the option been available, Johnson would have gladly traded Aikman and handed Walsh the keys to the Cowboys. But as the No. 1 pick of the new administration, Aikman was the handsome, rich face of the franchise. No. 8 AIKMAN jerseys filled Texas Stadium. No. 3 WALSH jerseys did not. Fans were already concerned that Jones and Johnson were out of their league. To deal Aikman would confirm it. “Jimmy just needed to leave Troy alone and get the fuck out of the way,” says Mark Stepnoski, the team’s center. “The more he messed with his mind, the worse it was for us. We all knew Troy had a bright future. Why didn’t Jimmy?”

  One week after the Giants loss, the dilemma was settled. Dallas sent Walsh to New Orleans for No. 1 and No. 3 picks in 1991 and a No. 2 in 1992. The trade allowed Johnson to save face—he could say, “We always knew Troy was our quarterback” and seem to mean it. But the truth remains: Johnson wanted Walsh to be his guy, and it simply didn’t happen. Couldn’t happen.

  With his rival off to the Bayou, Aikman was at last the starting quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys.

  Now all he had to do was win.

  Watching the Cowboys of 1990 was akin to sitting through a sixteen-week Days of Our Lives marathon—while drunk. There were brief highs followed by indomitable lows. There were breakout performances followed by unpredictable setbacks. The team won its opener, then lost three straight. It pulled out a nail-biter over Tampa Bay in Week 5 and got crushed by the hapless Phoenix Cardinals the following Sunday.

  Thanks to the play of veteran safeties James Washington and Ray Horton and the emergence of third-year linebacker Ken Norton, Jr., the defense was no longer a Tiffany’s box for opposing offensive coordinators to unwrap and open. Through the first ten games of 1990, only two opponents exceeded 28 points. The Cowboys’ defenders were faster, younger, and significantly more determined than in recent years. “I wanted to make sure every one of my teammates hit the other players so hard their skulls would fall from their bodies,” says Washington. “That’s the attitude I brought.”

  The offense was a different story. Despite the arrival of Emmitt Smith, the Cowboys could not score. At first, the blame fell on the inconsistent Aikman, who could dazzle one week, then throw three interceptions the next. Finally, fed-up members of the team went to Johnson with complaints about a coach who, according to dozens of players, was single-handedly responsible for Dallas’s feebleness.

  David Shula had to go.

  “The man,” says Ray Alexander, a Cowboy receiver, “was a true butt-he
ad.”

  Put simply, Shula was not a viable NFL offensive coordinator. He was a nice guy who, at age thirty-one, was well suited to tutor Division I-AA tight ends or, better yet, sell insurance or manage a steak house.

  But there was that thing; that…name.

  Within the National Football League, the surname “Shula” evokes the same awe that accompanies “Kennedy” in American politics or “Pulitzer” in the media. Don Shula, after all, was not merely David’s father, but a legendary figure who, over the course of a thirty-three-year career with the Baltimore Colts and Miami Dolphins, would win an unprecedented 347 games and appear in half a dozen Super Bowls.

  As a boy David roamed practices as the unofficial ballboy and, come Sunday, charted games from the stands. What he liked most was running routes with Dolphin receivers Paul Warfield and Howard Twilley, then picking their brains on technique. Twilley taught him the subtleties of pattern running. “Howard was slow,” Shula later said, “but he knew exactly how he did things.”

  The same went for the analytical Shula, who starred for four years as a wide receiver at Dartmouth before spending the 1981 season as a kick returner with the Baltimore Colts. The following year Shula was enrolled in the University of Baltimore Law School when Wally English, the Dolphins’ receivers coach, left with two regular-season games remaining to accept the head coaching job at Tulane. Dad needed a fill-in. “I was going to return [to school] the second week in January,” David said. “But then we got into the playoffs, and we won the first game, and we won the second game, and then we went to the Super Bowl. Then my father asked me to stay on for the next season.”

  Within six years, twenty-nine-year-old David Shula’s title had become “assistant head coach.” But with nepotism came ridicule. Around the league Shula was deemed a lightweight. “I never thought my last name hurt me,” he says. “But the age thing was tough.”