Thursday, August 29, 1996

Switzer starts 3rd year as Cowboys coach with respect only a title can earn
By Ed Werder
Dallas Morning News
(August 29, 1996)

(KRT) -- It seems impossible to discern who has done the most to prove the irrelevance of NFL head coaches: Cowboys owner Jerry Jones or coach Barry Switzer.

Once glancing out a high window in the Giants Stadium press box down upon Jimmy Johnson as he unknowingly prepared to coach his last regular-season game for the Cowboys in 1993, Jones scoffed when asked whether he would consider allowing the coach out of his remaining contract if Johnson won him a second Super Bowl championship. "He won me two Super Bowls?" Jones said incredulously. "I won him two Super Bowls."

Soon thereafter, the owner who fired Tom Landry transformed himself into the owner who fired Jimmy Johnson. In that process, perhaps in case those transactions failed to make his point that football coaches are as dispensable as Styrofoam, Jones boldly proclaimed virtually anyone could win world championships with Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith and his many other talented Wheaties box jocks. The owner turned oddsmaker, Jones sipped from his glass and set the over-under at 500 coaches. Then he chose Switzer as his closing argument.

Therefore, while Jones provided Switzer the most glamorous coaching job in professional football, he unknowingly deprived him of the chance to take responsibility for whatever success he sustained or inspired as the third head coach of the Cowboys. That much became apparent once the the Cowboys became the first team to win Super Bowl championships under three different head coaches, perhaps none more different from the norm than Switzer. The most often asked question of the off-season was one that seemingly torments Jones moreso than Switzer: How much credit does Switzer deserve for the Cowboys winning the Super Bowl last year?

The Cowboys are defending Super Bowl champions, a feat for which the pugnacious Switzer receives as much credit as Jones was convinced Johnson deserved on that 1994 night in an Orlando bar - practically none.

But at least Switzer has something other than his methods, motives and competence to defend - an NFL championship. Yet in the year after his deliverance, he stubbornly declines to respond to his detractors.

"There are a hell of lot of coaches who would come in here and have the same success, no question about it," he said. "Jerry put it at 500 coaches, and I think he probably used the wrong number. But there are a hell of a lot of good football coaches who know what it takes to win this game."

Switzer has compiled the highest winning percentage in team history. The only Cowboys coach who has not won two Super Bowl championships, Switzer nonetheless has a 28-9 record for a .758 winning percentage. That compares to legendary Hall of Famer Landry's .595 winning percentage and the masterful Johnson's .579.

But Switzer probably is more often linked to his contentious relationship with Aikman, the internal turmoil that nearly wrecked last year's team, the moral decline of the team, the flinchy deference with which he has approached Charles Haley and the controversial, game-losing decision he made in Philadelphia last season.

Former San Francisco coach Bill Walsh, returning as an assistant with the 49ers, referred to Switzer as a ceremonial head coach. Philadelphia's Ray Rhodes described him in terms worse than that. When the Cowboys made their most recent visit to the White House, President Clinton said, "Switzer was second-guessed so much, for a while I thought people were mistaking him for president."

It has taken Jones outspending all of his NFL competition to retain one of the most talented teams the league has known for the Cowboys to continue winning under Switzer. When he compiles a depth chart of the most important positions, it is consistent with that of most other coaches. He considers them in this order: quarterback, pass-rusher, cornerback, running back and wide receiver. The Cowboys in those positions have Aikman, Haley, Deion Sanders, Smith and Michael Irvin, once the latter returns from a five-game drug suspension.

"Barry just gets teams to win," Jones said. "The fact he's been in the NFL two years with great personnel and been one game away from a Super Bowl and won another Super Bowl basically confirms he's a great coach."

But while he has a world championship, Switzer seemingly commands little respect from his peers. That may not come unless he remains in office long enough to build his own winning team as Johnson did. But he has at least maintained the championship team he inherited.

In their last two seasons under Johnson, the Cowboys compiled a 31-7 overall record and won two Super Bowls. In their first two seasons under Switzer, the Cowboys have a 28-9 mark, one Super Bowl win and an NFC Championship Game appearance.

"Jimmy Johnson put together a great team and a chemistry and established a formula for winning. They're still living with that and will until their great players leave," Walsh said. "That is the heritage the Cowboys have now, and sometimes they might win in spite of other people. Is Barry Switzer a major force in this? No, not at all."

Jones has increased his support of the coach upon whom he staked his own football reputation and the man he considers a close friend. Jones insists Switzer had a direct positive impact on the team last season and that he cannot be separated from its success. He knew as soon as Switzer won his first game in 1994 that his bar-room comments could be a problem. He has attempted to correct perception since then.

"A lot of people think I take the position that the coach is not very important," Jones said. "The only experience I ever had in football was playing it before the Cowboys, and I thought my coach was God. What he said, I did. There wasn't a question of whether it was right or wrong. So I really feel coaching is important. But I do not think the coach is more important than Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith or somebody special on the football field.

"I have the proper recognition of why you have good coaches. But I was criticized for not getting a good coach. Anybody who doesn't think Barry Switzer is a good coach doesn't understand how to read the book. From my perspective, come get me hard if I ever go out here and get a coach who doesn't deserve to be standing on that sideline, because the Cowboys can get the best there is in coaching."

Switzer leniency, which manifests itself in Haley deciding when he plays and Sanders managing his own playing time between offense and defense, clearly has made him popular with most of his players. But does he command their respect and inspire confidence?.

That has become a difficult proposition for many coaches. Salary-cap management has increased guaranteed money players are paid and undercut the authority of head coaches. The wealthiest Dallas players - Irvin, Sanders and Haley, among others - are practically untouchable because unpaid bonus money is accelerated into a single season if troublesome players are released.

"I think it's the same as what it has always been," said Johnson, returning to the NFL this season as coach of the Miami Dolphins. "I think if you command and deserve respect, you'll get it. If you don't deserve respect, you won't get it. Very simple."

But Switzer said he is not necessarily soft on discipline. He insists he reprimands players at the proper time but learned from an incident that led Haley to threaten retirement that those should be confined within the team and not distributed through the media.

"They respect that when I tell you, 'You didn't play worth a damn. You get paid a lot of money.' I talk to them that way," he said. "I don't care if they want to get expletive bc pissedec off. If you want to swell up and pout about it, pout about it. I won't change in that area. You can't. You have to be damn honest."

Switzer conceded he miscalculated when he responded late last season to complaints from former defensive line coach John Blake that Aikman was dividing the team because he singled out black players such as Kevin Williams and Erik Williams for criticism. Switzer forced Aikman to defend himself against the charges and then made it an issue in team meetings.

In this roiling cauldron of tension and conflict, the Cowboys nearly plunged into an irreversible downward spiral. What Jones considers Switzer's psychological masterstroke prevented that. Of course, there's a good chance the Cowboys would have lost three consecutive games to NFC East rivals if not for Kevin Williams' fingertip catch on a critical play against New York.

Still, Jones says it was Switzer who transformed crisis into catharsis. He struck an emotional chord with his players when he called upon them to close ranks and persevere. He told them for the first time about his own tragic upbringing, about how his father was shot and killed by a mistress and how his mother committed suicide.

Just when it seemed the Cowboys might not win another game, they never lost another.

"I think Barry has gotten more than anybody else could have out of this football team as far as its ability of competing for a Super Bowl," Jones said. "His handling of the team at its crisis point, in my view, was one of the key things that caused us to go to the Super Bowl. I think Barry has the ability to cause both players and staff to want to produce for him. They may want to take his perceived shortcomings and compensate for him.

"That trait is ideal for the makeup of this particular football team, so I give him a lot of credit for last year. But most of the credit I give to the same people Barry does: the players, particularly the veteran leaders who had experienced success, who instead of getting smug about it wanted it more. This really was their Super Bowl."

(c) 1996, Dallas Morning News. Distributed by Knight-Ridder/Tribune Information Services.

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