Dallas at Miami: A Sideshow Disguised as a Football Game

By DAVE GOLDBERG / AP Football Writer (Oct. 26, 1996)

The NFL schedule says it's a football game, Dallas at Miami, 3 p.m. CDT on Sunday.

The world knows better.

It's really a sideshow disguised as football: Jerry Jones and Barry Switzer vs. Jimmy Johnson at 160 feet, the width of the field in Miami that will separate the two sides.

The principals say the right thing, that the game is the issue. The Cowboys and Dolphins are both 4-3 and in the middle of competitive races in the NFC and AFC East.

"Our feelings make no difference how this game comes out," says Jones, who hired Johnson in 1989 and broke up with him in 1994 after an alleged snub by the coach during a party at Disney World.

"My relationship with the owner and the coach has nothing to do with this ballgame," says Johnson, who took over the Dolphins this season when Don Shula stepped down after 33 years and an NFL-record 347 wins.

Believe that if you will.

But when Johnson was hired last January, one of the first things he noted was the schedule that called for the Dolphins and Cowboys to meet this season. It was something of a surprise, in fact, that the game wasn't scheduled for the opening Monday night.

Now both coaches have a chance to downplay the rivalry and play up the game.

Even the voluble Jones, who normally speaks his mind on everything, declined at his weekly talkathon to inflate the dispute. Same for his players.

"I don't miss Jimmy. He's not my wife," guard Nate Newton says. "He was my coach. I don't get into that male bonding."

But Johnson clearly has a lot invested, enough so that he will start Dan Marino at quarterback even though Marino still has some pain from the ankle he broke a month ago. The Dolphins, 3-0 with Marino, were 1-3 without him.

"It's more emotional. It's more than just one ballgame," Johnson concedes.

Some of the Cowboys look at it as a perverse sort of revenge against a coach who worked them a lot harder than Switzer does.

"I liked Jimmy and I liked his style and what he did for the program," Newton says. "But I'd be less of a man if I didn't want to go out and whup him. I'm still hurting from some of those training camps he put us through. Some days I wake up when I'm sore and say, 'Damn, Jimmy, thanks.' "