The Dallas Cowboys will face the San Francisco 49ers at home this week, and the upcoming matchup has certainly brought back some old memories for former 49ers linebacker Gary Plummer. Plummer was a key part of the San Francisco defense that finally got revenge after back-to-back NFC Championship Game losses to the Cowboys in the early 1990s.
Watch What’s Trending Now!
Now, with Dallas set to face San Francisco at AT&T Stadium on Sunday, Plummer didn’t shy away from taking a dig at the Cowboys team of the 1990s, which won three Super Bowls with Troy Aikman under center.
“F**k Dallas,” said Plummer on 95.7 The Game, when asked about the first thing that comes to his mind when someone says the Dallas Cowboys. “I literally think that they have so many, at least back then, they had so many punks. They thought because they put a uniform on, they were gonna intimidate everybody. You weren’t America’s team, you weren’t California’s team, you weren’t San Francisco’s team, I promise you that. So it was just synonymous with a bunch of arrogant, whiny bitches.”
Gary Plummer spent the majority of his NFL career with the San Diego Chargers, but his final four seasons in the league with the 49ers were defined by the team’s rivalry with the Cowboys. Dallas had defeated San Francisco 30-20 in the 1993 NFC Championship Game, giving the 49ers an opportunity to avenge that loss a year later.
However, Dallas once again came out on top, defeating the 49ers 38-21 in the 1994 NFC Championship Game. Ahead of the 1994 season, the 49ers knew they needed a major overhaul to their roster, and the loss motivated the team to overhaul its defense.
Team president Carmen Policy responded by signing several defensive players, including Gary Plummer, Ken Norton Jr., Rickey Jackson, and Deion Sanders. San Fran faced Dallas once again in the NFC Championship Game. This time, the 49ers defeated the Cowboys 38-28, and ultimately won the Super Bowl that season.
But the rivalry wasn’t over yet.
In November 1995, Plummer and the 49ers went back to Dallas and beat the Cowboys 38-20 at Texas Stadium. Dallas was 8-2 entering the game, while San Francisco was only 6-4. The Cowboys had been heavily favored, and the 49ers had been written off. But after the win, Plummer said:
“To stand there and throw dirt on us before we were dead and buried was not right. Everybody has spent all week basking in the glory of the demise of the 49ers. The statement we made today was, there is no demise.”
Gary Plummer retired as a Super Bowl champion with the 49ers. But even though it’s been decades since he last played for San Francisco, his history with the Cowboys remains relevant. That was evident in 2023.
That year, 49ers tight end George Kittle revealed that when Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch arrived, they emphasized teaching younger players about the franchise’s history. One of the images shown to the players was Plummer wearing a shirt with “F**K Dallas” on it while playing against the Cowboys.
Kittle said he thought, “At some point in my career, I want to do that.”
He eventually did during the matchup when the 49ers defeated the Cowboys 42-10 in 2023. While the league fined the tight end for pulling off the stunt, Kittle received praise from Gary Plummer for keeping the rivalry alive.
“I just started getting inundated with pictures of Kittle,” said Plummer. “And then clips of the ‘Pat McAfee Show’ where he gave me credit for coming up with it in ’94…You just watch the way he plays the game. I just really enjoy it. First of all he’s a trash talker, which I love. And then he plays so hard.”
But as the 49ers prepare to face the Cowboys this week, Plummer didn’t just have things to say about the Cowboys players he faced during his NFL career. In fact, the 49ers legend also had something to say about owner and general manager Jerry Jones. During his appearance on 95.7 The Game, Plummer was asked whose face he pictured whenever he said, “F**K Dallas.” He said:
“Unfortunately, there’s a bunch of them,” Plummer added, “but it would have to start at the top with Jerry Jones. I mean, just like, dude really get over it, and that’s bad faith, even though he’s had plastic surgery.”
Jerry Jones has been a prominent part of the Cowboys’ success in the early 90s. But there was a particularly prominent episode in 2001, when Jones had lost roughly 55-60 pounds and appeared noticeably different. SFGate published a contemporary report jokingly describing the dramatic change in Jones’ appearance and directly suggesting he had undergone cosmetic work.
Jones never publicly confirmed whether he underwent cosmetic surgery, but his changed appearance had already become a subject of public speculation by the early 2000s. Decades later, Plummer clearly had no intention of letting the subject pass without a joke, adding another layer to his latest round of Cowboys criticism.