Editor’s Note: The following column from the Best of West collection was originally published on Jan. 9, 1991.
Is this the ultimate irony, or what? On the very day Port Arthur’s Jimmy Johnson was named The Associated Press’ NFL Coach of the Year, his chief tormentor — Philadelphia’s Buddy Ryan — gets fired. Knowing JJ, that’s not the kind of revenge he wanted.
This was the kind of grudge that could only have been settled on the field, with Johnson’s up-and-coming Cowboys getting the upper hand on Ryan’s thugs. Now he’s been denied the satisfaction of seeing fat Buddy eat some low-calorie crow.
Ryan, in a perverted sort of way, even gets the last laugh in being canned. He becomes the nation’s major story in the sports world, thus reducing the impact of Johnson’s honor. Outside of Texas, JJ probably won’t even be a front-page story.
That, of course, doesn’t minimize the meaning of Johnson’s accomplishment. Nor does it make the reality any easier to swallow for the army of critics who spent a year and a half painting the Cowboy coach and his boss, Jerry Jones, as a couple of buffoons who were out of their league in the NFL.
The critics, to be sure, were pretty well silenced during Dallas’ late-season, four-game winning streak, but this sort of drives a stake through their hearts. I’d imagine bitter old Frank Luksa of the Dallas Times Herald isn’t taking it well at all. What does he say now? That Jimmy was lucky?
And how about Tom Landry? After taking full advantage of the opportunities media chums gave him to second-guess Johnson’s major rebuilding moves, what’s his next step? Is he a big enough man, and Christian, to admit he was wrong about his successor?
Let’s be honest about this: An awful lot of folks in the NFL establishment wanted to see Jimmy Johnson fall. They saw him as a cocky college coach who had little regard for their way of doing business. They loved it when the Cowboys stumbled to a 1-15 record in his first season.
They were going to teach this guy a lesson in humility.
The question two years down the road is who is teaching whom? Johnson, as a result of his wheeling and dealing, is sitting there holding a handful of draft aces. While a normal rebuilding process is three to four years, he’s done it in two. And, as many in the know are starting to grudgingly concede, Dallas looks like the team of the future.
To appreciate what happened in Dallas, look around the NFL. Look at how the same teams get in the playoffs every year, and how the same teams continue to struggle. Tampa Bay has been rebuilding forever. Ditto for Atlanta. It took the Oilers most of the decade. The Jets and Patriots continue to wallow in mediocrity. How long has he been since the Chargers were a factor?
Dallas, then, is so far ahead of schedule it's mind-boggling. The Cowboys have gone from square one to past the middle of the pack in the span of one season. In the process, they accumulated more high draft picks than any team in football. Stop and think about what an amazing parlay that is.
The key to what JJ has accomplished, the main reason he's been able to make the transition which trips up a lot of college coaches is that he did it his way. He sought advice from other college coaches who moved to the NFL, namely John Robinson of the Rams, but much of what he's done is just vintage Jimmy Johnson.
Doing it his way involved getting rid of several still functioning players from the Landry regime. Players like Everson Walls and Steve DeOssie to name a couple. Despite being ridiculed by the Dallas media for such moves, JJ stuck to the conviction that he only wanted players who’d buy into his philosophy.
“Jimmy was really smart to weed out anybody he didn't think would be loyal to him," says Bum Phillips. "The way you win in the NFL is to build a team of players willing to sacrifice for each other and for the team. You get too many individuals doing their own thing, and you got a problem."
Another major reason for Johnson's success is that he's not afraid to fail. He doesn't back down from the tough decision. He's willing to roll the dice and accept the consequences. Too many coaches want to work in a comfort zone. They don’t play to win, they play not to lose.
Jimmy Johnson plays to win. Period.
Some coaches would rather hang on to a bad draft choice or player they traded for than to admit they made a mistake. Not Jimmy. Ask the No. 3 pick from his first draft, Rhondy Weston. Ask Terrence Flagler. With JJ, its produce or be gone, and damn the reaction.
Probably the least surprised person in the world at how quickly Johnson executed the turnaround in Dallas was former University of Miami athletic director Sam Jankovich. Now the general manager of the New England Patriots, Jankovich expected exactly what happened.
"A lot of those NFL people don't know it yet," Jankovich once told me, "but Jimmy Johnson is smarter than they are. He'll also work harder than they will. Believe me, it's just a matter of time until the Cowboys are one of the dominant teams in the NFL."
It’s too bad Buddy Ryan won’t be in Philadelphia when that happens.
Sports editor Bob West can be e-mailed at rdwest@usa.net. His Sportsrap radio show airs Mondays at 8:05 p.m. on KLVI (560-AM).
