1980 and 1983 Cowboys Offense

[CSKreager]

In the Danny White era of the 80s, there were a few years where they were truly among the NFL's top offenses.

The 1980 Cowboys- not Air Coryell, not the Kardiac Kads, not the Patriots, not Bartkowski's Falcons- led the NFL in points scored.

And the 1983 team- still the highest scoring team in franchise history at 479 pts- outscored everyone but that legendary 500 point Redskins team (the gap between Dallas and the #3 scoring offense- Raiders- was by 38 points).

On paper, the 70s Cowboys had arguably more starpower with Roger the Dodger, but these teams offenses were actually more prolific than those (only the '71 team scored 400 pts during the decade of Staubach.)

Danny White seemed to be more prolific in these years than others (Also had 20 TD's in 1985, but by then the offense had slumped a bit. And might have had more TD's than his 24 in 1981, but he missed a game against the Colts and also Ron Springs got a lot of short yardage TD's).

Also interesting is that in those years, despite the high point totals, they didn't have WR's putting up gaudy numbers (Only Tony Hill in 1980 had 1000 yards- and barely at 1,055- and didn't have a guy catch double-digit TD's).

Just wanted to get your take on some prolific offenses that didn't quite have the starpower of, say, the Air Coryell Chargers but actually were more high-scoring.

[JohnH19]

Danny White is vastly underrated because he didn't get the Cowboys to a Super Bowl. Jeff Garcia is all but forgotten as a great 49'er for the same reason. It's never easy to follow a legend...or two, in Garcia's case.

[Bryan]

It seemed like after 1975 the Cowboys stopped adding/drafting good defensive players to the roster. Even in 1981, the defense was extremely dependent on Randy White/Too Tall/Harvey Martin. The continuation of the Cowboy dynasty in the 80's fell to the offensive skill positions, IMO. You had Dorsett, Danny White, Tony Hill was a great WR, Doug Cosbie was a very good TE, Ron Springs was a nice HB/FB, Butch Johnson was a #3 WR.

I loved Danny White when he played, and I thought the comparisons to Staubach were unfair because White never had a Doomsday Defense to help him. If you look at the points the Cowboys gave up in those early 80's conference championship games (20,28,31) and compare it to some of those 70's conference championship games (10,3, 7, 6, 0), then you see that White had more on his plate than Staubach. In the 5 NFC championship games the Cowboys won in the 70's, Doomsday gave up 26 total points. Kind of hard to lose when all you have to do is score 6 points to win a game (or 5 in the case of the 1970 divisional playoff against Detroit). That said, the knock on White was that he would implode at the worst times and make the game-killing mistake. I don't know if that was empirically true, but that line of thinking did have some credence, IMO.

[slats7]

Prolific offense in '83, and yet his teammates couldn't wait to replace him with Hogeboom the following training camp. Three picks vs. the Rams in the playoffs probably left a sour taste in their mouths. Of course, Hogeboom flamed out, White got his job back and pretty much kept it through 1987.

Used to love when Danny would do this. You seldom see it anymore.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ef_ZTBnvpLo

[lastcat3]

It seemed like after 1975 the Cowboys stopped adding/drafting good defensive players to the roster. Even in 1981, the defense was extremely dependent on Randy White/Too Tall/Harvey Martin. The continuation of the Cowboy dynasty in the 80's fell to the offensive skill positions, IMO. You had Dorsett, Danny White, Tony Hill was a great WR, Doug Cosbie was a very good TE, Ron Springs was a nice HB/FB, Butch Johnson was a #3 WR.

I loved Danny White when he played, and I thought the comparisons to Staubach were unfair because White never had a Doomsday Defense to help him. If you look at the points the Cowboys gave up in those early 80's conference championship games (20,28,31) and compare it to some of those 70's conference championship games (10,3, 7, 6, 0), then you see that White had more on his plate than Staubach. In the 5 NFC championship games the Cowboys won in the 70's, Doomsday gave up 26 total points. Kind of hard to lose when all you have to do is score 6 points to win a game (or 5 in the case of the 1970 divisional playoff against Detroit). That said, the knock on White was that he would implode at the worst times and make the game-killing mistake. I don't know if that was empirically true, but that line of thinking did have some credence, IMO.

To be fair though the rules were different when White played. When Staubach played the rules favored the defense while when White played the rules were a little friendlier to offenses. If the 70's Cowboys defenses were playing under the same rules that the early '80's defenses were they likely would have given up more points as well.

I think the biggest difference between White and Staubach was Staubach had the playmaking abilities that White didn't possess. It would have been interesting to see if Staubach could have gotten the early '80's Cowboys to a Super Bowl (I think there is a chance they could have gotten there in '81 or '82 under him). Of course that is assuming his skills wouldn't have detoriated by that point as he would have been in his early 40's by the early '80's.

[Bryan]

To be fair though the rules were different when White played. When Staubach played the rules favored the defense while when White played the rules were a little friendlier to offenses. If the 70's Cowboys defenses were playing under the same rules that the early '80's defenses were they likely would have given up more points as well.

My point was that I think Danny White could have gotten those 1970's Cowboys to Super Bowls VI, X, XII & XIII when Doomsday is giving up 3, 7, 6 & 0 points in those specific conference championship games.