Three seasons, a 33-3 record, and playing under Jimmy Johnson for the Miami Hurricanes had taught Michael Irvin one thing: losing was never an option, and certainly not something to be okay with. But that champion’s drive faced a roadblock when he got drafted 11th overall by the Dallas Cowboys in 1988. Before his first game, he was expecting head coach Tom Landry to give a big speech, the kind Jimmy used to give in Miami. But Landry came in and said something to the likes of, ‘Let’s just try to keep this close.’ Michael Irvin – the man dubbed ‘The Playmaker’ – couldn’t stand it.

But when Jerry Jones bought the team in 1989, fired coach Landry, and handed his old friend Jimmy Johnson the reins of the franchise, Irvin knew things were going to change in a hurry. To do that, complacency had to be rooted out of their system immediately – even if it meant Irvin had to betray his locker room. That’s the story Irvin went back to when he appeared on Champion Mindset with Daniel Cormier.

“We had to establish a new nucleus for Dallas. When I first got to Dallas, I was the last first-round draft pick of the great Tom Landry, and there were a lot of guys that were here,” Irvin said. “My first few games – I’ll never forget it. After going through all I did to get to the end, I felt I couldn’t wait. And I remember that first game; we lost that game. I was literally crying. Literally crying cause I wasn’t losing much and I couldn’t take it.

“…All we did was in [in college]. And then I get here, and we lose a game. I’m crying, and I got guys – I’ll never forget it – telling me, ‘Come on, Rook. This ain’t what we do in the NFL. Just going to pick that check up on Tuesday.’ They crushed me. I’ve been working my a** off to get here to play with these dudes right here. And I got dudes saying this to me. Man, next year, Jimmy came in, and I love Tom, but Jimmy Johnson came in, I was a snitch.”

When Cormier cut in with “I need like-minded people around me,” Irvin agreed, and kept going.

“Period. Period,” Irvin said. “I promise you. I sat with him, I told everybody that touched me, your a** got to go because we’re not going to get there with that thought. Jimmy would always say to us in meetings, ‘I don’t care why you came. If you want why you came, we all have to have one through, and that must be winning.’

“See, winning can get you money. Winning can get you fame; winning can get you the girl. Winning can get you whatever you want. But we got to think on winning. If you got any other thought, you can’t be around. And they had other thoughts. They were thinking on money.

Jimmy had already instilled a champion’s mindset within Irvin when he coached him in Miami. If you didn’t meet that standard in Dallas, you had to go. So Irvin, as he’s recalled this story on numerous occasions, made a list of the players who weren’t there to win and handed that list to Coach Johnson.

That 1989 offseason was transformative, but success didn’t come immediately. Dallas went 1-15 that season. But following Irvin’s advice, Jimmy took a wrecking ball to the roster. The Cowboys had already pulled off the Herschel Walker trade and drafted Troy Aikman first overall in the 1989 Draft. Using their draft ammunition, the Cowboys had begun to rebuild their team, and when Emmitt Smith finally became a Cowboy in 1990, the legend of “The Triplets” began. A couple more years, and this group got its first Super Bowl in the 1992 season. Their dynasty years had begun.

The Cowboys stuck to very simple schemes back then, but the players delivered them with such intensity that they were nearly unstoppable. Looking back, a lot can be attributed to how the Cowboys became the team of the 90s. Jerry buying the team, bringing in Jimmy Johnson, trades, draft picks – all of it combined to bring them three Super Bowls. But would it have happened if Michael Irvin hadn’t ratted out his locker room? Perhaps not. That list of names Irvin scribbled down and handed to Johnson was the stepping stone to building America’s Team.