Coaching Confidential: Inside the Fraternity of NFL Coaches by Gary Myers

Author:Gary Myers
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Football, Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 9780307719683
Publisher: Crown Archetype
Published: 2012-11-13T00:00:00+00:00

When Jones declared that Johnson was worth more than five first-round picks and five Heisman Trophy winners, Johnson took that as a challenge. Of course, if any team agreed with Jones, he would have traded them Johnson in a heartbeat to speed up the rebuilding process. Although Johnson was highly thought of in the NFL community and Jones was a complete unknown, they were an effective team. Jones, despite bragging that he held the general manager’s title, deferred to Johnson on personnel decisions. The owner concentrated on turning the Cowboys, who had surprisingly never been a big moneymaker, into a cash cow. Johnson had never worked in any capacity for an NFL team before joining the Cowboys, but he was prepared. He knew he would be a head coach on the biggest stage sooner rather than later, and the transition was seamless. He quickly familiarized himself with the rules and the personnel around the league and was up to speed by the time he started having to make decisions in the draft. It took him no time to figure out the obvious—his team stank.

In training camp, he had one star in Herschel Walker. He had two rookie quarterbacks in Troy Aikman and Steve Walsh. His former Miami receiver Michael Irvin, the Cowboys’ first-round pick in 1988, was on the team, but he had caught only thirty-two passes as a rookie without showing any indication that he would go on to have a Hall of Fame career. There was even talk that Johnson might trade him. In addition to Aikman, the first draft produced fullback Daryl Johnston, center Mark Stepnoski, and defensive end Tony Tolbert, who all became Pro Bowl players.

Johnson was not about to embark on a five-year rebuilding plan. The fans in Dallas were already skeptical about the Jones-Johnson regime, so they were going to receive a one-year grace period and then needed to show that they had the smarts to turn around America’s Team. Johnson went into his rookie season knowing he didn’t have much talent but was determined to find out which players he could win with while building the team around Aikman.

Johnson liked to jog with his coaches. They were brainstorming sessions. He was running players on and off the team and barely had time to learn their names. There was a lot to talk about with his “crew,” as Johnson called his coaches. The jog he went on the first week of the 1989 season turned around the franchise. Johnson already had convinced himself that the only way to get better before the turn of the century was to trade Walker, the former Heisman winner and his only marketable commodity. Now he wanted to hear what his crew had to say about it.

Landry, Schramm, and Brandt invested a fifth-round choice in Walker in the 1985 draft. He was playing in the United States Football League, and the Cowboys retained his rights and would try to sign him either when his deal with the New Jersey Generals expired or when the USFL folded.

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