Original subtitles

Now, I'll never forget, 12 or so years ago, long after the Super Bowls was the

90s, I had some cancer treatment.

My doctors there at MD Anderson said that you need to do a lot of meditation.

And I said, well, I don't know how to meditate.

So they sent a doctor in and they explained to me, make a list of 10

People who can just boil your blood.

Start with the one at the very top and wish them the

greatest things you possibly can wish for.

Greatest health, the greatest success.

Everything that can possibly happen good to somebody, wish that for them.

And at number one, I wrote down the name, Jimmy Johnson.

I went back to my doctor a few weeks later, and I told her, I can't get

past that first motherfucker, is what I replied back to her.

There's trouble at the top of America's team.

A long -running feud between Jimmy Johnson and team owner Jerry Jones

exploded today.

We're at a place called Pleasure Island. You guys are having some drinks, and

it's late. You guys are having a good time.

And then when we ran into him later that night, Jerry was

irritated. He said, I'm going to fire that motherfucking Jimmy Johnson.

Who's going to fire a guy who just won back -to -back Super Bowls?

This was Jerry's rejection that was talking. It was not alcohol that was

speaking. Then he gave us the vote.

And he said, 500 coaches could win the Super Bowl with this team.

There are lines you can't cross, and there was no turning back.

Jimmy has released a statement. I'm deeply hurt that after five years of

commitment to the rebuilding of the Cowboys that I have been treated in this

way. In Jerry's mind, this team was so talented, a team that he was a general

manager of, that anybody could have coached his team to the championship.

He wanted more credit.

How can you say 500 coaches when you only have had one?

Jimmy's not going anywhere because Jerry's not stupid enough to let him.

Troy Aikman said he might not have signed his eight -year, $50 million

if he knew that Jimmy Johnson's future was in doubt.

I think there was a lack of appreciation for what we had accomplished and how

hard it was to do what we had just done.

I could not understand.

How the hell are we taking a car to the shop that was not broken?

This is purplish bullshit.

Is Jimmy going to be your coach, Jerry?

We'll visit my dad as we go along with the week.

I said, you're the best at this, Dad. You sit down with Jimmy and smooth it

out. By 2 o 'clock, Johnson was headed toward Jerry Jones' office, where the

would meet for the next two hours and 30 minutes.

I don't know any more than you all know.

I mean, I really felt like they'd work it out.

The fact that they met today and will meet again tomorrow is good news to you.

If you have two parents, they're getting a divorce.

When you're young, you don't know why they got a divorce.

You just know that they got a divorce, right?

And I picked up the paper the next morning.

The headline was, Jones says my way or the highway.

And so the minute we saw each other that next morning, we said, sit and go home.

We have mutually decided that I would no longer be the head football coach

with the Dallas Cowboys.

When you own something and someone is worried about who's the boss, that

really is almost... Let me back this up. Yeah.

You often hear when you have a tragedy, someone takes their own life.

Well, people look back and they say, they were giving us warning signs.

They had scratches on their wrists. They had those kinds of things.

Look back at that.

I respect Jerry Jones.

I like Jerry Jones.

And I think he feels the same way about me.

We'll see.

Let me go back again.

I've had a tremendous respect for Jimmy since I was 17 years old.

And anytime you buy a football team, you go get your best friend to coach it.

Jimmy and I had come from some of the greatest experiences you could ever have

in college.

And having had that euphoria of a national championship together, nothing

it.

And again...

Knowing that you just don't read about that.

That it actually can happen to you.

That pained me.

And I just wanted to recapture that.

He wanted to be part of the team.

And I understand, he's the owner, he should be part of it.

But by the same token, I'm the coach.

I felt like maybe I could push through and coach another year, but

the more I looked into it, the more I said, hey, I could hurt it more than I

could help it.

The problem came after we won the first Super Bowl.

We got to where we weren't communicating like we did the first early years when

we weren't winning.

When you're 1 and 15, you don't have a lot of friends, so we liked talking to

each other.

That old.

a fraud called success pop up and everybody get a little full of

I and me, when I should have tolerated, I didn't.

I should have been more understanding.

I was in my own little world and was very comfortable in

my little world.

In Orlando, when he raises the glass and proposes a toast, he wanted the

acceptance. He wanted the validation of those coaches.

But if you're an owner, they'll never treat you like you're one of them

it's such a price to pay to win the Super Bowl.

You're probably going to be on your third marriage, and your kids are going

hate you because you were never there.

They'll never feel like you earned the right to backslap with them.

But Jerry, he mortgaged his future for this team. He brought in Jimmy Johnson,

which people ridiculed then, the college coach.

He took a lot of gambles to make this thing work.

The team goes 1 -15.

All the criticism is directed at Jerry Jones.

And he just stood there and took all the plings and arrows.

And now when they start winning... Jimmy's getting all the credit, and

kind of in the background, not getting any credit. He couldn't live with that.

The one thing that hurt me, really hurt me,

500 coaches couldn't coach that team to a Super Bowl.

And maybe they could have.

But I took a lot of pride in putting together that team, you know.

And when you diminish that, that hurt me.

Shame on me.

I grew careless.

It wasn't like I wasn't trying to figure through it.

If we don't look out, we'll take

one of the greatest stories that's ever been told in sports, in my view.

And we'd take all the positives of that.

We'd take, there are no negatives when you really look at it.

If I'd have stayed with the Cowboys, I'd have been miserable.

And I'm no good to anybody if I'm not enjoying it.

Then it was time for me to move on.

And what do you side with Johnson or Jones in this? It is a sad day. Johnson

built this team, and I don't think that's something that Jerry Jones could

with. Everywhere, hoping it all didn't come crashing down.

Jimmy wouldn't even be there if it wasn't for Jerry. I've never liked Jerry

Jones, and I like him even less now. He's an owner who is insatiable.

I come home that night and get in the bed.

Gene's laying there, not looking at me, just looking at the ceiling.

She says, you just can't help it, can you?

You just can't live with good, going good.

I said, you just can't do it.

I said, here we are, I won two Super Bowls, and you walk out there and make a

change with the coach.

You just can't handle some solid, really good times.

Now, I usually say that smiling and laughing at her.

I don't know why right now that I'm getting sensitive about it.

The artful thing that Jerry did in all of this was, the story in the Dallas

Morning News the next day, Barry Switzer's the new Cowboys head coach.

March 28th, 1994.

I remember this because I'd had a colonoscopy that morning.

Anybody that's had a colonoscopy doesn't forget a colonoscopy.

When I got home, the phone rings.

Jerry Jones wants to talk to you.

Jerry said, do you want to coach the Cowboys? I said, I didn't know the damn

was open.

He said, well, it's going to be open. And I said, well, when it's open, give

a call.

That was my interview.

Five years ago, I said, we will win.

We must win, and winning is the name of the game.

Nothing has changed in five years with the new head coach, Barry Switzer.

I absolutely believe that the hire of Barry Switzer was a little off towards

Jimmy from Jerry.

Barry was my freshman coach at the University of Arkansas.

Jimmy and Jerry played on the team, and Switzer was on the coaching staff.

Arkansas, we all had a good run together.

And then Barry went on to dominate college football as the head coach at

University of Oklahoma.

His winning percentage of nearly 84%, the fourth best in college history.

Wherever I went, they knew who we were.

They knew what Oklahoma did.

Ironically, at the same time, Jimmy Johnson was head coach at rival Oklahoma

State. So if there's one game Jimmy wanted to win every year, it would be

Oklahoma. Who's the better coach here? When he was at Oklahoma State, I was the

better coach. When Jimmy was at Oklahoma State, we beat him three years in a

row. The Oklahoma Center is perhaps one of the most talented college teams ever,

the national champions.

But then he went on to Miami from there.

They beat my ass every year. The Hurricane win a national championship

Coach Jimmy Johnson.

I thought you came to play football.

I'm ready to go. I want to start tomorrow.

The call to choice controversial is an understatement.

Your starting quarterback was caught selling cocaine.

There was a shooting. There was a gang raid.

I was a bad boy. The press, they always threw me in there when something

negative happened.

They said that cash and cars and airline tickets wound up in the hands of

players. When he stepped down after the 1988 season, Oklahoma was on probation,

its image stained, and Switzer's too. He has not coached since.

I knew how controversial it would be.

And he was ideal.

This thing has a chance to really be some fun.

But Barry Switzer had been retired for five years.

Never even really aspired to coach in the NFL.

We've got a job to do and we're going to do it, baby!

You want me to prove that 500 guys could win the Super Bowl with this team,

Jimmy? I'm going to hire the guy who's least likely to do it.

Michael Irvin was visibly agitated.

You brought in a guy that never coached at that level?

Jerry's the bad guy here, right?

Jimmy's the good guy. I read the poll in the paper today.

You know, just want to take it one day at a time and play it by ear.

I didn't know what to make of it.

I hope I can do as good a job as Jimmy Johnson. That's what you're hoping, and

that's damn sure what you're hoping.

That's why I'm here.

Hey, I'm going to redecorate Tom and Jimmy's office.

It's the Barry and Jerry show opening today.

And the pressure is on for a Super Bowl three -peat. We're talking about the

pressure to three -peat. We're looking for a three -peat.

Coach, welcome to your new home. Thank you. It's good to be here, Jerry. Thank

you for that opportunity.

I've been to pro camps before, and, you know, I didn't have these people walking

backwards.

I guess you'd call this a media circus with about 300 credentials or so.

All eyes are forced on Barry Switzer.

I didn't think you'd be in my bedroom.

That's a surprise.

There was tremendous pressure.

I mean, no other coach in the NFL had a tougher job than what I had that year.

There's all you media folks getting in the way.

Offensively, defensively, players were all upset because Jimmy's gone, all

This is going to be the most exciting, this is going to be the most challenging

camp that we've ever been a part of.

I mean, I had a lot to overcome.

We're going to do it my way, and that's it. And let me go coach.

Let me go do what I want to do.

Not knowing how Barry's going to handle the situation left

everybody kind of in limbo.

Because we had the same pieces of the puzzle in place.

All he had to do was just be the manager of the team.

and not mess the team up.

He didn't know the players, he didn't know the coaches, and he just got

in on top of this great pyramid.

I'm trying to match names with faces right now. Jimmy was highly involved in

almost every single drill. He would interact, get in, fit the tempo.

Where Barry has taken more of an approach of allowing the coaches to be

that fit the tempo, he's going to be an evaluator.

I remember the first day that Barry Switzer was the head coach.

Jerry was on the field with the coaches.

It was a

stark contrast to anything that had happened in the first five years.

I just remember thinking that things are different going forward.

Hey, coach.

What is your job description for the Dallas Cowboys? Well, I think that most

people will say that I'm a puppet for Jerry Jones, but that's not true. I'm

going to be a football coach.

A lot of guys liked him because now the guys felt that they had freedom.

Barry came into that locker room.

The dynamics, the accountability, the work ethic,

that it changed.

Michael Irvin took all the players out on the town one night, and they were out

partying all night long.

I said, don't you guys have a curfew? He goes, hey, switchers are cooked. Who

cares?

So we get to the practice field the next day.

You could tell. Everybody just hung over like crazy.

Barry just blows his whistle and says, boys, go hit the pool.

This is a resort town. I'm going to the beach.

We had moments like that.

Hell, I hit the pool.

Well, that's what I'm going to say.

Barry just believed every man should be able to take care of himself and get

himself ready.

Jimmy's going to ride it hard.

Barry will trust you.

I'm a positive reinforcement type of guy.

I'm not an ass chewer.

No one likes to be hard, dog cussed and all that.

Everybody knows how I am.

And then he had to come into the organization, absorb Jimmy's staff.

Not bring anybody with him.

Some people have said to me, you've got like five head coaches. Those guys and I

get along great.

Butch Davis thought he should have been the head coach.

Joe Avazano thought he should have been the head coach.

They were sniping behind his back all the time. I'll think about firing

tonight over there. And next thing I know, he's punching me in the arm. I'm

like, what's this goofy son of a bitch doing?

They know who the boss is, and I am the boss. You know why? Because I came to

Dallas with more money than Jimmy.

And Dale didn't like that.

And then it just became like a nine -and -a -half -minute shouting match.

It was a hard job, I think, for Barry to

take.

How is training camp?

It's been long.

The grind has gotten to some of our players.

It's gotten to me right now, and I'm going to take a bite of this right here.

What the hell is going on here?

I guess I'm damn tired of this shit.

The NFL season is underway, and with it, the Barry Switzer era. Can Switzer hit

the ground running in Dallas?

Expectations are high.

We are going to three -peat! We are going to make history!

Both Jerry Jones and Barry Switzer have a lot on the line.

Jerry said there are 500 coaches who can win the Super Bowl with this team.

I felt tremendous pressure that, hey, we need to win this for Jerry.

Goddamn it, we've got to play football!

Goddamn football!

Coach Swift walked past everybody and walked over to me and said, whether we

lose or not is on you because you're my bell cow.

And I'm going like, shit.

Charles Haley sacks the quarterback four times.

I ain't thanking Charles to do that every damn game.

Good Lord, let's go get it done.

That's what I said now. Hey,

come and play.

Uh -huh.

And

the

hunt for the team's third trade trip to the Super Bowl is up.

If you're going to do something, you want to be the best at it. And then if

are the best at it, you want to be doing it in a place where people appreciate

it.

It's part and parcel of Dallas, Texas. If you win Super Bowl, snap your

whatever you want, you'll have it in your lap for free.

And I put this thing on right here.

It's like a key to the castle.

I had my share of fun.

Trust me, I did.

I did.

I wanted to get right there as a friend as opposed to the boss that wrote the

check. One night I found myself on the back of Charles Haley's motorcycle.

Man. And Jerry can drink.

It was about 2 o 'clock in the morning. He drove it inside this restaurant and

made our rounds and then drove back out.

Hey, it was crazy, man. They took over the strip club.

We would hit all the spots.

Gather your friends and head on down to where there's always a party going on.

Collegial. The gentleman's club in Dallas.

We played hard.

And the ball kicked off at the 48 -yard line by James Ward.

And then we played hard.

That was the gladiator days. The gladiator goes and have the great night

he slays everything.

We had our picks.

at enjoying beautiful specimens God has placed on this beautiful earth.

Michael Irvin looked at us in the eye and he said, if any of my teammates are

saying we don't want to win three Super Bowls in a row and be the first team to

do that, they're lying.

Cops knew, city officials knew, players without question had a past.

Jerry had guys to make sure that...

You know, whenever things came up, they would catch before it became something.

And I knew how to call the fixture.

If I got locked up two or three times, that means I got let loose maybe a

hundred times.

They call it the fixture. I like the unofficial guy that something he done or

security thing, there's a problem, we'll talk to Dennis, he'll fix it.

And there was a little fender bender with Emmett. Two different news crews

showed up because it's the Cowboys.

It turns into something else.

There was this one night, I wasn't drunk, but I had a few.

And I see this cop car come from behind, then gets in front of me, turn left,

puts his blanket on the turn left.

I make a right turn, he makes a right turn, goes right by in front of my

Dude, you just got escorted home by the cop.

And it just was crazy.

Star.

I mean, you can do nothing wrong.

I mean, you can do nothing wrong.

So you got to tell me, it doesn't seem like people like talking about it, but

what was your relationship with the White House?

If I explain my relationship to it, then I'm going to incriminate myself on it.

Eric,

for my audience, what's the White House?

You know what? I didn't visit.

The White House is, you know.

But why? Why can't you talk about it?

Uh -uh.

No, man.

No.

Bro, you're not going to get it.

All right, who created the White House?

Well, I think you have to ask the players who owned it.

I didn't own the White House.

Okay, okay.

I'll get into some stories for you.

So I was the president of the White House.

We were like, man, we got a lot of money on hotels with all of these women.

So then we could, you know, do a house.

I know it was across from the facility.

It was behind Valley Ranch, where we practiced at.

Those guys live on the edge.

Hell, they're supposed to be adult men, married, most of them.

You know, really, it was none of our business. They're adults.

We had five rooms, and it was whatever you like, you could mingle with your

liking.

You know, in that room, you may be smoking weed. This room, you may be

exercise, whatever.

You know, it's a group of girls in each room, and you just kind of bounce from

room to room.

I would go in and just kind of make sure everything was stocked, make sure

everything's kind of cleaned up.

One time, as I walk in, there's two players on the couch.

There's a girl there. They got their own video cameras. I looked at them. They

looked at me, and I was like, what are you doing? I'm going to drop off the

flicker. She said, well, drop it off. And I'm like, well, what are you doing?

They're all having sex on the couch.

And she was very flexible.

That was you trying to give us a safe place for camaraderie. You know what I'm

saying? They fly in warm start.

Lisa Ann came in, and she would put on shows at the house.

And then we had landlines back then. And they got all these crazy messages like,

Hey, Michael, this is Courtney.

I was calling to see what happened to you that day.

Hi, Michael, this is Amber. I was calling to say hi.

We no longer needed to go hunting.

They came.

Michael, I understand you've been with my sister.

I would like to talk to you.

Win the game and win the park.

That's the way Barry coached because that's what he did.

Is there an extra sense of satisfaction for you to have made this incredible

change and to have a team doing so well? Is there a part of you that says, I

told you so?

It's almost going to be a disappointment to a lot of our fans.

After we had won

two Super Bowls, I was sitting there.

searching, hungry, waking up in the middle of the night.

How can I reach this intangible value

that is out here throughout our sport?

Well, I open my eyes and I get a call from Rupert Murdoch.

Football.

It's what's valuable to television.

When I came to America, I didn't know anything about the game.

But, you know, if you live here and you start watching a few games, you get

involved.

Forbes magazine estimates his fortune to be worth $4 billion.

Of course, he didn't get there without making a few enemies.

After all, look what Murdoch had done to the New York Post.

He'd taken it beyond splashy to trashy.

He is also the chairman and CEO of Fox Broadcasting.

The big stations were NBC, ABC, and CBS.

Fox was the upstart.

At first we had a smaller footprint, stations in just a few major media

but we needed a new plan.

I don't think you're a network until you have NFL.

For 25 years, CBS.

had absolutely been a leader in presenting our games.

But behind the scenes, the profits for television have melted away. Rising

broadcast fees have cost CBS $100 million over the last year.

CBS was losing money on their NFL games, and because they had such a long

history with the NFL, some of the owners were willing to take less.

Not only was I against it, I worked.

I felt death, forget, vote, stop it.

For me, CBS didn't understand the value of the NFL.

There's indirect value to having something like the NFL.

It's a soap opera every week, and it has a tremendous lift to a network.

Years before, I had owned a significant interest in a TV affiliate in Little

Rock, Arkansas.

When the reruns of I Love Lucy came out, that rerun was outrageously expensive.

It's so tasty, too.

And one station bought I Love Lucy reruns.

I called and said, why?

And they said, it's a lost leader.

I put it on right before the news.

The audience stays on for the news.

I sell later ads.

I wish it was this easy to get money out of Ricky.

I realized the NFL should not be something that our networks.

make money off of, we should cost more than that and be a loss later.

Jerry Jones and I together are risk takers.

We're very optimistic about where we're going with our new television agreement

that we're negotiating right now.

We know that we're the best product there is in sports.

And so all of this, I think, is going to bode well for the NFL.

The owners really didn't know who Fox was. It really wasn't a network.

The NFL was saying,

You are only in 60 % of the country, and no one will be able to see us.

Young people watch Fox programming, and that seems to appeal to the advertisers.

I think everybody assumed Fox couldn't put together the kind of production the

NFL needed.

They had developed quite the reputation.

They had anti -family attitude, the stereotypes of poor people.

You just wanted to keep the dignity.

Of the league.

Eat my shorts.

Eat your shorts!

And I told him, I said, Mr. Murdoch, there was concern, but if we don't take

biggest offer, I will raise more hell than you can count.

I'll assure you of that.

We really needed him, so it had to be a knockout bid.

Mr. Murdoch opened his mouth, and the words $1 .6

billion came out.

Sundays will never be the same.

CBS has been bringing professional football into American living rooms for

nearly four decades.

And that will come to an end. We put on such a big bid that we blocked him away

from the table. But that was a one and a half billion dollar gamble.

It was a bold move, not just for Fox, but for the NFL.

And Jerry was a big part of that. The owners of the National Football League

have spent the day trying to control one of their own.

Fox viewed the NFL as a program that could build their network.

By the time we get football, we would be in 95 % of the country.

Fox is the new kid on the block, and they have a lot of energy.

But you can't beat Madden.

Just to prove what we're serious, we then hired John Madden with CBS.

When you look at the monetary commitment that they made to the NFL, I think that

shows. But apparently, the best is still yet to come. The pregame show.

was absolutely key. I had an idea in my head of what I wanted.

An expert in offense, I wanted an expert in defense, and I wanted a coach.

Since I left coaching, I haven't missed that grind at all. Who needs it? Now

there's just me, a bucket of beer, and the beach.

Now every new show, you gotta have a little talent.

I'm gonna make sure I get along with this boss.

Jimmy Johnson, ex -coach of the Dallas Cowboys. Coach, we're thrilled to have

you. Which means fans in Dallas will hear what their old coach, Jimmy

has to say on a weekly basis.

Have you thought about Dallas?

You haven't been following football, have you? Barry Switzer says he expects

Johnson to criticize him throughout the season. I'll do whatever I have to do to

be the very best in the business.

At this point, I don't see the improvement.

It took me five years to put together that football team. Time will tell for

Barry Switzer.

A sellout crowd at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Arizona. It's the world champion,

the Dallas Cowboys, to face the Arizona Cardinals on a warm day, 86 degrees.

Well, I'll start by the game in Arizona.

Anytime you play the Arizona Cardinals, I don't care what their record is. It's

just something about playing those guys that will put wear and tear on your

body. Just a physical team.

And I just remember being so tired after that game. I think I took a couple of

Vicodin. We went from the airport to the Iguana

Mirage. I was at the bar with a couple guys, and I had a couple drinks.

We had a good time at Aragon.

And I think we were all planning on going to Eric's house.

I told Eric that he needed to ride with me.

And he didn't.

And I come, I said, where did he be?

He said, he's gone. I said, oh, shh.

As I'm driving, I was talking to my oldest son's mother on the phone.

And I dropped the phone.

I go to pick the phone up, and the curve is on me.

And I just put my hands up and said, I'm dead.

Coming around the bend, Big E is in the wall.

I'm running to the car, and I see Eric still in the car.

I stopped.

My legs went numb.

I mean, shaking.

He was in bad shape.

I thought we lost him.

The ass was in his head. Blood in his face and everything.

I started to say, Eric, Eric, Eric.

And he didn't say anything.

I started to say, big fella, big fella, get up.

Get up.

Get up. Get up.

All I remember is my face hitting the windshield.

It was an unbearable pain.

My face was very hot.

And then my knee, the pain in my knee that I felt was just indescribable.

They were saying, you got to keep him up. You can't let him go out. If he goes

out, I was holding his head and we were trying to get him to the hospital.

You know, so I was just trying to keep him up the whole ride.

All -pro offensive tackle Eric Williams suffered a broken rib, multiple facial

lacerations, torn ligaments in his left thumb and right knee.

His coach got the news this morning.

Hopefully a wake -up call for him.

Didn't look very good.

Looked like he'd gotten a razor fight without a razor.

Switzer says it's likely Williams will miss the rest of the season.

You lose a good player, you become average in a hurry.

Biggie, that's all for that offensive line.

He was our invincible man. He was the dead guy.

Just a different whip without him.

To me, Eric Williams, who was lost to the Cowboys for the season, was the best

offensive lineman in all of football. I was going to say, he's a great one.

As the regular season continued, I could tell that we were slipping in some

areas that we had not at prior times.

Now, I'm not saying they're not a good football team, but they no longer appear

invincible.

Nobody knew if Barry Switzer could take this team and do something no one had

ever done, which would be to win three straight Super Bowls. With the Dallas

Cowboys, as talented as they are, it's really the Super Bowl for that.

But we just weren't as focused on football as we could be. They lost the

right tackle when they lost Derrick Williams.

That's a sizable hole. That was always the challenge after Jimmy left.

You know, I wonder, Jimmy, if maybe you wouldn't want to go back down to Dallas.

What do you do? Buy the team?

They're probably happy that I'm here because if I was back in Dallas, I'd

be grinding. I'd still be working.

The end of the season, we went four and three, and that's not how you get to a

Super Bowl.

This is where Barry Switzer is going to be judged.

Can you get back?

Can you three -peat? Can you win another Super Bowl?

Systems haven't changed.

Head coach may be different.

We know what to do.

We just got to go do it.

So

who's

going to beat him?

Who? That was the story. Who was going to stop the Cowboys?

No one.

If you talk to the NFL about the field, they say it's in absolutely great shape.

When you talk to the players, they say it's worse than it was two years ago.

They're going to have a lot of problems.

It is the game and the two teams most people predicted would be playing for

NFC Championship.

Fox expects you to have 85 million watching this game, more people than

watched any show in Fox's history.

Cowboys have won three of the last four in the series, the last two to go to the

Super Bowl.

San Francisco has desperately been trying to find a way to get over the

After losing to the Cowboys in 93, Eddie DiBarlo and I were walking alone.

And he looked at me and he said, can't let this happen again.

The beach area and the Cowboys, we built the team around our defense.

The thought that we can inflict.

harm on Jerry and the Cowboys.

It just made it so enticing, and especially with Dion.

Ladies and gentlemen, Dion Sanders.

Dion posed a problem.

One, two, sit down.

He's the man, he's the man. One of the greatest actors in our time, prime time.

Pay the call to be the boss.

Prime time. Prime time. Prime time. Prime time.

Make sure the license plates say prime time.

Ho, ho, ho.

Look at me. This dude was a true rock star.

Prime time.

In one year, play baseball, play football.

Who was doing that back in the day? Nobody but Prime.

Leon was kind of like the whole package.

Better.

Stronger.

He was as good as it got as a lockdown corner.

And a guy who would get you a lot of publicity.

And win you a lot of games.

That wasn't it.

It. Yeah, that's what I was.

You know what it is.

It is it.

It is that one ingredient that gives you the flavor, that gives you the taste,

that gives you the understanding, the wisdom.

It's the purpose. That was the it.

What made him so good? His athletic ability.

No. He was a student of the game.

He knew splits.

He knew formations.

He knew concepts.

And he knew them well.

Deion was an impact player.

He could score from punt returns and kickoff returns.

He could score as a receiver.

Frankly, he created such an imbalance on defense because teams would go away

from him.

A real lockdown corner.

You don't want to play around with that.

The way I changed the game is that you were concerned about me. I wasn't

concerned about you because I run like a Lamborghini.

I put pressure on people. Pressure ain't on me. Pressure's on them. Because you

prepare and you study.

He single -handedly can turn a ballgame around.

When he would go up against Michael Irvin or anybody, I mean, that was

kind of like, that's Milo Armando, baby.

That's Alpha Dog versus Alpha Dog.

And the pass intended for Michael Irvin.

And it's a fumble.

I've had many battles with Deion.

You know, I played him freshman year at Miami.

You know, I ran an out and up on Dion. I had him beat.

That ball came, and I looked back, and this dude was out running the football.

Pushed me down, jumped up, intercepted the ball, and was running the other way.

I've not seen anything like it.

That 94 game.

I knew it was going to be the battle.

When we played the Cowboys,

they called it the NFC Championship, but we all knew it was the Super Bowl.

Whoever's next, get that. This is it. This is the one. And remember last year

they had a fight? Well, this year they had another fight.

You try to be professional, but...

They took so much away from us.

This time, we were going to send a statement.

Whether it gets in a fight on the street, on the field, we're rolling out

whatever we can throw at you.

It's just us and you.

One reporter said, what happens if you don't win?

I had a samurai sword in my desk, and I pointed to the samurai sword, and I

says, I'll have to do the honorable thing.

Kickoff for San Francisco.

The winner of this game goes to the Super Bowl.

Sanders with Harper.

And Aikman back to throw.

Protection good.

Incomplete. We wanted to disrupt their rhythm. We changed it up quite a bit.

it was very strategic.

If they're going to stay away from Deion, they're going to have to go to

Irvin with some kind of double coverage.

Intercepted by Eric Davis.

And Davis will score for the 49ers.

I think Deion Sanders on Harper has thrown it for a loop. Troy Aikman didn't

read it, threw it right to him. I think it's going to take a while for the

Cowboys to adjust.

When they made the mistakes, capitalize.

You have to make them pay.

And the defending world champion

Cowboys have to be in shock.

Kevin with his third kickoff return of the day.

He needs something to happen against the ball that's loose.

And again, San Francisco recovers.

I was always taught to go for the throat, and basically that's what we

do. Second and goal with the one.

Good.

Touchdown San Francisco on the 49ers lead.

Three Dallas Cowboys turnovers.

Three 49er touchdowns.

Seven minutes and 33 seconds left in the first quarter.

The way we played, my God, just gifts. They were gifts.

It's like a horror movie I'm watching.

First time in NFC Championship history that a team has scored three touchdowns

in the first quarter. In history.

It was unimaginable, quite honestly.

America had only seen the Cowboys win.

All of a sudden, it's the first time that they had seen us with our backs

against the wall.

San Francisco put them up. It's humongous for the momentum and for the

psychological feeling of these teams.

Getting down three touchdowns in five minutes, it brought my world out. It

brought me crashing. It brought me to reality.

And I thought, quit thinking you're a chosen one or you've got some kind of

right to this stuff.

It's just like walking out there during third days when you were a Razorback.

It's supposed to be hard.

I feel like we was just holding on to dear life.

I think people were looking around, trying to find out, okay, who's going to

that leader that Jimmy was?

Get over this piece.

Jimmy's no longer here, and he's not coming back.

We are the last of the Mohicans.

Barry coming in and leading this team, but we were here from the beginning.

No one can stake claim to that but us.

And therefore, this is incumbent upon us to take it upon our shoulders and not

to allow anything get in here and break this up.

No matter who the coach is, we got to get back to that game. We got to prove

that we can do it.

I remember thinking, don't forget who we're playing.

We're playing Aikman and the boys.

It's not supposed to be this easy.

That means we're in trouble.

You know the great thing about being down 21 to nothing, first five minutes

the ballgame, you got 55 minutes to get back in this son of a bitch.

This Cowboy team are still the world champion.

They're not going to give up that throne without a fight.

When you're down 21 to nothing, you're going to have to pass the ball more than

you came into the game thinking.

Being in that huddle and Troy looked up at me and said, hey, I'm coming to you.

No matter what.

That means double teams, Deion Sanders, we don't care. We are throwing the ball

because it's 21 -0.

Third and 23.

Mike Gordon, touchdown, Dallas.

We have the game.

We have the game.

Steve Young fires in. Almost a touchdown. This game was going to.

Go the distance no matter what.

It's going to be a shootout.

We're up 1 -1 to 14.

We're back in it.

When there's so much at stake, you are going to have to fight for everything.

We mounted that comeback with everything in us.

Everybody on the sidelines said, keep fighting.

Nobody quit.

The heart of the game came out.

Now we could apply pressure on them to test what they were all about.

quarterbacks, when you get that big hit on, they start looking for that.

Young gets into the end zone.

Touchdown, Steve Young. The Cowboys and us were at it.

It felt like there was no one else around.

Here's Aikman going deep.

And Sanders intercepts. He is so fast, he can catch up with him and pass him.

What did your mama say when you was a child?

Don't touch that up in this high.

That's why Deion Sanders is Deion Sanders.

Then you mess around and found out.

And boy, did Troy Aikman hang in there. This is a guy who won't say no.

There was no quit.

I mean, we kept fighting.

Back up,

please. Back up.

We showed America why we were champions.

It's over six minutes left.

And we got the ball back.

If we score here, we only down three.

A whole different game.

What made Michael so great is that when the ball was in the air, it was his

ball.

And so I didn't have a doubt as soon as I got the ball. That's where I was

going.

I knew they were going to take a shot.

Instead of just running and looking up, I slipped because the field was

horrible.

But, you know, I got that Lamborghini in me, so I hit it.

I looked up, and there was no flag thrown.

I was like, what?

He always

feels like that should have been a penalty because he's Mike Irvin, but he

forgot I was proud.

In today's game, pass interference.

All day, every day.

There's a flag on the play on the far side of the field. I think Barry Switzer

might have run into the referee.

It happened right in front of me.

And the official comes up.

I've stuck my hand out with my hand. He stepped into my damn arm. I had my hand

across his chest. I had a 15 -yard penalty because I touched the official.

Holy moly, I've never seen a coach like that.

4th and 10.

And 8th and a snap.

That may be the Super Bowl play.

That might be.

Not a first down.

Not a first down. It was a tough, tough game

and a hard one to lose.

The Cowboys have given us a lot of great games and have been great champions.

But three in a row won't happen.

The team that I hated with every ounce of my body had just beat us.

And I didn't think that they could beat us. And that love that I had for the

game left.

I just felt as though if I would have been in that game, you know, we would

had a shot.

Revenge is best on the tip of a cold knife.

It wasn't supposed to happen the way it did.

It came down to one ball game and we beat ourselves.

But it was.

Well, sure, it's a mistake that I gave you 15 yards. Sure. Do we win the game

that doesn't happen?

Yes. No.

I dog cussed myself all the way to the locker room. I'm so pissed off at

That 94 game was quite a thought provoking.

psychological happening for me.

I remember walking out of that stadium, cried like a baby.

That's the only time I ever cried after a game.

I don't have fucking peace.

And all I think about is that one play.

How the day goes by, I don't question myself on it.

But I wanted the touchdown.

And I waited on it.

Yeah, it's just, I'd be wondering, was I greedy?

Did I want to be a hero? What was that?

I just don't understand that.

I really can't explain the way I'm feeling right now. You know, I really

sunk in yet. We want to play in the Super Bowl.

What made it worse was watching the Super Bowl.

A superb performance by the San Francisco 49ers, and they are the world

champions.

I feel like that should have been us.

I cried like a baby.

I was very fortunate to win three Super Bowls, but if not for the Cowboys,

maybe that could have been six.

I look back, I'm like, I'm so grateful for the Cowboys.

I learned from playing the Cowboys.

I learned about myself. I actually got better.

Whatever I became was modeled because of that.

And winning in 94, I think, brings that kind of full, the full truth of it.

I think Jerry not being able to win the Super Bowl was a major speed bump

with his master plan.

But only a speed bump.

Their championship reign is over. But what about the future for the Dallas

Cowboys? The composition of this team could change a bit next year.

Are you the reason that he didn't get a free kick?

Yeah.

Yeah. I'm done already. I'm the reason.

I'm the reason, the season, the treason, whatever you want to rhyme it with. I'm

a hit.

The thing that I mostly think of, which is very telling, is...

Not the pain of having missed an opportunity to win three Super Bowls in

Not that pain.

But the correction of the disappointment.

I'll never forget.

I was on television in an interview.

And I looked in the camera and I just pointed in the camera and I said, I know

you're looking.

And I was.

And I was watching. I was sitting in the hotel room.

And he said, Deion Sanders, if you're out there.

You need to be a Dallas Cowboy.

Call my attorney.

Give me an update. What's going on? What's popping?

He's like, we talking.

I don't care what it takes. You get me Deion.