ARLINGTON, Texas -- The hatchet that has divided two of the Dallas Cowboys' biggest legends, Pro Football Hall of Fame head coach Jimmy Johnson and Pro Football Hall of Fame owner and general manager Jerry Jones, is finally being buried Saturday night. Jones is finally inducting Johnson into the Dallas Cowboys Ring of Honor.
"It happened because it's the right thing to do," Jones said.
Johnson will join his former Hall of Fame players Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith, Michael Irvin, Larry Allen, Darren Woodson and Charles Haley in the Ring of Honor with an induction ceremony at halftime against the NFC North champion Detroit Lions. Once inducted, he will be the 24th member of the Dallas Cowboys Ring of Honor, a group compromised of 20 players, two head coaches (Johnson and Tom Landry) and two team executives (Gil Brandt and Tex Schramm).
This momentous event in Cowboys nation occurred because of a chance encounter between Jones, 81, and Johnson, 80, at SoFi Stadium in Week 6 during Dallas' 20-17 win at the Los Angeles Chargers on "Monday Night Football." Johnson was in town a day after working his game day duties with Fox Sports NFL coverage, and Jones' daughter Charlotte, a Cowboys' executive vice president and Chief Brand Officer, along with Aikman, ESPN's "Monday Night Football" color commentator, were able to get the two to agree to an official at The Star in Frisco, Texas later in October. That's when Jones officially offered Johnson a Ring of Honor spot.
"It's funny because every time I'm with Jerry even here for the last hour or so, we tell stories back and forth and laugh and cut up and kind of like Terry Bradshaw said when he saw us together, the whole thing, he said, 'well, when you two guys are together, it's like a couple of brothers, you know, laughing, cutting up and telling stories,'" Jimmy Johnson said. "We tell some stories, some of them we can't talk about here. We told stories back and forth and then the ring of honor thing came up."
The first coach to win a college national title and a Super Bowl, Johnson is the person many point to as more responsible for the Cowboys' 1990s dynasty than Jones, a distinction that broke the two apart for decades. Johnson oversaw the fastest turnaround in NFL history, as the Cowboys went from being a 1-15 outfit in 1989 to back-to-back Super Bowl champions just three years later in the 1992 season. An extremely innovative coach, Johnson used trades, a whopping 51 total at the time, and an ahead of the curve draft value chart to engineer the quickest turnaround in NFL history. He famously traded Herschel Walker to the Minnesota Vikings for a bounty of picks that helped build the Cowboys' Super Bowl rosters.
However, the relationship between Jones and Johnson unraveled after the Cowboys won the second of their back-to-back Super Bowl titles in the 1993 season. Johnson stunningly resigned months later with there being controversy over whether he resigned or if Jones fired him.
"For me, looking back on it, the biggest thing was communication," Johnson said. "When we're together, everything is fantastic. I think maybe the fourth or maybe fifth year, we kind of got apart a little bit where we didn't talk every single day. So, the communication probably could have gotten better. We had a great run, something that we're both very, very proud of, and the Cowboys are in great shape. I don't look back and say what if."
Jones acknowledged he could have handled the team's success with more humility with Johnson than he did at the time.
"The thing that we got to be a part of was intense, certainly from my perspective," Jones said. "To have gotten there and then ended up where we were, which was successful, I lost some tolerance than when I was a little more humble or whatever. I had been there through a lot of butt kickings that we had [been on the receiving end of], and so we were were certainly enjoying that type of success. I certainly thought it was time [to end his five-season partnership with Johnson]. I sensed without speaking for him, I sensed that he thought it was possibly time to go."
Dallas won its third and most recent Super Bowl two years later in 1995 with a roster that was mostly comprised of Johnson's players, but Barry Switzer was the head coach. The Cowboys haven't reached as far as the NFC Championship Game since.
As for how many more championships the Cowboys could have won if Johnson stayed on longer as head coach, Jones didn't think about that at the time their partnership dissolved.
"I really didn't give it that kind of thought that you might think I would have," Jones said. "What Jimmy brings is a lot of the best of me. Enthusiasm. What you have when it's going the other way? I don't really like myself. I really don't.... So that mentality probably caused me to not be as tolerant as maybe we could have gone."
"I'm kind of like a gypsy, you know. I've never been anywhere more than five years," Johnson said. "So it got to the point after winning a couple of Super Bowls, of saying, 'hey, I've accomplished what I wanted to accomplish.' And so sometimes you lose sight of what you can do, because of what you've already done."
Who got the credit between the head coach and the owner/general manager was the main source of conflict between the two
"Can I interrupt you here, Jerry?" Johnson asked when Jones was asked why it was so hard for him to give Johnson credit. "I think we're past on who gets the credit. The two of us working together made history. When I say working together, just like I told you earlier on, we talked every single day. I don't ever recall us having a difference of opinion. I can't remember an argument. We were always on the same page. So, the credit needs to go to a lot of people. Jerry, Jimmy, a bunch of the assistant coaches, great players. Some of them weren't that great when we were 1-15, but they were pretty fantastic when we held up that trophy. So, a lot of people take credit."
Ultimately, Jones and Johnson were able to brush aside their egos to make Johnson entering the Ring of Honor in both of their lifetimes possible.
"This didn't have to happen. It happened because it was the right thing to do. That's not a difficulty of credit, it's just the right thing to do," Jones said. "Now you say, 'Why has it lasted so long?' As it turns out, when you go in, that means you were there all along, in that sense ... Somebody could've said 'Jerry, shouldn't Jimmy have been in 15 years ago, 20 years ago?' ... I say this today, he's there because it's the right thing to do. He was always going in the Ring of Honor. Whether I put him in or one of my kids put him in."
Jones putting Johnson into the Ring of Honor and both being around to do this together is something Johnson initially struggled to put into words.
"I don't think anybody can ever imagine what this means to me," Johnson said. "This was a special time in my life. This was something that paid dividends for the me the rest of my life. It's something that I'm extremely proud of. We took over the worst football team in the NFL…the worst! Three straight losing seasons and a 3-13 record and not only did we win Super Bowls, we were able to put together the team of 90's. So obviously, I'm very proud of that and I'm proud to have my name up in the stadium."
