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Cowboys' glory fading like late-'60s Packers

By Kevin Lyons

Knight-Ridder Newspapers

Jerry Kramer knew the end had come when he heard the applause.

It was a thundering, deafening noise Kramer had heard before, when his 1960s Green Bay Packers had done something wonderful at Lambeau Field. But this time, late in the fall of 1968, the home team was down, and out of the playoff picture after a fourth-quarter turnover led to the club's seventh defeat in 13 games.

"We looked at the clock and everyone knew it was over right then," said Kramer, who a year earlier had made the famous block in the Ice Bowl victory over the Cowboys that vaulted the Packers to their fifth world championship in seven years. "We were walking off the field and 60,000 people came to their feet and gave us a standing ovation that I will never forget. I stopped and looked in the stands, and some of us on the team looked at each other and you knew it was the end of an era. Nobody said anything.

"You just knew," he said.

Long before that final farewell ovation, Kramer knew the Packers' dynasty was coming to an end. Chuck Noll's Steelers also knew. Tom Landry's Cowboys knew.

And now this Cowboys dynasty, just two seasons removed from an unprecedented run of three Super Bowl titles in four years, is faced with its own mortality.

A peek at the way NFL dynasties of the past have crumbled seems to show that Jerry Jones and Co. seem quickly headed for the same ruins. Championship clubs, it seems, are undone by old age and injury, a lack of emotion or confidence, and a conflict in coaching philosophy.

Cowboys players sense their predicament.

"Our record is kind of hard to swallow since we've been dominating teams the last four or five years," guard Nate Newton said of the 3-3 Cowboys, who face the Jacksonville Jaguars (5-1) Sunday at Texas Stadium. "We're very low right now. Everyone is questioning themselves."

Pretty soon, the losing will affect locker-room chemistry, former Cowboys cornerback Everson Walls said.

"The same thing that makes you laugh, makes you cry," Walls said. "We had a guy, Rod Hill, who used to joke around all the time. He was a lot of fun. And nobody seemed to mind when we were winning. When we lost games, it started to wear on people's nerves. People wondered what he was so happy about. All of a sudden, instead of being the spirit of the locker room, you become the scourge of the locker room."

To know if a dynasty is eroding, just look at the top of the club's organization. The Packers' missed playoff berth in 1968 coincided with the first year that Vince Lombardi was not head coach.

Worse, Kramer said, many of Lombardi's assistants decided that things should be done differently. Kramer and offensive line coach Ray Wietecha had several disagreements about line formations. Kramer became so frustrated with Wietecha that he retired after the 1968 season at age 32.

"We were doing some stupid things," Kramer said. "It was very discouraging because we were being defeated and we were doing things that I knew were wrong.

"But he was the coach. I figured that there was no point in me staying with the team while the new guys were trying to learn what to do. There was nothing wrong with the way we'd done things."

Walls saw coaching changes mark the end of two dynasties, with the Cowboys and New York Giants. What he saw in the 1991 Ray Handley-led Giants, who failed to make the playoffs after Bill Parcells led the team to a Super Bowl title in 1990, was a club that second-guessed every coaching decision.

"Everyone was always questioning what we were doing," Walls said. "We'd be in the huddle and they'd call a play and some of us would say, 'Bill wouldn't have called this in this situation.' "

Barry Switzer was in his second season as Jimmy Johnson's replacement when he led the Cowboys to their third Super Bowl title and fifth overall. But there was plenty of turmoil during that super season. Quarterback Troy Aikman thought Switzer's coaching style was too lax. The two rarely talked to each other during the last few months of that Super Bowl run.

It is, in fact, Switzer's relationship with Aikman that might be, in part, what lands the coach in the unemployment line after this season.

"The organization reflects the thoughts and attitudes of the leader," said Kramer, who has observed the Cowboys. "I see conflict on that team. I don't see harmony."

"The body will do some wonderful things if the mind will take it there," Kramer said.

But a team without championship players goes nowhere.

The Packers' dynasty began eroding during a three-year span from 1966-69 with the retirements or trades of mainstays Henry Jordan, Paul Hornung, Jim Taylor, Boyd Dowler, Max McGee, Willie Davis, Herb Adderley and Kramer. Jordan, Hornung, Taylor, Adderley and Davis are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

The Steelers won their fourth Super Bowl title in six years during the 1979 season. But the championship chase slowed with these retirements: Dwight White (1980), Rocky Bleier (1980), Lynn Swann (1981), Joe Greene (1981), L.C. Greenwood (1981) and Jack Ham (1982). An elbow injury forced quarterback Terry Bradshaw to retire after the 1983 season.

"The biggest sign that it's over is when you look around the locker room and you don't see the same players next to you," said former Cowboys receiver Drew Pearson, who was forced to retire after the 1983 season because of a car accident. "You've got to replace the good players with something good in return. But when that doesn't happen, you know the erosion of what was there is starting to take place."

The first Cowboys dynasty, from 1966-73, was able to refuel with a 1975 draft that included 12 rookies who made the team. But the second one, which ended when Jerry Jones bought the team in 1989, started to come unglued after the 1979 season with the retirement of Roger Staubach. Notable Cowboys who followed Staubach's exit were Cliff Harris in 1979, Preston Pearson in 1980, Charlie Waters and D.D. Lewis in 1981, and Drew Pearson, Robert Newhouse, Billy Joe DuPree and Harvey Martin in 1983.

"I remember when I had a strong feeling in 1985, when we barely got in the playoffs," former Cowboys general manager Tex Schramm said of realizing the end was near. "We played the Rams and we were kind of sloshing around and we were even at halftime.

"It was a disaster from that point on. They took ball, Eric Dickerson started running, and they beat us badly. I could just feel the team didn't react same way. We didn't have the ability or something to react properly."

As much as wear and tear, free agency has combined with retirement to rob the 1990s Cowboys of their depth and championship edge. Since 1992, the Cowboys have lost more than 20 players through free agency. Defensive end Charles Haley and tight end Jay Novacek were forced to retire because of back injuries. Injuries to Mark Tuinei and Daryl Johnston might take them down that same path.

"You just are not going to be the same when you lose all of your key players," Switzer said. "That stuff takes its toll. It's taking its toll on us."

The moment you know the end is here, Walls said, is when you start compromising your abilities.

Walls was the first player to lead the league in interceptions each of his first two seasons, 1981 and 1982. In both years, the Cowboys made the NFC Championship Game. Walls led the league again in 1985. But by 1986, the swagger in the Cowboys, and Walls, was fading.

"When we were winning and I didn't at least get one or two interceptions in a game, I felt like I didn't do my job," said Walls, the only player in NFL history to lead the league in interceptions during three seasons. "All of a sudden, the losing starts, and you are just happy if you did not give up a touchdown. Then, you are just happy if you just have good coverage all day, or if you don't make a mistake. Your mind-set goes from being very aggressive to just, 'At least I wasn't the one that lost the game.' "

That lack of confidence is slowly creeping into this Cowboys unit. The club has won five consecutive NFC East titles. But after a loss to the Washington Redskins last week, Newton bellowed, "We have a shot to be in this thing ... who knows, do that wild-card thing."

While some teams lack confidence, Kramer said the post-Lombardi Packers lacked emotion. Replacing Lombardi as coach was soft-spoken Phil Bengston. Before kickoff of the game in 1968 that caused the Packers to miss the playoffs, tackle Bob Skoronski, who was playing in his last home game, addressed the team with an emotional request that the club "lay down for the green and gold," Kramer said.

"Well, Phil comes in the room and does his thing," Kramer said. "He was like, 'Uhh, I want you to run down that kickoff and uhhh ...' You could just feel the air run out of the room. It sucked the emotion right out of us because Phil didn't need to say anything. We missed Lombardi's fire. We missed him getting us ready and his sharp tongue."

Switzer has been criticized for not exhibiting the same emotion that Johnson did. For that, Switzer doubters thought the Cowboys were finished the minute he was hired. Yet whether it's an aging team or lack of confidence, the signs are usually there for all to see a dynasty in decay.

And sometimes, despite all that, it takes something extra to know the end has come.

"When I picked up the paper one morning and saw a picture of Jerry Jones eating dinner with Jimmy Johnson in a Dallas restaurant, I knew it was over," Schramm said.

"I knew right then."

(c) 1997, Fort Worth Star-Telegram

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