Jimmy Johnson delivered two Super Bowl wins, set up a third, and is both a member of the Dallas Cowboys Ring of Honor and the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Now, after retiring from FOX as studio analyst after last season, and with a successful college and NFL coaching career on his resume, Johnson is still keeping an eye on the Cowboys.
Johnson, who spends most of his days on the water and his nights at his Florida Keys restaurant, sees two key issues for Dallas this fall.
Stay Healthy
Johnson’s first key is the team staying healthy throughout the season. Something they clearly could not do during last year’s disastrous 7-10 campaign.
“I think it’s probably more important for the Cowboys to stay healthy for a couple reasons,” Johnson explained to dallascowboys.com writer Nick Eatman recently. No. 1, they’re top-heavy salary wise. And so their 53-man roster may not be quite as talented at the bottom as some of these other teams.”
The Cowboys have been shelling out huge contracts to Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb, and another looming soon for Micah Parsons.
Johnson sees difficulty for the Cowboys in building up quality players down the depth chart when so much of the cap is being eaten up by three players.
With Dallas paying top dollar to those three, it is vital that they play as close to a full season as possible. Prescott played in just eight games in 2024. He has played only two full seasons in the last five.
A Tough Stretch
Another reason for keeping the team healthy and the starters starting every week, in Johnson’s view, is the 2025 schedule.
“The other thing is, they have a very difficult stretch there toward the end of the season,” Johnson added. “So if they’re not at full strength when they’re playing those top teams – the second half of at the end of the season, it’s going to be a problem. So staying healthy is the No. 1 key.”
Starting on Nov. 23rd at home against the Eagles and ending on Week 17’s Christmas Day game at Washington, the Cowboys will play six straight games against 2024 playoff teams.
Those games include matchups against the two Super Bowl teams in back-to-back games and just four days apart.
During his time in Dallas, Johnson’s Cowboys went 14-7 in December games. In the three playoff seasons – 1991-93 – Dallas was 12-1 in the final four weeks of the regular season.
Some Cowboys are not team players, starting with QB1. “Pay the man” was the mantra by some naive “fans” years ago. So he got paid (and paid again) way more than his worth.
Then you have the GOAT who wasn’t greedy and took less money than his loftier worth to give the team flexibility with the cap.
Cognitive skill and results are stark.
Yeah, the “naive” fans said pay the man because we remember what it was like for years after Troy Aikman retired!! We don’t wanna go back to the days of Branden Weeden and Kyle Orton!! At least with Dak, we are put in a position to win every year, unlike all those years we were stuck with QBs that were lucky to win a game!! And there’s no such thing as being paid more than what they are worth!! It’s called market rate!! The market raises every time a QB gets a new contract, and Dak just happened to be the last one to get paid!! That’s how it works!! If the QB is the franchise QB of their team, they are gonna be the highest paid QB in the NFL at some point, it don’t matter how good they are, that’s just how it works!! And at least 99% of the time, the QB has nothing to do with how much they’re getting paid either, that’s why they have agents to do it for them!! The players can tell their agents to take less than market value or whatever the case is, but it’s the agents that are making the deals and getting their clients paid!! And the more the payer gets paid, the more the agent gets paid!! So really, it’s the agents that are greedy, not the players!!
And as far as his skill and results goes…. Any professional will be glad to put Dak in the top of the NFL at his position, because of his skills, so opinions from people like you don’t matter and are really far from accurate!! And as far as the results goes…. I’ve said it plenty of time before…. This is a team sport…. Winning games is a result of the whole team, not just the QB!! It takes a whole team to win a game!! It helps to have a good QB to throw the ball, and having a good QB will make a difference in how many games the team wins, but it’s still a team sport and the QB can’t win every game by himself!! You’ll never see a QB on offense by himself, there’s always 10 other players on the field helping him, and the QB is never on defense…. That’s 11 totally different players!! So a win/loss record is the results of the whole team, not just the QB!!
Well, the previous QB’s won SB or Championships. Why do Dak deserve this amount. He stole basically 500 million $’s from the Cowboys with no income tax, plus endorsements.
Not a Dak fan when it became financial.