Richard Paolinelli
The 50th season of Dallas Cowboys football would be an eventful one. The brand-new – and named at the time – Cowboys Stadium had completed construction. The first ever football game in the building would be a 30-10 victory over the Titans in a pre-season game on August 21st. The first official NFL regular season game …
In the final season of NFL football for Texas Stadium, the Cowboys started out with high hopes. They had gone 13-3 the previous year and had their core players intact. The Cowboys released receiver Terry Glenn but added defensive back Adam “Pac-Man” Jones to the roster. Terence Newman injured his groin in late July and would …
After nearly a decade removed from its last division title in 1998, the 2007 Cowboys set out to reclaim the NFC East crown. They would turn to Wade Phillips – who became the franchise’s seventh head coach after Bill Parcells retired. The son of legendary coach Bum Phillips was up to the task. Dallas started their …
In a bid to get back to the playoffs, the Cowboys shook up their roster in 2006. Terrell Owens — once Public Enemy No. 1 after his stints in San Francisco and Philadelphia – was signed in free agency. To shore up the kicking game, Peyton Manning’s “idiot kicker”, Mike Vanderjagt, was also signed. But Vanderjagt …
After a major step backward the year before, Dallas went to work on getting back to a winning record. Despite losing the team’s all-time leading tackler in Darren Woodson, the Cowboys improved the roster through free agency and the draft. With the Vinny Testaverde experiment a flop, Dallas turned to a younger veteran quarterback to lead …
Coming into the 2004 season hopes were running high in Dallas that a return to past glory was imminent. Those hopes couldn’t have been any more false. Questions of Quincy Carter’s inconsistent play at quarterback – and concerns about his failing drug tests – loomed overhead. In response, the Cowboys brought in 41-year-old veteran Vinny Testaverde …
With the last of the Triplets gone with the departure of Emmitt Smith to the Cardinals, the era of Bill Parcells began in Dallas in 2003. The Cowboys’ sixth head coach quickly went to work rebuilding the team. While he kept most of the defensive coaches, he cleaned house on offense. Maurice Carthon was the Cowboys’ …
Despite the previous two seasons, the Cowboys came into the 2002 season with some hope of turning things around. They actually had their best draft since the departure of Jimmy Johnson nearly a decade before. The Cowboys drafted safety Roy Williams out of Oklahoma in the first round. Center Andre Gurode from Colorado was taken in …
With the departure of both Troy Aikman (retirement) and Randall Cunningham (free agency), the Cowboys needed a quarterback. But Jerry Jones had traded the team’s first round pick of the 2001 Draft to land Joey Galloway in 2000. Among the players the Cowboys missed out on drafting with that pick was quarterback from Purdue named Drew …
For the first 29 seasons of existence in the NFL, the Dallas Cowboys had one head coach. Over the next 11 seasons Dallas would hire and then fire three head coaches. With the exit of Chan Gailey after the 1999 season, the Cowboys began life in the 21st Century with Dave Campo at the helm. In …
The 40th season – and the final one of the 20th Century – was less than stellar for the Cowboys. In an attempt to ignite the passing game Dallas acquired free agent wide receiver Rocket Ismail. But the team’s drafting continued to underwhelm. Only linebacker Dat Nguyen – the first Vietnamese-American to play in the NFL …
With the departure of Barry Switzer the Cowboys turned to Chan Gailey to become the fourth head coach in team history. Gailey brought back a focus on the running game and the Cowboys drafted to upgrade the offensive and defensive lines. Picking eighth, the Cowboys drafted defensive end Greg Ellis in the first round. Ellis would …
The Cowboys streak of consecutive NFC Championship game appearance had ended at four in 1996. The team came into the 1997 season looking to get back on top. Instead, the whole thing unraveled. Troy Aikman’s long-running frustration with Barry Switzer’s coaching style boiled over in an epic sideline rant. The Cowboys were an undisciplined team under …
NFL reporters Ian Rapoport and Tom Pelissero have both posted/tweeted on X (Twitter) that the New England Patriots are signing former Cowboys’ running back Ezekiel Elliott. Elliott himself appeared to confirm their reporting with a post/tweet of his own minutes later. “One Five, all the way live! @Patriots” is how the post/tweet read. Per the NFL.com …
Admit it, during Saturday afternoon’s preseason game between the Jaguars and Cowboys you held your beath after Dallas scored its first touchdown. In came Brandon Aubrey, currently the only place kicker in camp in Oxnard, to attempt the point after. Visions of Brett Maher’s last six PAT attempts – all missed – danced in your head. …
The Cowboys title defense in 1996 was literally doomed before it even started. Two years of poor drafts by Jerry Jones left the Cowboys without depth. The 1996 draft was better than the previous two, but that was a low bar to clear. So when suspensions and injuries began piling up, the Cowboys were ill-prepared. Michael …
Still stinging from letting a three-peat slip away the Cowboys went to work on getting back to the Super Bowl in 1995. If owner Jerry Jones was hoping to show the world the General Manager Jones had been the genius behind building the team, he fell well short. In what would become a troubling pattern in …
After a second-straight Super Bowl win over Buffalo in January, the Cowboys were early favorites to make it three in a row at the end of the 1994 season. Barring catastrophic injuries, the team was young and solid at every position. They seemed an unstoppable juggernaut. Only self-sabotage could undo this dynasty and that is precisely …
To call the 14 months between Dallas’ victory over the Bills in Super Bowl XXVII and the firing of Jimmy Johnson as tumultuous would be an understatement. Over that period of time, Dallas would celebrate its third Super Bowl victory. They would add Bernie Kosar to back up Troy Aikman at quarterback. They would draft wide …
Just call 1992 the year of the three- and five-game win streaks in Dallas. The Cowboys would win three games, lose a game, then win five straight twice during the season. The pattern carried them all the way to Super Bowl XXVII in Pasadena where they lifted the Lombardi Trophy for the third time in franchise …
The Herschel Walker trade paid off big in 1991 and continued to do so for several years to come. With the assets gained from that transaction, along with a few additional moves, Dallas had 18 picks over the seven rounds of the 1991 NFL Draft. In the first round they picked Russell Maryland with the No. …