TRANSCRIPTION 🔗
riverside edit kevin — take 04 kevin's studio: October 11th, 1989. It's close to midnight at a restaurant in Irving, Texas, a few miles from Valley Ranch, the headquarters of the Dallas Cowboys. Jerry Jones is 46 years old and the new owner of the Cowboys. He's an oil man from Arkansas and he bought the team for $140 million. He used $90 million of his own cash and financed the rest, and the interest on those loans is $40,000 a day, which leaves him with very little spare cash to spend on the team. Across the table sit Herschel Walker, the best player on the Windless Cowboys, and his agent. Jimmy Johnson, the Cowboys head coach, wants to trade Walker to the Minnesota Vikings for five players and a stack of draft picks. The Cowboys can trade Walker without his permission, but he can refuse to show up and retire. And he says he'll quit football before he plays in Minnesota. So he and his agent want additional cash if they're going to make the move and accept the trade. The Vikings offer him a house and a Mercedes, but they won't give him any additional cash, so the money Walker wants for leaving has to come from Jerry Jones. Johnson says that when he first brought up the trade, Jones told him, you can't get rid of Herschel Walker, we won't score a point. So Jerry Jones has two choices. He can pay Walker the $1.25 million he needs to leave, or keep him in Dallas. Jones agrees to pay the money and Walker accepts the trade. A columnist the next day at the Dallas Times Herald writes that the Cowboys got back a bag of beans and a cow to be named later. But he's wrong. Dallas uses those draft picks to take Emmett Smith and a bunch of other young players who make up the core of the 1990s Cowboys teams who won three Super Bowl titles. But what if Jones doesn't pay? What if he cancels that dinner and keeps Herschel Walker in Dallas? Let's hit Control Z. Welcome to Control Z Rewritten, the podcast where I take the biggest decisions in history and ask, what happens if they go the other way? One decision, we try it the other way, and see what changes. When Jerry Jones buys the Dallas Cowboys on February 25th, 1989, the team is losing close to $1 million a month. Jones puts up everything he owns to get the loans, so if he can't pay, he loses everything. The same day, Jones and Tech Schramm, the team president, fly to Austin to fire Tom Landry, the only head coach in the Cowboys' 29 seasons of existence. They meet at Landry's Villa beside the 18th Green of a golf course, right outside the city. Landry angrily tells Jones, You've taken my team away from me. That night at Valley Ranch, Jones hires his old college roommate, Jimmy Johnson, as the new head coach. In 1987, Johnson won the College National Championship at the University of Miami. And the two men actually played together on the University of Arkansas's 1964 national team. And in nineteen sixty one, Barry Switzer, a young assistant coach at Arkansas, supervised the freshman players, and Jones and Johnson were two of those players. Jerry Jones says, This is my company and I will be making all the decisions. But he gives Johnson a 10 year contract that lets the coach decide which players the Cowboys sign, cut, or trade. Jones keeps control of the money though, so if a deal costs cash, he's the one that has to pay. Johnson says Jones rewrote the contract three times to pay him more. But each time, he also tried to take back control of the players. Johnson refused every single time. In April, Johnson uses the first pick in the draft on Troy Aikman, a star quarterback from UCLA. Three months later, he takes Steve Walsh, his own quarterback from that 1987 national championship Miami team. And this is in a special summer draft. So in that draft, a team pays for a player with one of its picks from the following spring. So Dallas pays for Steve Walsh with its own first round pick in 1990. Herschel Walker won the Heisman Trophy at the University of Georgia back in 1982. He came to Dallas in 1986 from the USFL, which was a league that competed with the NFL until it folded, on a five-year, five million dollar contract. In 1988, wearing number 34, he ran for over 1,500 yards and made the Pro Bowl. In 1989, though, Walker's only averaging Three yards a carry, and the Cowboys have lost their first five games. Johnson and his assistants go for a one and a half mile run at lunch and they talk football the whole way. They call it their mobile staff meeting. Walker is the one player on the roster, other teams covet, and they'll pay a lot for him. So on Tuesday, October 10th, Johnson tells them the only way to fix the team is to trade him. Johnson canvasses the league about Walker. And Cleveland offers a player and some future draft picks. On Wednesday, October 11th, Johnson calls Mike Lynn, the Vikings general manager, and gives him until 6:30 that night to beat the deal, or he'll take Cleveland's deal. The Vikings had lost the NFC Championship game just two seasons ago. So Lynn thinks that Walker is that missing piece. But Walker has been very clear that he will only leave Dallas to go play for the New York Giants. The problem is that the New York Giants play in the exact same division as the Dallas Cowboys and are one of their chief rivals. They play each other twice a year. So Johnson is not going to help his chief rival in the same division. Jones has to pay Walker to go to Minnesota. So at the dinner in Irving, he agrees to the $1.25 million. At 8 a.m. the next day, Jones calls Lynn and asks the Vikings to cover part of Walker's money. Then he tries to reopen the terms they've already agreed to. Lynn is afraid that if he hangs up, Jones is going to start calling other teams, so he keeps them on the phone until they finalize a deal. Dallas sends Herschel Walker and four of its own draft picks to Minnesota. In return, it gets five players and eight Vikings picks, three of them in the first round. Jimmy Johnson calls it the Great Train Robbery. Three days
Load full transcript
after the trade, in his first game from Minnesota, Walker runs for 148 yards in a victory over Green Bay, while Dallas loses their sixth straight game to the San Francisco 49ers. Five of those eight picks Dallas got are attached to the players. So each one belongs to a specific player. And Dallas only gets to keep it if that player is gone from the Cowboys roster by February 1st of 1990. If Dallas keeps the player past that date, The pick stays with Minnesota, and two of the three first-round picks they got are in that group. Minnesota sets it up that way because the Vikings assume a bad Dallas team will keep the players to rebuild, so they actually expect to keep most of those picks. But Johnson has specifically wanted those picks the whole time, and he plans to get rid of all five players. He trades one of them and cuts another, so two of those picks become Dallas's. In November, Johnson stops starting the other three players, which tells the whole league he's about to cut them too. That forces the issue. On February 1st, Lynn makes a new deal that lets Dallas keep the three players and all five picks. In return, Dallas gives Minnesota two of its own draft picks. Dallas finishes 1989 at 1 and 15, one of the worst records in NFL history. Now, the worst team chooses first in the next draft, so the pick Johnson gave up for Steve Walsh turns out to be number one. Dallas has the Vikings first round pick, number 21, in the 1990 draft. Johnson wants Emmett Smith, a 20-year-old running back from the University of Florida. Green Bay and Atlanta pick at 18, 19, and 20, and both need a running back as well. So Johnson is afraid that Smith is going to be gone by 21. Pittsburgh has the 17th pick, but they're really more focused on getting a tight end. So Dallas gives the Steelers its 21st pick and a third rounder to trade places, and they take Emmett Smith at number 17. Pittsburgh gets its tight end four picks later. Green Bay takes a running back at 19, and Atlanta calls Dallas as soon as Smith's name goes in, asking what it would take to get him. Smith says that for a second on draft day, he thought he'd end up in Green Bay, and the idea made him feel sick. He said it's far too cold up there for him. Johnson keeps using the Vikings picks. In 1991, he trades their first round pick in Moore to New England for the top spot in the draft and takes Russell Maryland, a defensive tackle from Miami. In 1992, he uses two more of those draft picks on defensive backs. By 1992, The Cowboys win 13 games, up from one from 1989. On January 17th, 1993, Dallas beats the 49ers 30 to 20 in San Francisco for the NFC Championship and Smith runs for 114 yards. In the locker room, Johnson shouts, How about them Cowboys? Two weeks later in Pasadena, California, Dallas destroys the Buffalo Bills 52 to 17 to win the Super Bowl. That Super Bowl Is the last game of Smith's rookie contract. Under the rules in 1993, any team can make him an offer, but Dallas can keep him by paying him
the same amount. Richard Howell, Smith's agent, says the whole league assumes Jones will match any offer, so no team bothers to make one. Smith refuses to play without a new contract, though, so he stays home in Florida and works at his store there. Jones tells reporters that Emmett Smith is a luxury, not a necessity. The next season, Dallas loses its first two games without him, and Jones finally gives in. He signs Emmett Smith for four years and $13 million, the most any running back in football is making. With Emmett Smith back, Dallas beats the 49ers and then Buffalo again for a second straight Super Bowl. Smith is the MVP of that Super Bowl and the entire 1993 season. And by now, Jimmy Johnson and Jerry Stopp. By now, Jerry Jones and Jimmy Johnson are arguing over who deserves the credit for the success. Johnson writes in his memoir that Jones argued Dallas couldn't trade any player without him writing a check and used the Walker deal as his example. In March, at the owners' meeting in Orlando, Jones tells two reporters from the Dallas Morning News that 500 coaches could have won the Super Bowl with that team. Eight days later, Johnson quits. The next day, Jones hires Barry Switzer. The Arkansas assistant who coached them as freshman and later won three national titles at Oklahoma. Under Switzer, the Cowboys knocked Green Bay out of the playoffs for the third straight year in January of 1996. Two weeks later, in Tempe, Arizona, they beat the Pittsburgh Steelers for their third Super Bowl in four seasons. And here is where we press Control Z. From here, unless otherwise noted, everything I describe is the alternate timeline. Jerry Jones cancels the dinner. He just can't bring himself to trade his best player. At 8 o'clock the next morning, Jones calls Mike Lynn, the Vikings general manager, and tells him the deal is off. That Sunday, Walker plays for the Cowboys at Texas Stadium against the San Francisco 49ers, and Dallas loses again, making them a winless 0 6 on the season. Johnson's contract lets him approve any trade, but Walker will only agree to go to the New York Giants. So Johnson gives up and lets the trade deadline pass on Tuesday, October 17th, with no major trade happening involving the Cowboys. Jones spends the fall cutting staff and selling luxury suites at Texas Stadium to keep up with his loans. Johnson goes into the 1990 draft with no first-round pick since he gave up his own to take Steve Walsh. His staff Has Emmett Smith rated the fourth best player in the draft. But without the Vikings picks, Johnson doesn't have enough to trade up for him, so all he can do is watch. Smith spends draft day hoping Green Bay passes on him because it's just too cold up there. Then the phone rings, and it's Lindy Infante, the Packers' head coach. Green Bay has just taken Emmett Smith with the 19th pick. Dallas finally picks at 26 and takes a receiver from Auburn. Herschel Walker still wears thirty four in Dallas while Emmett Smith is a Green Bay Packer. Jimmy Johnson needs draft picks to rebuild, and with Troy Aikman starting at quarterback, Steve Walsh is the one player he can spare. In September of 1990, he trades Walsh to the New Orleans Saints for three picks. Walsh isn't asking for money to leave, so this time Johnson doesn't need Jones to write him a check. When Walker's contract runs out after the 1990 season, Jones signs him to a new one. He wants Walker to retire a cowboy. The next spring, Johnson turns the Saints' pick into a linebacker and an offensive lineman. In the seventh round, he takes Leon Lett, a massive defensive lineman. That July, Johnson trades with Atlanta for Tony Cassius, a defensive tackle, but Jones goes on TV and takes credit for the deal. Jones tells Johnson he wants some of that fun, too. To Johnson, it's the second time Jerry Jones has meddled in a player move after that night in Irving. In Green Bay, Ron Wolfe The Packers' new general manager fires Lindy Infante and hires Mike Holmgren in January of 1992. A month later, Wolf trades a first-round pick to Atlanta for Brett Favre, a young quarterback. That September, Favre makes his first start at Lambeau Field with Emmett Smith lined up behind him. With a now 30-year-old Walker at running back, Johnson's Cowboys make it to the NFC Championship game in San Francisco in January of 1993. Steve Young, The league's most valuable player and the quarterback of the 49ers beats them, and two weeks later, the Niners win the Super Bowl. That spring, new league rules let veteran players sign with any team. Green Bay beats out Washington and Cleveland to sign Reggie White, a starred defensive end, with a four-year, $17 million deal. That summer, Smith's rookie contract runs out and he wants to get away from Green Bay's cold so badly. He calls Don Shula, Who has won two Super Bowls coaching in Miami, and says he wants to give Dan Marino, the Dolphins quarterback, a real running game. Shula makes an offer. Green Bay can keep Smith by just paying him whatever Miami offers, but Wolf has just spent $17 million on Reggie White, and starting the next season, a salary cap is going to limit how much each team can spend on players. So Wolf lets Emmett Smith go, and under the rules, Miami sends Green Bay draft picks for him. In October, Dan Marino sadly tears his Achilles tendon and is out for the rest of the season. So Shula relies on Smith to carry the offense. A month later, in Philadelphia, with a third string quarterback in the game, Miami beats the Eagles for Shula's 325th win, the most ever for an NFL coach. Smith is one of the players who lifts Shula onto their shoulders. On Thanksgiving, Smith and the Dolphins come to Texas Stadium to play Johnson's Cowboys. On a field covered in snow from an overnight storm. Dallas leads 14-13 with seconds left and blocks a Miami field goal. On a blocked kick, the ball belongs to Dallas as long as the Cowboys leave it alone. If one of them touches it, Miami can recover it. Leon Lett,
the lineman Johnson drafted in the seventh round, slides into the ball and Miami's players fall on it. With a second chance, Pete Stoyanovich, the Miami kicker, wins it 16-14 from 19 yards out. In the playoffs, Dallas beats Green Bay and gets a rematch with the 49ers for the NFC Championship. This time they're at home. Three days before the game, Johnson calls into a Dallas radio show and tells the listeners, we will win this football game, and you can put it in three-inch headlines. George Seifert, the 49ers head coach, says Johnson has guts, and they'll find out soon whether those guts are real or fake. That Sunday, Dallas beats the 49ers. A week later in Atlanta, the Cowboys beat Buffalo in the Super Bowl, the first NFL title for both Johnson and Jerry Jones. Johnson's longest stay at any coaching job is five years, and he's just finished his fifth season in Dallas. But after four years of fighting with his former best friend Jones, he's done. Within days of the Super Bowl, they agree to end his contract, and Jones pays him $2 million to walk away from the last five years. In Phoenix, Bill Bidwell, the Cardinals owner, has just fired his coach. On February 3, 1994, he hires Johnson to run the team as both head coach and general manager. And in that second job, Johnson is responsible for making every trade and signing himself. The Cardinals play in Dallas' division, too, so Johnson is gonna face Jerry Jones twice a year. Their home field is Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, and that March they become the Arizona Cardinals. That same week, Jones calls Barry Switzer. Switzer has been out of coaching since he left Oklahoma in nineteen eighty-nine, and he signs a five-year deal to coach the Cowboys. Dan Marino comes back from his torn Achilles in 1994 and makes the Pro Bowl, with Emmett Smith running the ball behind him. The league is holding that season's Super Bowl at Joe Robbie Stadium, and that's Miami's home field. The Dolphins open the playoffs there with a win over Joe Montana's Kansas City Chiefs. A week later in San Diego, Shula coaches from a cart after surgery on his own Achilles tendon. Miami leads 21-6 at halftime. In the second half, Shula keeps handing the ball to Smith. because running plays keep the clock moving and give San Diego less time to come back. Miami holds on and wins comfortably. A week later, Miami wins the AFC Championship in Pittsburgh, so the Dolphins are going home for the Super Bowl. And on January twenty ninth, nineteen ninety five, Miami becomes the first team to play a Super Bowl in its own home stadium. In a really tough game, the Dolphins beat Steve Young and the 49ers, the best team in football that year, With Smith carrying the ball. Dan Marino is 33 and he lost his only other Super Bowl 10 years earlier, ironically, also to the 49ers. And now he finally has a ring. While 65-year-old Don Shula wins his third Super Bowl. A year later, Brett Favre and Reggie White lead Green Bay past Barry Switzer Cowboys in Dallas
in the NFC Championship. Two weeks later, the Packers win the Super Bowl in Tempe on Jimmy Johnson's home field. When the Cardinals finally make the playoffs in Johnson's third season, their first game is against Jerry Jones Cowboys in Dallas. Johnson goes back to the stadium where he coached for five years and beats his old roommate. The next week, in rain and snow at Lambeau Field, Green Bay knocks Arizona out and goes on to win their second straight Super Bowl. Barry Switzer quits after a six and ten season in 1997, his fourth in Dallas. Herschel Walker retires the same year after 12 seasons, every one of them as a cowboy. Jimmy Johnson coaches the Cardinals through the 1999 season. Then he retires to Isla Morada in the Florida Keys. Jones opens a new stadium in Arlington between Dallas and Fort Worth in 2009 at a cost of about $1.2 billion. In February of 2011, Green Bay wins its fifth Super Bowl there. In 2010, Emmett Smith is inducted into the Hall of Fame as a Miami Dolphin. After football, Herschel Walker wins two mixed martial arts fights and loses a 2022 race for the U.S. Senate in Georgia. In December of 2025, he becomes the United States Ambassador to the Bahamas. Today, Green Bay has five Super Bowl titles. Miami has three, and Arizona has none. Jimmy Johnson has one Super Bowl ring from Dallas. Jerry Jones is 84 years old and he's won one Super Bowl in 37 years of owning the Cowboys. The other two were won by Tom Landry in the 1970s. In the real timeline, Jones paid $1.25 million, mostly that he didn't have, and Dallas used the trade to get Emmett Smith. ESPN later made a film about the deal called The Great Trade Robbery. Smith says that when no team bit on him in 1993, he called Don Shula himself. He asked to play in Miami so he could give Dan Marino a running game. Smith says Shula told him, I don't know if I can make that offer. Because his own players would see what Miami was paying. Smith asked for terms Jones couldn't match, but Shula had to turn him down. So Smith stayed in Dallas. In 2002, he broke Walter Payton's career rushing record at Texas Stadium, and in 2010, he went into the Hall of Fame as a cowboy. Dan Marino played in only one Super Bowl, January of 1985, and lost it 38 16 to San Francisco. He's often cited as the Greatest quarterback to never win a Super Bowl. In the playoff game in San Diego on January 8th, 1995, Miami did lead 21-6 at halftime, but the Dolphins only ran for 26 yards all day. Without a real running back, they were unable to burn the clock. San Diego ended up winning 22 to 21 after Pete Stoyanovich missed a 48 yard kick with one second left. Merino said afterward, We didn't seem like we were running the ball so well, so we decided to throw. Three weeks later, the 49ers and the Chargers played Super Bowl XXXII in Miami's stadium. The first team to play a Super Bowl in its own home stadium was Tampa Bay, all the way later in February of 2021. Jimmy Johnson spent two years as an analyst on Fox's pregame show, then took over as Miami's coach when Shula retired in January of 1996. He coached Merino for four seasons, but he could never get him to the Super Bowl. Arizona hired Buddy Ryan. Houston's defensive coordinator on February 3rd, 1994, and Buddy went 12-20 in two seasons. The Cardinals won their first playoff game since 1947 in January of 1999 at Texas Stadium against Dallas. The meaning was a little less so since Jimmy Johnson was not their head coach. In the real timeline, Dallas has five Super Bowl titles, Green Bay has four, Miami has two, and just like the fantasy world, Arizona has none. In 2017, the Hall of Fame inducted Jerry Jones as the first owner to win three Super Bowls in his first seven years. In our timeline, Johnson won three championships, one at the University of Miami and two with the Cowboys. And the name on his boat in Isla Murada is called Three Rings. Decisions don't get doovers, but on this show they do. If you like the show, please rate and subscribe wherever you happen to be listening. If you don't like it, please don't rate or subscribe. And if you really like it, tell a friend or two. Until next time, I'm Kevin Perez Allen. Thanks for hitting Ctrl-Z with me. Control-Z Rewritten is hosted, written, researched, edited, and produced by me, Kevin Perez Allen. If you've got a coin flip decision from history you want reversed on a future episode, find the show on Patreon. That's C T R L Z rewritten, all one word, and leave it in the comments.