In a moment dismissed as laughable by most players, Switzer opened the 1995 quarterback school by delivering a thirteen-minute, profanity-laced speech. “I told you a year ago at this time that it was your team!” he barked. “What I’m telling you today is now it’s my team!”
The general reaction: Whatever, Coach. Whatever.
Truth be told, the Cowboys were Jerry Jones’s team, and Jerry Jones had a vision for how Dallas could immediately return to glory.
Though he’d pondered it well before the 1994 NFC Championship Game, watching Deion Sanders shut down Alvin Harper sealed the idea in Jones’s mind—“We’ve got to have this guy.” Sanders wasn’t merely another cornerback. He was the cornerback—the best ever to play the position. Sanders spent the first five years of his career with the Atlanta Falcons, and when, in 1994, the 49ers restructured the contracts of linebackers Ken Norton, Jr., and Gary Plummer and safety Tim McDonald in order to afford Sanders, Jones teed off. “They’re just pushing some pretty significant [financial] obligation to future years,” he said. “That may work for them, but there is a wall there. They will be paying a lot of money in the future for players who probably won’t be participating.”
Of course, Jones’s opinion came four months before Sanders helped the 49ers win a Super Bowl. Now he was a free agent once again, and the Cowboys wanted in. Jones spent much of the winter thinking of ways to afford Sanders, letting veterans depart to free up salary space and maintaining constant contact with Eugene Parker, Sanders’s agent. As the two sides negotiated, Sanders was in San Francisco, playing outfield for the Giants alongside Barry Bonds in what—as with Bo Jackson before him—amounted to his “hobby.” Sanders was significantly less comfortable (and adept) on the diamond, but baseball peers considered him to be the ultimate teammate. “The guy had no big headedness about him,” says Tom Lampkin, a Giants catcher. “When you asked him to sign a football, he’d do it with a smile. He was universally beloved.”
Once Sanders stepped inside an NFL locker room, however, something snapped. He was no longer Deion Luwynn Sanders—quiet, relaxed, one of the guys. No, he was “Neon Deion” and “Prime Time,” an arrogant, trash-talking blowhard who signed autographs “D$.” “Deion’s thing was saying, ‘I’ve got this receiver, I’ll shut him down, y’all worry about the rest of the field,’” says Antonio Goss, the former 49er linebacker. “And you know what? He did it.” That said, many of the 49ers resented Sanders’s bravado. San Francisco was the franchise of Steve Young and Jerry Rice, professionals who largely shunned pizzazz for class. When it looked like the 49ers would let Sanders walk instead of meeting his salary demands, few of his teammates shed tears.
In Dallas and Austin, however, Deion Mania swept the landscape. Throughout a preseason that saw the Cowboys go 2–3, all anyone could speak of was Sanders’s potential signing. In the August 25, 1995, edition of the Dallas Morning News, Chili’s Grill & Bar ran a full-page advertisement that read DEION, SIGN WITH THE COWBOYS AND EAT FREE AT CHILI’S. “Chili’s had always been known as an irreverent restaurant, and we thought it was funny,” says Harry Day, Chili’s former director of marketing. “But Deion’s agent was screaming on the phone, accusing me of tampering with the negotiations. He threatened to sue us if we didn’t pull the ads.” Chili’s does flame-grilled rib eye, not litigation. The ads ceased.
On the night of Monday, September 4, 1995, the Cowboys opened their season by walloping the Giants at the Meadowlands, 35–0. “That was awesome, man!” Emmitt Smith raved after rushing for 163 yards. “What a way to start a season. You should have seen the hole I ran through. It wouldn’t have taken a genius for someone to find it.”
Smith’s triumphant performance was obscured, however, when Jones used halftime to announce that he and Nike chairman Phil Knight had reached a one-of-a-kind, screw-the-rest-of-the-league partnership. Thanks to the new marriage, Jones would deck his team out in Nike apparel, play preseason games in Nike’s hometown of Portland, Oregon, and build a new, Nike-themed, state-of-the-art amusement park outside Texas Stadium. As had an agreement he’d reached one month earlier to make Pepsi the official soft drink of Texas Stadium, the partnership directly challenged NFL Properties, which did not deal with Nike. Of the many outraged executives, the one who spoke loudest was Carmen Policy, the 49ers’ team president. “The man’s gone too far,” he said of Jones. “He’s out of control.”
Left unsaid was that Deion Sanders was a Nike spokesperson being wooed by a Nike team.
The 49ers were toast.
On the Thursday afternoon before he planned on officially signing Sanders, Jerry Jones summoned twelve Cowboy players into his Valley Ranch office. “I just wanna know what you guys think about this,” he said. “It’s my opinion that we can be a better team with Deion than we are without him. From everyone I speak with he’s a good locker room guy, he works hard—”
Jones was cut off by Dale Hellestrae, the veteran long snapper.
“Jerry,” he said, “if you can get Deion Sanders, you’ve gotta do it.”
The others in the room—Aikman, Irvin, and Emmitt Smith among them—nodded. But the Cowboys were far from a united front. “All a lot of people saw was the whole Prime Time image,” says Scott Case, a Cowboys cornerback who had played with Sanders for five years in Atlanta. “But Deion and I used to fish all the time together, and he was wonderful. He used to fish with this cheap Cane Fishing Pole. I’d say, ‘Deion, you’re making two million and you fish with a Cane!?’ He’d get a laugh out of that.” Yet those only aware of the bright lights and gaudy jewelry were concerned. The peacefulness of an NFL locker room depends on disparate personalities somehow living in harmony. “I was cautious of his prima donna attitude,” says Chad Hennings, the defensive lineman. “That can etch away at a team as quickly as any off-the-field problem.”
On Monday, September 11, a day after they improved to 2–0 with a 31–21 triumph over Denver, the franchise held a press conference at Texas Stadium to introduce Sanders and announce that the newest Cowboy had agreed to a seven-year, $35 million deal that would include a league-record $12,999,999.99 signing bonus (the Cowboys consider the number 13 unlucky). The relatively low base salary was a creative way of adding Sanders while staying $300,000 below the cap.
The twenty-eight-year-old four-time Pro Bowler stepped before the microphone wearing a snazzy navy blue pinstriped suit, black leather shoes, diamond earrings, and, to quote Ed Werder of the Morning News, “a rich cocktail ring the approximate size of a manhole cover.” Accompanied by his wife, Carolyn, their two children, and his mother, Sanders was equal parts charming, thoughtful, and arrogant. “I have an ego when I hit the field,” he said. “My ego is that I’m the best at my position to play that game. Off the field, my friends and my loved ones know who I really am. I don’t care about hype. I care about Super Bowl rings.
“There were other teams where—believe it or not—the financial situation could have been better. I truly wanted to be a Dallas Cowboy because of the players on this team. I definitely plan to have a three-, four-, or five-year run at Super Bowls.”
Naturally, Sanders refused to name the teams with whom the financial situation could have been better—because, ahem, they didn’t exist. The 49ers, Broncos, and Dolphins had offered significantly less money. Also missing was a definitive date for the beginning of his Cowboy career. Not only was Sanders committed to the San Francisco Giants, with whom he was under contract, but he was also suffering from chronic soreness in his left ankle. He intended to undergo arthroscopic surgery and join the Cowboys “at some point in November.”
Yet while Sanders was far removed from the football field, his signing called into question the direction of a franchise. When Jones and Jimmy Johnson had taken over operations six years earlier, the idea was to build through roster flexibility and youthful player development—turning one draft pick into three, three draft picks into eight. No Cowboy fan needed reminding that the two most recent Super Bowl triumphs could never have
taken place had the franchise not sent Herschel Walker to Minnesota for a bushel of players and draft choices. Now, in an effort to reclaim the glory, weren’t the Cowboys taking the exact opposite approach? As of early September the team had only thirty-five players under contract for the 1996 season, at a cost of $39.9 million. With the salary cap expected to be set at $40 million by the NFL, the Cowboys were—for lack of a better word—screwed. “You’ve got to reward your Indians at some point, but in football you have to be careful how far you extend yourself,” says Kevin Smith, the veteran cornerback. “By the mid-nineties Jerry just gave out money. That’s great if you’re a player looking to get rich, but it doesn’t keep a team hungry. Jerry was right when he said anyone could have coached our team. But not just anyone could sustain it.”
Although most media outlets praised Jones for spending to win, some remained skeptical. In the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, columnist Bob Smizik wrote that future historians would “pinpoint the precise beginning of the decline and fall of the Dallas Cowboys’ empire as a day early in the 1995 season when owner Jerry Jones became so overwhelmed with the need to stroke his enormous ego to highs not even he had thought possible that he signed a part-time player who was facing surgery to a $35 million contract. The signing certainly garnered Jones all the attention he craved and unquestionably made him the undisputed high roller of the National Football League. But did Jones really get what he wanted?”
The league would have to wait to find out.
In the seven weeks that passed between Sanders’s signing and his on-field debut, the Dallas Cowboys played their best football of the Switzer Era, posting a 6–1 record to take an early lead in the NFC East. Away from the field, though, Switzer had his hands full trying to keep his club from falling apart. To start with, he needed Charles Haley to calm the heck down.
Now in his fourth season with Dallas, Haley had disappointed many teammates when, after announcing his retirement following the NFC Championship Game loss, he changed his mind and reported to training camp. In the beginning the Cowboys tolerated and, occasionally, laughed at his penis-waving, insult-slinging ways. But after prolonged exposure, the act had grown old. “Everything with Haley depended on whether he was on his medication or off of it,” says Switzer. “On it, he was great. Off it, he was crazy.” Kevin O’Neill, the Cowboys trainer, still laughs when he recalls the day in 1993 when the Dallas Mavericks brought their new marquee player, rookie forward Jamal Mashburn, to Valley Ranch for a tour. “Charles had never met the guy before,” says O’Neill. “Yet the first time he sees him, he spots the big gap between Jamal’s two front teeth and screams, ‘Hey, Jamal, you should spend some money and get your teeth fixed!’” One of Haley’s favorite bull’s-eyes used to be Chad Hennings, the Air Force pilot-turned-defensive lineman whose 6-foot-6, 291-pound frame belied a gentle, Bible-fearing man. “What dumb-ass let you fly a plane?” Haley would crack. “You have enough trouble tackling a fucking running back.” During training camp, Haley mocked Hennings incessantly until—SNAP! “Charles,” warned Hennings, “if you say one more thing I’m gonna kick the shit out of you.”
The meeting room went quiet.
Had Chad Hennings just cursed?
“Hennings, you’re so fucking stupid,” Haley barked, pointing toward a tape of a recent practice. “Look how dumb you are out there doing—”
Hennings spun around, grabbed Haley’s neck, and rammed his head through the window. He cocked back his fist and prepared to fire when John Blake, an assistant coach, pulled him away. “I would have tried to kill him,” Hennings says. “I’ve always believed in turning the other cheek. But with Charles, you either took it forever, or you stood up to him. I completely embarrassed him, and it felt great. He never really messed with me again.”
With Hennings off the mock market, Haley looked for new victims. He initially took aim at Scott Case, the veteran cornerback who arrived in Dallas in 1995 after eleven seasons with the Falcons. During one meeting, Case was quietly paying attention to a coach’s speech when he heard Haley whisper from behind.
“Hey, Scott…”
Case ignored him.
“Scott, turn around. I gotta show you something.”
Case ignored him again.
“Scott, dammit, turn around. You need to see this!”
Case finally looked back, where he saw Haley’s erect penis stretched across the desk.
Haley was unpredictable and unbalanced. Linebacker Jim Schwantz still recalls the day Haley hosted a class of special-needs schoolchildren at Valley Ranch. Before the kids left, Haley insisted on signing autographed cards for each one. “Those are the Charles Haley stories you never hear,” says Schwantz. Because they were obscured by the bizarreness. Haley inevitably turned his radar toward Shante Carver, the flop first-round draft pick. Not a day would pass without Haley reminding Carver that he was useless; dog shit; a punk-ass. “You are the biggest fucking bust I’ve ever seen,” Haley said repeatedly. “You have no business being here.”
“Charles was so brutal and belittling toward Shante that after enough abuse you got the feeling Shante wanted to quit,” says Hennings. “You don’t do that to a young player. You don’t do that to any player. But such was Charles.”
Switzer did his best to ignore Haley; to treat him in the manner Chicago Bulls coach Phil Jackson would deftly handle his new cosmonaut forward, Dennis Rodman. Yet like Jimmy Johnson before him, Switzer tired of Haley’s routine. When he was a peak performer, piling up sacks by the dozen, Haley received some leeway. But now crippled by chronic back pain, he was more hype than substance. In one of the first defensive film sessions of 1995, Haley entered the conference room with a blanket, sat down on the floor, and said, “Now y’all wake me up when No. 94 comes on the screen.”
“Charles became pathetic,” says a teammate. “In his prime I never saw a guy who could drink an entire case of beer at night and have three sacks over Erik Williams in practice the next morning. But late in his Dallas days he wasn’t the same player.” In an October 1 loss at Washington, Switzer delivered the ultimate insult, replacing Haley in the starting lineup with—of all people—Carver. The veteran was smoldering, and grew even angrier when Switzer criticized his play to the media after the game. Haley went off to teammates, ripping his coach as a backstabbing SOB. Haley’s followers, including younger defensive linemen like Lett and Tolbert, joined their mentor in turning on Switzer. Even when the coach apologized, Haley remained incensed. “Charles was the crazy guy in your neighborhood who was drunk on Monday, functional on Tuesday, and in church on Sunday,” says Freddie Coger, a free agent linebacker cut in camp. “You try and figure him out, but it’s not possible.”
On the weekend following Haley’s benching, the Cowboys hosted Green Bay. When the Packers began to rally back from a 24–3 deficit late in the second quarter, Aikman walked up to Haley—who was sitting out with the back injury—and said, “I hope you’re fucking happy.”
“I was just standing there, eating sunflower seeds, trying to ignore it,” Haley wrote in his autobiography. “Eventually I said, ‘OK, I’ll play. Just leave me the fuck alone.’” He entered the contest and hounded Packers quarterback Brett Favre into repeated rushed throws. The Cowboys ended up beating the Packers 34–24 to improve to 5–1. Afterward the media horde was all over Haley, who tore into Switzer. “It’s bullshit what’s going on,” he said. “I’m getting blamed for everybody’s play. They can do this stuff to my mind this year, but they’ll never get me back.”
Watching from across the locker room, Aikman chuckled. “Sideshows, circuses, controversies,” he said. “Just another week in the life of the Cowboys.”
Chapter 23
THE WHITE HOUSE
We’ve got a little place over here where we’re running some whores in and out, trying to be responsible, and we’re criticized for that, too.
—Nate Newton, Cowboys offensive lineman, on the “White House”
HE OFFICIALLY ARRIVED on September 28, 19
95, a hobbled man with a healthy contract and the hope of a city resting upon his shoulders. Deion Sanders was not merely the football phenom who would save the Cowboys’ porous pass defense (and, as he demanded, play a little receiver, too). No, he was the football phenom who would save the Cowboys.
Need to shut down Jerry Rice one-on-one? Deion Sanders.
Need a punt or kickoff returned for a touchdown? Deion Sanders.
Need an offensive threat to draw attention from Michael Irvin? Deion Sanders.
Though Sanders moved to Texas in late September, going so far as to purchase a $2.95 million home in the suburb of Plano, he came holding a black cane, his left ankle cocooned in a soft cast. In the month before his scheduled October 29 debut against the Atlanta Falcons, Sanders planned on adjusting his family to a new location, rehabbing his injury, and—most important—getting to know his teammates.
If there was any apprehension caused by the arrival of the team’s newest superstar on that first day, it evaporated quickly. As Sanders entered the locker room, offensive lineman Nate Newton, the Cowboys’ resident jokester, pressed PLAY on the CD player and blasted the volume. A catchy beat filled the air. Players started dancing. And pointing. And laughing. It was a rap tune. But not just any rap tune.
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