Back in the early 1990s, the Dallas Cowboys were at the zenith of NFL success. For better or worse, that credit mostly went to their rather new owner at the time, Jerry Jones, and his decision to bring in his Arkansas teammate and Miami head coach Jimmy Johnson. But the law of gravity got to them. And that blame, unsurprisingly, also goes to Jones. 

Just five years in, Jones, the owner and general manager of the team, wanted to funnel some coaching decisions under his umbrella and take credit for the team’s dramatic turnaround. Johnson, a through-and-through football coach, wouldn’t cede control. The breakup resulted in one of the biggest what-ifs of modern NFL. While the Cowboys Nation saw the dynasty fall apart on the outside, Troy Aikman recently revealed what was going on inside the locker room.

“The frustrating thing for me, and I think I can speak for my teammates, every year Jimmy would address that if we do things we are capable of doing as a team, there would be enough credit to go around for everybody,” Troy Aikman reminisced on the Your Dark Companion podcast on Monday. “And so, our team did put the ego aside — myself, Emmitt (Smith), and Michael (Irvin), and the others. Unfortunately, the two that were the leaders of the group, they couldn’t do the same, and that’s the disappointing thing for me.

“But I have a belief that when ego gets in the middle of anything, it’s usually not for the better, and that was a classic example as to that being true, and it was the demise of what could have been really a tremendous run. Of course I’m asked, and I know a lot of Cowboys fans would like to think that we would have won ten Super Bowls had Jimmy stayed, and who knows, maybe we would have, but that’s something we will never know the answer to, but it sure ended a lot sooner than it should have.”

The rumbling started as the team was vying for a back-to-back Super Bowl title in 1993. Things started to change, and the tension between two competitive masterminds over decisions, credit, and money became visible. But that’s the thing about competing: if you lose, no one wants the blame. If you win, though, everyone wants the credit.

Johnson ultimately left after that season. To make matters worse, Jones brought in his rival, Barry Switzer, as the replacement. The team won another title in 1995. However, Aikman is not the only one who wonders what would have happened if Johnson had stayed.

The many what-ifs about the Cowboys dynasty and why it all crumbled down

In August last year, Irvin came forward with his review on the Netflix documentary ‘America’s Team: The Gambler and His Cowboys.’ But while being honest about it, he also wondered about why their dynasty came down like a house of cards.

“Jimmy was maniacal about winning football games,” Irvin said. “And then the truth of it is, I think when you’re back-to-back champion, I don’t know what Jimmy was getting paid and all of those things. But I’m pretty sure he was being paid below what he deserves. That’s all I’m going to say.

“And since this video is titled back to back, the great glory of the story is the back to back. But for me, the great pain: [we] could have won four or five straight [Super Bowls].”

The success didn’t hold, and there was a reason why. In the same documentary, former safety James Washington talked about the concerns.

“A lot of guys liked him because now the guys felt like they had freedom,” Washington said. “Barry came into that locker room, the dynamic, the accountability, the work ethic that had changed.”

The Netflix documentary also shows that after Jimmy Johnson left, some Cowboys players started partying more off the field at a mansion near the team facilities called the “White House.”

But at the end of the day, whether the feud is truly over or not, it is certainly buried deeper as Jones finally extended the franchise’s Ring of Honor distinction to Johnson in December 2023. As it turns out, Jones also accepted that he wronged Johnson at some level.

Jerry Jones accepted what went wrong with Jimmy Johnson

“I lost my tolerance for a lot of things,” Jones said in a 2016 interview with Texas A&M radio station KTCK. “I probably should have had a little more tolerance with Jimmy Johnson. Seriously.”

While announcing his Ring of Honor induction, Jones further confessed what he truly felt about his former head coach.

“I never had a time when I didn’t have an appreciation for his confidence and skill level. Ever,” he told ESPN in 2023. “I’ve always had that appreciation when we parted. I did that at that particular time. So that has never been an issue. It was a great atmosphere. Great. Again, his being in our ring of honor does, in my mind, say that.”

And so a partnership that promised to reshape the NFL and earn lasting honors dissolved. Since Switzer, the team has not returned to the NFC Championship Game. Ultimately, the man who quite literally re-built the America’s Team, also managed to break it all down.

But when Johnson finally got his honor as a Cowboys legend, he thanked Jones for bringing him to Dallas and brought back the same catchphrase that started it all:

 “How ‘bout them Cowboys!”