The Dallas Cowboys are the NFL‘s most-discussed franchise.
This previous season gave an opportunity for the Cowboys to continue their storied history with a 12-5 record and winning the NFC East. Standing in front of the team’s playoff success was third-year quarterback Jordan Love, who went 16 for 21 on passes for 272 yards, three touchdowns, and no interceptions in a 48-32 win for the Green Bay Packers in the Wild Card round on Jan. 14.
Dallas has a 4-11 playoff record since 1995. While Cowboys executive Stephen Jones isn’t worried, one former NFL executive believes that the organization’s celebrity outweighs its success.
ESPN’s Louis Riddick Sounds Off on Dallas Cowboys
It came as no surprise that current ESPN analyst and former NFL executive Louis Riddick believes that the Cowboys “are looked at more for their celebrity status in the way in which their name circulate on social media and sports in general and not as much for ultimately what got them as an organization to celebrity status in the first place.”
.@LRiddickESPN says the current Cowboys owe their "celebrity status" to Dallas' dynasty of the '90s 👀 pic.twitter.com/Dsf9UZ85jY
— Get Up (@GetUpESPN) February 28, 2024
Dallas has won five Super Bowls, which include a run in the 1990s that produced three in 1992, 1993, and 1995.
The Cowboys teams of the ’90s were larger than life, featuring the large personalities and the Hall of Fame trio of Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith, and Michael Irvin.
Two of the three are still in prominent roles today, with Aikman as the color commentator for ESPN’s Monday Night Football and Irvin as a frequent guest on FOX’s Undisputed.
Emmitt Smith Believes Cowboys Have Nothing To Show for Celebrity Status
Smith has since been critical of the Cowboys and appeared on Mike Florio’s PFT Live to air his grievances about the team.
“Nobody wants to fight no more,” Emmitt said. “No one wants to fight hard anymore. They wanna [say], ‘Oh, we are the Cowboys. Tell me how good I am. Check out my Instagram posts. See me on my podcast? I’m doing all this stuff. I’m everything.’ Without doing anything.
“And everybody’s patting them on the back without doing anything. People wanna give them so much without doing nothing. And what they’re living off of is what happened in the past, not what’s going down right now. They’re not establishing their own legacy, let alone building off of the legacy that was established.”
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