Former Dallas Cowboys head coach Jimmy Johnson is set to be honored with induction in the team’s Ring of Honor this Saturday night, some 30 years after he and the team parted ways. Johnson’s tenure in Dallas was notable for two main reasons: success and brevity.
Johnson coached the Cowboys from 1989-1993. He started slow, going just 8-24 in his first two seasons at the helm. After that, he tallied an eye-popping record of 36-12 over the next three years. He also coached Dallas to consecutive victories in Super Bowls 27 and 28.
After the latter of those victories, Johnson spent the next two seasons out of football. Granted, he wasn’t the first coach to leave his post following consecutive Super Bowls. Both Vince Lombardi (Green Bay Packers) and Bill Walsh (San Francisco 49ers) transitioned to front-office roles after winning back-to-back titles.
The difference with Johnson’s departure is that it was described as a “mutual parting of ways” between him and the organization. An outcome most now know stemmed from animosity between the head ball coach and long-time Cowboys owner, Jerry Jones.
What Sparked the Beef Between Jimmy Johnson and Jerry Jones?
The relationship between Johnson and Jones long predates their time together with the Cowboys. The two were teammates for the Arkansas Razorbacks back in the day, capturing a national championship together in 1964.
Jones, then best known for the fortune he amassed as an oil tycoon, purchased the Cowboys for $140 million in 1989. One of his first orders of business was hiring the highly coveted Johnson away from the University of Miami.
While success wasn’t quite immediate, it wouldn’t take long for the Cowboys to return to football Valhalla under Johnson. He won successive Super Bowls in his fourth and fifth years at the helm — but there wouldn’t be a sixth.
The union between coach and team ended abruptly in 1994. Jones bought out the remainder of Johnson’s contract for $2 million in March of that year. They did so under what were portrayed to be amicable circumstances.
But the success of that degree doesn’t usually beget a sudden severance. Onlookers couldn’t help but speculate that there was some head-butting going on behind the scenes.
Johnson expanded on the circumstances leading up to the split in a 2022 interview with Fox Sports Radio.
“You see when Jerry was buying the Cowboys, I can remember like it was yesterday,” Johnson said during an appearance on FOX & Friends promoting his new book, Swagger: Super Bowls, Brass Balls, and Footballs — A Memoir.
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“We were in his automobile, and he said, ‘Jimmy, you’re in charge of the football, I’m in charge of the money, and we’ll make sports history.’
“Well, we made sports history. And everything worked fine for a long time, and then all of a sudden we started winning, and then when we started winning, things changed a little bit. There started to be a little bit of tension.”
That power struggle never came to the forefront. It was avoided in favor of an abrupt ending. But even three decades later people suspect that the two alphas got caught up jockeying for control. Johnson, to his credit, tried to pour a little water on that long-smoldering fire in his aforementioned interview.
“People say, ‘He meddled too much.’ No, he didn’t meddle. It’s just that when we started winning, he wanted to be more in the spotlight. I was proud of what we accomplished. Maybe I didn’t want to share it. I take fault in a lot of it. I should’ve shared it more.”
MORE: When Did Jerry Jones Decide To Add Jimmy Johnson to the Ring of Honor?
The straw that reportedly broke the camel’s back sounds fairly innocuous, all things considered.
Per ESPN, several high-ranking Cowboys coaches and execs were gathered together just a few months after their victory in Super Bowl 28 when Jones raised a toast to all who had contributed to Dallas’ success, both past and present. Johnson felt the gesture to be a thinly veiled slight at him.
Jones didn’t help matters any when he told two Dallas Morning News reporters, “There are 500 coaches who could have won the Super Bowl with our team.”
Unsurprisingly, the split between coach and franchise was made official just over a week later. One might think the harshness and suddenness of the breakup would lead to prolonged bad blood, but according to Sports Illustrated, Jones and Johnson have largely spoken positively about one another in the intervening years.
“The two of us were working around the clock, together,” Johnson said. “People don’t realize the relationship [we have]. Back then, Jerry and I talked every day. Every single day I’d be in his office. And we never really disagreed, and that’s surprising to a lot of people, but we were always on the same page.”
As Johnson acknowledges, that statement certainly might raise some eyebrows given the optics at the end of their working relationship. Not to mention the three decades it’s taken for him to receive an honor that felt overdue 20 years ago. But to hear Jones tell it, it’s always been mere formality.
“Frankly, it just felt right,” Jones said. “When you’re in, you’re in, and he’s always been in.”
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