Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

These Dallas teams were interesting looking back, at least from my perspective.

The players from that 90s run were a lot older, yet still salvaged two playoff spots and a division title. Granted, they went one-and-out and did it at 10-6 and 9-7, but still a playoff spot is a playoff spot.

Emmitt Smith had over 1,300 yards and 13/11 touchdowns those years.

The defense, again with some of the old guys, had some good years- 1998 (#3 In scoring defense, #1 in the NFC) and 1999 (#5 in scoring defense, #3 in the NFC). They won a lot of low-scoring games and did a decent job defending their turf (13-4 at Texas Stadium).

Still did enough to cobble enough points despite Aikman's decline though:

Sweeping the NFC East at 8-0 in 1998 (Yes, not a great division, but even in down years before and since it's never been done), Troy Aikman's last great game in the 1999 season opener at Washington, shutout a playoff team in Miami Thanksgiving '99, beat Green Bay without Aikman in November '99 (which ultimately kept GB out of playoffs).

But.... there were plenty of shaky showings. Thanksgiving '98 against Minnesota, 8 yards rushing against New Orleans the following week, 42-23 at Denver, a bad loss against Wannstedt's last Bears team, Christmas 1999 again against New Orleans (Ditka was 2-0 vs. those Dallas teams somehow, including the last win of his coaching career).

And of course, the playoff losses to Minnesota/Arizona.

Then in 2000, that stout and decent defense suddenly and stunningly collapsed (Gave up 200 yards to THREE different running backs- Charlie Garner, Duce Staley, Warrick Dunn) after hacing top 10 rush defenses for the most part in prior years.

What to make

Hard to believe that Gailey only got two years, and Dave Campo got three. Of course, Gailey had three years left on his contract when he was fired, so maybe Jones didn't want to have to play three coaches in one year.

Supposedly, Troy Aikman was not a fan of Gailey's system, which was based more on reads and less on the timing that Aikman was so good at. Troy was a big fan of Nov Turner, but Turner was tied to Washington at the end of 1999.
I wonder, if Gailey had been retained for one more year, and produced a 7-9 type season (where Aikman presumably didn't get his brains bashed too badly,) would Jones have hired Nov Turner, after the latter was fired from the Redskins? It only makes sense to do so if he was going to keep Aikman on the roster. I recall that Aikman was waived by Dallas before an extension through 2007 kicked in.

Their 3-0 start in '99 looks like a semi-'last hurrah' of sorts, at least considering it was the last three games Aikman, Emmitt, and Irvin played together in. Big comeback vs eventual division-winner Washington in the opener and then belting defending AFC-champ Atlanta on the road followed by big revenge at Zona, 35-7, for what happened in last year's playoffs (of course Atl & Az would end up suffering below-500 letdown yrs in '99). Then came the infamous moment at the Vet the following week ending Irvin's career. Dallas would actually complete the sweep over Washington to bring their record to 4-2 but then lose another two-in-a-row and hang around 500 rest of the way. Then came the Campo era the following three years.