FRISCO, Texas – Thirty Super Bowls ago, the Dallas Cowboys won Super Bowl XXX.
Finished the regular season with a 12-4 record. Won the NFC East for the fourth consecutive year. Secured the No. 1 seed in the NFC playoffs. Homefield advantage for the third time in four seasons.
Beat the Pittsburgh Steelers in a Super Bowl for the first time in three tries, 27-17. All seemed a piece of cake, winning their third Super Bowl in four seasons.
Ha, not so much.
There is a term in hockey used like this: "puck luck" for a fortuitous bounce of the puck on slippery ice.
Well, for the Cowboys that season, this could be termed "ball blessings."
Do you remember? Do you even know?
This 1995 season was more like a rocky road, and the Cowboys must hope they did not exhaust their share of the football gods'serendipitous supply considering what has taken place over these past seasons, unable to even return to the NFC Championship all these years since.
Let's review.
The Cowboys in 1995 were coming off a 12-4 season in 1994 but had conceded the ever-important home-field advantage in the playoffs to San Francisco, mostly on the strength of the 49ers beating them in the regular season, 21-14, and ultimately finishing one game better than Dallas at 13-3. And the Niners wound up ending the Cowboys' attempt to three-peat, using that home-field advantage – as well as the Cowboys'opening the NFC title game at a muddy Candlestick Park with three consecutive turnovers to fall behind 21-0 – to earn an eventual 38-28 victory. The 49ers then went on their way to winning Super Bowl XXIX, wiping out a San Diego Chargers team that the Cowboys also surely would have beaten, 49-26, for, guess what, their last of five Super Bowl wins.
So heading into the final game of the 1995 season, the Cowboys and 49ers were deadlocked at 11-4, tied for the best record in the NFC. Tied for homefield advantage in the playoffs. Except for this: The 5-4 Niners won their regular season showdown with the then 8-1 Cowboys, 38-20, meaning once again the Niners, having then won five more consecutive games, only needed to beat the 8-7 Atlanta Falcons to wrap up the No. 1 seed on Christmas Eve.
But as the Cowboys were flying to Phoenix, Ariz., Sunday afternoon for their final game of the season to be played on Christmas night that Monday, they found out the Falcons had beaten the Niners, 28-27, dropping them to 11-5. With that Christmas present unwrapped, all the Cowboys then had to do was beat the 4-11 Cardinals to go 12-4 and claim the No. 1 seed.
They did, 37-13. The No. 1 seed and home-field advantage was theirs. But that sure didn't guarantee the Cowboys not having to face the 49ers in the NFC title game for the fourth consecutive year, knowing they had lost the past three meetings with San Francisco, one in the 1994 season NFC Championship Game and the two others being regular season matchups.
Well, here comes another smile. The Packers eliminated the 49ers in the second round of the playoffs, 27-17, and with Dallas beating Philadelphia in that round, it now would face Green Bay instead in the NFC Championship. The Cowboys won, 38-27, but not as easy at the score might seem. They trailed the Packers and Brett Favre, 17-14, early in the second quarter and then 27-24 with 5:19 left in the game played at Texas Stadium with Favre finishing the day with 307 yards passing and three touchdowns.
Undaunted, the Cowboys scored 14 straight points, the third ofEmmitt Smith's three touchdowns (rushed for 150 yards) set up by a Larry Brown interception of Favre at the Cowboys 20 and returned 28 yards. The Brown pick was somewhat foreboding of things to come.
On to Super Bowl XXX.
But this 1995 season was trying for the Cowboys. The pressure was on from the start after new head coach Barry Switzer lost the NFC title game in his first year of 1994 after taking over for the departed Jimmy Johnson. Then with the start of NFL free agency and that hard salary cap as we know it today, the Cowboys lost seven starters from their 1993 Super Bowl title team over the next two offseasons, including staples Ken Norton Jr., Mark Stepnoski, Alvin Harper and James Washington. Also, special teamer Kenny Gant.
Then the regular season blowout loss to the Niners. Then the 20-17 loss at Philadelphia in what became known as the "Load Left" game and Switzer's inexplicable fourth-and-1 gamble from his own 29-yard line in a 17-17 game late in the fourth quarter. As it turned out, gambled twicesince the 2:00 warning sounded before Emmitt was stuffed for no gain the first time around. No play. Do over. Maybe second thoughts?
Nope, insistent, the Cowboys gambled again. Same play. Same result. No gain. Eagles took over at the Cowboys 29, already in field goal range. Gary Anderson, eventually four plays later, kicked what turned out to be the 42-yard game-winning field goal for a 20-17 lead with 1:26 remaining. The Cowboys lost their second consecutive game, dropping to 11-4. They had survived the heat so far.
Still, the Cowboys arrived in Phoenix for Super Bowl XXX with a whole lot of bluster. Can remember several of the players hiring a Dallas limousine company to caravan multiple cars to Arizona for Super Bowl week, figuring they needed drivers they could trust when out and about.
Then the game, Jan. 28, 1996, Sun Devil Stadium, meeting the 11-5 Steelers, halftime featuring Diana Ross, who sang her final hit song,"Take Me Higher," as she was whisked off the stage near the end sitting on the edge of a helicopter's open side door on liftoff.
That only led to more second-half drama. The Cowboys offense struggled all game. They couldn't run the ball on the Steelers defense. Emmitt rushed for just 49 yards, the Cowboys but 56. The high-scoring Cowboys totaled just 254 yards. They only led 13-7 at halftime. Then while up 20-7, the Steelers doubled up after kicking a field goal andsuccessfully recovering a surprise onside kick. Suddenly, this became a one-score game, the Cowboys up just 20-17 with 6:36 to play.
Step to the forefront, Larry Brown. The Cowboys cornerback, no more than a 12th-round pick in 1991, had tied for the team lead that season with six interceptions while playing the second half of the season with Deion Sanders on the other side. And he had already picked off Steelers quarterback Neil O'Donnell in the third quarter, returning the ball to the Pittsburgh 17-yard line to set up an eventual Emmitt 1-yard touchdown run two plays later for a short-lived 20-7 lead.
Thank you very much.
Brown wasn't finished. With 4:08 to play, the Steelers facing second-and-10 from their own 32, the Cowboys blitzed with Brown holding his ground to his left playing zone. And of all things, O'Donnell threw the ball right to Brown again for his second INT, returning the ball to the Steelers 6. Two plays later, Emmitt himself then said thank you very much, going in for his second touchdown and a 27-17 Cowboys lead with 3:43 to play.
Yeah, a measure of serendipity. The Cowboys won their third Super Bowl in four years. Brown was selected the game's MVP, still the only cornerback to win that Super Bowl honor, turning this performance into a five-year, $12.5 million deal with the Raiders. Big money for a corner in those days.
But had the Cowboys exhausted their measure of good fortune for years to come?
Here we are on Sunday, watching Seattle vs. New England, 30 Super Bowls later, the Cowboys still yearning for another one.
And what I remember most entering the locker room after that Super Bowl XXX victory was peering into the assistant coaches locker room. There most of them were, sitting in their undergarments, strewn on the floor, leaning their backs against their locker benches. No celebration but seemingly sighs of relief, not so much because they had won but more so because they had survived. The game. The season. They didn't lose. They had vanquished the ghost of Jimmy Johnson.
During the Lombardi Trophy presentation, Switzer grabbed the that sucker in one hand, held it high and repeatedly screamed out on the podium to owner Jerry Jones, "We did it our way! We did it our way!"
Even if few likely remember or even knew this being the hard way.
