The best-ever Dallas Cowboys defense unit?

[74_75_78_79_]

Would you opine it being the early-'90s under Jimmy Johnson ('92 and/or '93), or one of the 'Doomsday' installments from the Landry Era?

[Bryan]

I'm not sure about statistics because they had some clunker games in the regular season, but I think from a talent perspective the best defensive unit was 1970. The secondary was rock-solid, which was an issue prior to 1970 and would be an issue later on in the 70's and early 80's. The defense was so good, they almost won the Super Bowl with sore-armed Craig Morton at QB.

[GameBeforeTheMoney]

Super Bowl 6 team had a great defense also..1971....they only gave up 18 points the entire playoffs....

[Halas Hall]

I would say one of their defenses from 1968-1970, probably 1970 as mentioned above.

Cole, Lilly, Pugh, and Andrie all played at least ten years in the NFL, as did Howley, Jordan, and Edwards and Waters, Harris, Renfro, Green, and Adderley.

Lilly (HOF), Pugh (should be H of VG), Howley and Jordan (H of VG), Renfro, Adderley and rookie Harris (HOF), Green (H of VG).

D.D. Lewis, Steve Kiner, Pat Toomay, Mark Washington all more than solid players.

I have a memory of Landry saying 1968 was his best team, but can't remember the source.

[Brian wolf]

For experience and smarts ... the 1971 Champion

For team speed and talent ... the 1993 Champions.
In my opinion the quickest defense other than the 2002 Buccaneers ...

[74_75_78_79_]

What I should have mentioned OP was the '94 installment! Easy to overlook because it was Year 1 AJ (after Jimmy). Statistically speaking, both '94 and '92 seem stronger than '93! That first SB champ under Jimmy, yardage-wise, had the #1 overall D as well as tops against the run (#5 vs the pass) while '94 was also tops overall, but #1 vs the pass instead (just #10 vs the run). Despite acquiring Deion and also hoisting that third '90s Lombardi, '95 was a bit a drop-off; '96 significantly better - #3 in both points and yardage!

[Brian wolf]

I think defending a championship gets more lee-way, besides, the 92 defense faced a lot of bad QBs ...
The 94 defense was excellent too but not against the 49ers in the championship game.

[lastcat3]

Generally speaking in terms of the '90's Cowboys defenses the years Haley was healthy they tended to have top ranked statistical defenses. The years he wasn't healthy was when they fell off a bit stats wise. In both '93 and '95 Haley was suffering through injuries all season long and was in and out of the line up. I'd say just in terms of the '90's teams '94 was probably their most talented defense. They didn't have the same kind of depth that they did in '92 or '93 but '94 was probably their best starting eleven on the defensive side of the ball. They had a healthy Haley, Leon Lett was perhaps the best DT in the league that year (he could of had a really good career if he was able to avoid all the off the field trouble he had), and Russell Maryland who was a really good run stopper. They still had strong linebackers and Darren Woodson and Kevin Smith were really emerging in the secondary.

Some even say that '94 was their best overall team of that decade. THe people that often say that though are generally people who are trying to bring down the franchise a notch so they say their best team was one that didn't win the Super Bowl. But nevertheless the '94 team was still probably right there with the '92 and '93 teams and the 49ers pretty much just used that years free agency period to build a team that could stand up to the Dallas offense.