America's Game - The Super Bowl Champions - 1977 Dallas Cowboys

nfl network presents america's game a countdown of the 20 greatest super bowl champions and now number 11. [Music] [Music] one of the more entertaining divisions of professional football the last several seasons has been the nfc east the cowboys the redskins and the cardinals have waged their own version of a holy war with the giants and the eagles always bringing up the rear but this year the cowboys have been established as a heavy preseason favorite to win that division because on the day of the draft without disturbing their team they were able to give to seattle three draft choices in exchange for a heisman trophy winner we have never had the real big back the the breakaway back the back that can make the big play we've just been lacking that uh that one added dimension and i think that is the dimension that will be added to the cowboys by a 20 door set failure in the running game cost tom landry's cowboys in a super bowl 10 loss to the steelers [Music] the next year another power outage at running back short-circuited dallas against the rams [Music] we're one player away from winning the super bowl and i promise you if it was ever true it was true for that 77 team we had this puzzle and the puzzle doesn't work unless you know every piece plays a role in the puzzle and we were missing one piece and that was tony dorsett oh no no no i'm not the final piece to this spot so i'm just a guy just trying to fit in i mean they already had all these great great players he's all pro players and guys are highly visible in the national football league so i was just trying to blend in you see him for the first time you're wondering what this little guy and then you're a little skeptical because now he's in the pros and you look at his small stature and he's wondering if he can do the same things on a professional level that he did on the college level tony dorsett was always a star he was the nation's best high school player at hopewell high outside pittsburgh an ncaa champion and heisman trophy winner at the university of pittsburgh and the number one pick of america's team coming in as a heisman trophy winner with a lot of hoop along i knew there was going to be uh some people trying to test me there was going to be a lot of eyes upon me and and i might get challenged i know he had a certain uh error arrogance about him he had an air about him that he had he did have a sense of entitlement and he too looked at the cowboy team and knew that he was probably the best talent at the running back spot so he wanted the job it just didn't work that way you weren't ever just handed a job you had to earn it he was a prima donna he was a sweet looking running son of a gun and uh an arrogant guy like me a self-promoting guy like me didn't mind i just wish i'd have got his money you know he got way more money than i did we had to bring him down a notch and coach landry was very good at doing that dorsett was beaten up in summer camp and beaten down by head coach tom landry tom doesn't want prima donnas and tom has a way of humbling people they would tell me and you know you got to do this and do that and he's just going to test you he plays these mind games and i got down on myself and i was really really really in the dumps everyone else was sky high this perfect mix of emerging stars and veteran all pros expected to reach the super bowl coach landry ran our team like a corporation we had goals we had methods to obtain the goals we had critical points to obtain the methods that attained the goals and then we had the individual exact details to perform the critical points to perform the methods to perform the goal and the goal was to win the super bowl always in the spotlight tony dorsett began the season as a spot player it was not the colt but the war horse preston pearson number 26 who started at running back with pearson at running back dallas cruised through the early season [Music] i think preston pearson was raising a little hell that i'm the guy i know this system and you know you can't just put this guy in front of me he took a lot of pride in the fact that he was keeping a player like tony dorsett on the bench here's uh roger back to throw across the middle preston pearson wide open touchdown oh my goodness he was all by himself four yards deep coach landry knew he could always insert tony in certain situations so he kind of handled him with kid gloves only using him in certain situations and games using him on certain plays that he was very familiar with [Music] handoff door set right guard to the 10 to the 5 touchdown tony narcetta scored his first touchdown as a pro [Music] we knew eventually that tony would be the man and it was just a matter of time before he took over in a reserve role dorset scored twice against the giants and displayed the explosive running the team had sorely lacked i didn't like the way the media was handling the whole scenario from the standpoint of when i come into a game they're expecting these miraculous things to happen as a running back that's not the way it goes it wasn't a situation where he had to come in and be the savior you know we had a good football team in the fourth week dorsett was still not starting but he revolutionized traditional cowboy running philosophy my whole thing was look i am a runner i run to daylight i run to what i see and it always not going to be like you you draw up x's and o's we're running practices i'm rolling this thing and our our defense you know playing the mock defense of the cardinals they were they were moving and so they went and i seen it it broke all the way back across back behind the center it will never it will never in a hundred years ever break like that stay on side not enough i gotta run into what i see i roll slant 24 and it broke back just like he said it would never break in 100 years i go 77 yards for a touchdown to the 50 the 40 he's to the 30 the 20 the damn the five tony dorsett cowboy runners were expected to slam into the proper hole but it was dorsett's ability to improvise to transform losses into touchdowns that made the little man unique coach landry changed the way he coached when tony dorsett showed him that he could cut back against the grain or get through holes that that nobody else has ever gotten through before and the next day in the meeting coach andrew comes in and he says okay tony's a different type of runner what you guys are going to have to do as offensive live and you're just going to have to put your hats on your guy and keep your hat on him and he's gonna run to what he sees from that point on i never had another problem i was able to be become td and be myself tom landry allowed randy white to be himself when he moved number 54 to defensive tackle [Music] for two seasons white was imprisoned at linebacker while dr frankenstein tried to build him into a monster a monster like dick butkus like the legendary linebacker he was ferocious but not quite skilled enough to play the position randy is a down lineman you know he's not a guy that's comfortable playing standing up he likes to get down in four point stance and get after people [Music] what dorsett added on offense white added on defense where he was the destructive inside force on the doomsday defense on game day this meek humble person turned into a monster i mean he was he was ferocious on gamepad he scared me i've never been afraid of anything and randy white scared me white scared everyone but thomas henderson a player who challenged both coaches and teammates thomas hollywood henderson was a provoker you know he was an instigator he was always trying to get under somebody's skin and he just picked the wrong guy you know randy why why would you want to mess with randy white you know he wouldn't call the master for nothing half man half monster randy white one of the strongest men in the national football league thomas henderson cocaine addict that wasn't fair that wasn't a fair fight randy uh proceeded to just to lift him up and i think he left him with one arm and slammed him into the locker and and it was over pretty quickly he picked me up he stuffed me in my locker then he had me pinned to the floor and i said to him my head while he had me pinning the floor if you let me up i'm gonna kick your ass it was just which is crazy randy did do a number on thomas he was very good to him he could have hurt him a little more if he wanted to so he didn't pound me he didn't hit me he didn't whip my ass like he probably could have because he knew i'd probably kill him i mean you know i'd go home and get something and come back and put on his big ass i actually think after that incident randy and hollywood uh became closer they had a better understanding of each other i know hollywood had a better understanding of randy white randy white and the ferocious front four were the bedrock of the doomsday defense the best defensive unit in the nfl because this defense read offenses instead of attacking them they were labeled as soft we would hear a lot of teams talking about us being a finesse team and and not a physical football team we would laugh at that and say let's wait till sunday and see what they say once they walk off the field and i don't know how anybody could ever say our doomsday defense wasn't physical doomsday was versatile and violent [Music] number 79 harvey martin recorded the most sacks in the nfl and was named defensive player of the year this is beautiful harvey martin coming to you on a pretty windy day here in a brisk cold dallas texas and i guess you wonder why i call it the beautiful harvey martin show today we couldn't figure out why it was called beautiful harvey martin because i already wasn't the greatest looking guy in the world it was the cowboys 5-0 record that was truly beautiful [Music] the team's perfect 5-0 record in 1977 did not satisfy their perfectionist head coach he was more of a disciplinarian than he ever was and didn't let us get away with anything his critiques on the games after the games we played we would win the game 30 points or so and we'd go to that meeting on monday afternoon and it feel like we lost you know he'd beat us down he would never let us feel comfortable with what we had accomplished it was a great motivation to avoid coach landry looking at you because when he looked at you and and let and you knew that he's looking at you because you did something wrong mentally and you just wanted to crawl under the carpet you know it's hard to accept as a player his alif-ness and the fear that we had for him being men ourselves and fearing this man if he really wanted to get a picture of tom landry it would be in thousand oaks california with him on that two-story apparatus with a bull horn that's about as close emotionally that you got to him but the dour coach hid a whimsical side do you know me i'm one of the best-known cowboys in texas but a lot of people don't recognize me in a cowboy hat so i just carry the american express card it can help you out in plenty of tough situations because you never know when you're going to be surrounded by redskins heidi to apply for the card look for this display and take one the american express card don't leave home without it if he liked anybody he probably liked me but you know what i had no earthly idea of knowing that he never showed ever that he cared about any of us as an individual landry loved him now you know if you're going to look around the football team and wonder who does landry does he like anybody he loved charlie waters coach landry and i had a different rapport than coach landry and other players and the reason for that was is i played quarterback in in college and and then when i came to the pros i played defensive back and coach landry played quarterback in college and when he came to the pros he played defensive back coach landry also played corner in the pros when he really wasn't a very good corner he played he was really really good safety real smart and then that's just what i had to do also charlie walter's journey from also ran to all pro was a painful odyssey coach lander came to me and asked me to play corner and i was a very good corner i didn't have the speed to play corner so he made a sacrifice to play the cornerback position uh even though he knew he was really a safety he took a lot of beatings there got humbled in a lot of ways i remember charlie taylor continually beating him sometimes it just it didn't matter how smart you were or how much how much technique he used i just couldn't play out there because i didn't have the raw speed to play the cornerback spot and i was abused [Music] i've been exposed to a lot of hell at the cornerback spot i got booed at texas stadium and uh you know and that was hard and i got beat for touchdown passes in games to where when i'd go to practice the next day and i'd have to sit in the room with the offensive team and coach landry would point out that uh that i lost the gang and you know he was real blunt about those sort of things and so it taught me how to deal with adversity he paid his dues at cornerback and it's amazing that it didn't ruin his psyche knocked down but never counted out waters finally earned the admiration of his head coach coach landry got up in front of the team and of course this is the game this is a game that i lost the game for him and and he said to the team he said look you know charlie had a tough day yesterday that's an understatement and he said but you know if i'd had 45 guys that tried as hard as he did he said i wouldn't have lost a game in my whole career coaching with the switch to safety in 1976 waters became the brain behind the brawn of doomsday rarely out of position this coach on the field turned himself into an all-pro [Music] charlie is the smartest football player i ever played with and he had to because he had to tell me the damn play most of the time there's no one player i have more respect for [Music] what he sacrificed for this game in the nfl to play as long as he played it than charlie waters because we were the dallas cowboys because we were america's team we were in everybody's living room and people hated us we won dallas dallas we hate you dallas everybody that played us every game was like a playoff game the hated cowboys won their first eight games often as the result of its special teams can pick it up and run he's got it at the 15 at 10. he cuts for the goal line touchdown cowboys bob hammond waits for it at the 22 has it here comes the rush he fumbles the ball giants pick it up and head right now there's another fumble jason he has it goes in toward [Music] the cowboys had a strong supporting cast but the lead actor remained quarterback roger staubach who generaled this imaginative offense with precision [Music] with the game on the line captain comeback sought out mr clutch drew pearson number 88 pearson an undrafted free agent quarterback became the cowboys all-time leading receiver roger going deep for drew down the sideline 25 to the 10 to the five touchdowns [Applause] [Music] clutch yeah they call it clutch what he brought to the cowboys though was every week he vomited on the field you know he threw up and i would throw up too if i was as skinny as he was but he'd walk over to tom landry on a timeout and just throw up and everybody on the defensive side of the ball just loved drew pearson because they knew how tough he was as far as performing when you had to perform you trusted him you knew that he was going to give up his body over the middle and he was a twig he weighed 160 pounds 150 maybe he was just a guy you could count on i think it's a combination of things that happen that puts you in a position to to make those big plays and the number one thing is you got to have the confidence of the coach call your number in those situations you don't have his confidence you definitely have to have the confidence of the quarterback and i had roger's confidence pearson looked slow no one was fast enough to catch him [Music] with an 8-0 record the cowboys were primed for a rush to the players a goal the team leaders never lost sight of he was a leader for us both on and and off the field he not only did vocally but he showed by example i mean he he did it both and you don't have many guys that do that but he was he was our man [Music] for the 77 cowboys the glow of eight straight wins was dimmed by tony dorsett's failure to become the cowboys starting running back number 33 remained a pinch hitter because he could not grasp the complicated offense 1977 seemed like a lost season for tony dorsett [Music] i kind of almost gave up on that year you know until coach landrieu really pulled me in right before that 10th game of the season and told me he has been expecting me to start by now and that i need to just apply myself and work and act like i care on the football field because i was down i was down you know we're late in the season and i'm not starting so i'm not feeling very good about that in week 10 the nfl's most sensational substitute finally became a starter dorset had earned his cowboy spurs and prodded preston pearson to the bench preston's a smart player smart individual and he realized eventually that tony was going to have to be the man so preston got in the mode of how can i compliment tony dorsett when tony ended up taking the job as the starting tailback from him they moved him to the third down specialty back and and coach landry had special plays set up just for preston pearson he ended up being the most specialized player of the nfl he created a new position the third down back [Music] with pearson now a third down specialist could the undersized dorset withstand the punishment as a starter at 175 pounds people said well he's too small he's going to be too small to take the pounding of the national football all that did was put motivation into this body to make me want to prove people wrong yeah i was small but i was i always just said a thin piece of leather well put together tony was a power back not many people know that we ran him in third and won an awful lot he was blessed with a with a chassis that was uh powerful to pick up short yardage tony was different than any back that had come into the nfl at that time and that he had blazing speed he could start from a stop and go full speed after the second step which is incredible i mean he was zero to 60 miles an hour after the second step [Music] dorset coming left he's out to the 30. breaks to the right 35-40 still on his feet at the 51 more block he might go he's at the 30. he's being chasing the 20 to 15 to 10. touchdown cowboys he had that vision great vision and he could also see into the future on plays that were designed to go to the right he would bend it all the way back to the other side he could just see where the hole was going to be [Music] the handoff goes to door set dances in the secondary and head slap the 30 the 40 comes right to the 50 to the 40. he's gonna score tony norris 84 yards on the touchdown although he started only a handful of games dorset rushed for over a thousand yards and was named the nfl's rookie of the year [Music] the city of dallas treated its heroes like hollywood celebrities we were it in dallas we were like icons uh rock groups rock stars there's michael jackson than us we played hard we practiced hard we worked hard and we partied hard [Music] football team it's great time to be a down scalper a great time once we got somewhere you know like a club or something the line would be wrapped around the building and of course here comes a dallas cowboy right away we're ushered in and once we're inside the attention that we would get would be phenomenal a lot of things we did back then i'm sure it wouldn't be acceptable nowadays if we had gotten caught but we didn't get caught and we had a good time doing it you were exposed to just about anything that you wanted to be exposed to and and uh and we were hoping that all of us with the cowboys kept it together player that tom landry could not keep together was thomas henderson a burr under the head cowboys saddle i came into the dallas cowboys with a lot of disciplinary baggage i just didn't like authority my rookie year when i came to training camp he said to me uh you're gonna have to shave that beer what what are you talking to shade might be i didn't come here to shave my beard can you play football what do you mean shave my beard i'm not saving my beard in 1975 both henderson and number 54 randy white competed for the same linebacker position so he put me and randy white in competition for the strong side linebacker position i embarrassed randy white as a linebacker i could cover the tight end i could cover the back out of the backfield i could whoop it tight in after we compete for this job and i've won the job instead of landry saying thomas you're my starting strong side linebacker of course i was out of position i'm a weak side linebacker from heaven i played out of position my whole career after he told randy white you go to defensive tackle he says now thomas you're competing with mike heckman which really angered me i mean i mean i was angry because frankly i'd beat randy white out for the strong side job but he didn't give me that job until the beginning the first game of the season and when i got the job he said to me it was really close you know it was it was really really close you know as fast as henderson ran his mouth his legs were even faster thomas henderson was the most flamboyant cowboy a player who gave himself his own nickname hollywood tom ever since i've known you you've always been very low-key very cool very laid back are you really serious about all this hollywood stuff oh no jane it's a mere myth i had on a cowboy had a mink coat and cowboy boots and shorts in a limo at the practice field in dallas so you either call somebody like that damn fool or hollywood so he was charismatic and he was charming you know a lot of people on the team did not like him and hold it against him to this day that he brought so much attention to himself coach landry said thomas you're not going to play see you're not gonna start it was a saturday morning practice which is pretty much the dress rehearsal thomas put on a pair of combat boots walked outside crossed his arms and didn't move and he told coach he said he said you can replace me but you can't duplicate me he said if i'm not starting i'm not playing hollywood was such an athletic marvel that he turned defense into instant offense in 1977. no matter how spectacular hollywood played landry never praised him he congratulated a lot of mediocre people but never would say thomas had a great game congratulating thomas it's kind of like pouring gasoline on a fire on the field he often appeared disinterested off it the x's and o's board him one day we're in a meeting room watching film and it's the lights are off and i look around and thomas was sleeping while coach landry was running the film i had a nightlife and you know the nightlife you know didn't coincide with 8 a.m and 9 a.m dark room projectors clicking to put you to sleep and so coach landry got up and went over and flipped the lights on and he said thomas what are you doing with those glasses on this dark room i said you know cause i'm cool and when you're cool the sun is always shining while hollywood reveled in his celebrity the cowboys offensive line took invisibility to its extremes although they were the backbone of the high-scoring cowboy offense they took offense to any number but zero that's what zero means is nothing and these guys got no publicity whatsoever and they prided themselves on never being interviewed never did any appearances as dallas cowboy never bringing attention to themselves and rarely would the coaches ever mention them only time they they talked was where they're in that click in the zero club and the only time they were really asked to do interviews is when they you know did something negative they relish being the zero club and not have people talk about it it was a catch-22 because next thing you know they become popular here we are talking about the zero club and you know that's just not right you're not supposed to do that nobody's supposed to get any publicity zero was not a number associated with the offense dallas piled up points like a pinball machine they won their last four games to finish the season with a 12 and two record super bowl 12 was clearly in their sights [Music] all right there was little drama during the regular season and there would be absolutely none in the playoffs the championship chase began with a mismatch against the chicago bears defensively the whole game plan all we heard all week long was stop walter payton we stopped walter payton uh we got a good chance to win the football game we knew that they weren't going to be able to handle our defensive line and walter payton was a great running back the flex defense was designed to stop the run [Music] the bears could not run and they were not going to pass they had a quarterback named bob abellini uh not much chance bob avolini you know going to beat the doomsday defense the star of the cowboys 37-7 victory was charlie waters who intercepted a divisional playoff record three passes [Music] tony dorsett rushed for almost 100 yards and scored twice [Music] complete total utter domination the cowboys had one last baton pass to make on the anchor leg to super bowl 12. good afternoon everybody and welcome to texas stadium in irving for today's national football conference championship encounter between the dallas cowboys and the minnesota vikings i'm vern lundqvist along with frank lieber and brad sham and the cowboys favored to win this game and go on and meet either oakland or denver in the super bowl championship two weeks from today roger awaiting the snap takes it inside handoff dorset right side 10 5 touchdown in the nfc championship tony dorsett scored his third touchdown of the playoffs but it was the computer mind of tom landry that spit out the game-changing play he devised a strategy that exploited the aggressiveness of cornerback bobby bryant number 20. the whole key to the play was the the pump fake that roger put on bobby because bobby was what we call back then a clue and then a defensive back he would look into the backfield and then pick you up as you came off the line of scrimmage but the best way to beat them was with counter routes because the cluer would jump on the initial route now you pump that and then you send somebody deep you can get somebody behind him the key was trying to keep bobby bryan from reading the play and drifting back deep enough to affect the play [Applause] the 23-6 triumph propelled the dallas cowboys into super bowl 12. new orleans here we come every player that plays the game the ultimate thing is to get there to the super bowl we've made that mistake before by saying all we want to do is just get there and we did that in 75 and we got there and lost to the pittsburgh steelers so this time around we weren't just satisfied with just getting there [Music] in new orleans the cowboys faced the cinderella denver broncos and its orange crush defense there were many delicious subplots to this super bowl 12 match-up but it was the quarterbacks roger staubach and craig morton who provided the most ironic twist kind of a special treat i'd like to introduce you to fellas craig morton roger staubach roger this is craig morton hello mr stahlbach i've had craig before i believe have you met before i didn't realize that go hard go hard away go hard go hard number 14 wanted to be the starting quarterback of the cowboys that's good possession there for five years he waged a bitter battle with number 12 roger staubach for the job landry was so indecisive so unsure of who should lead his team that in one game he alternated the two quarterbacks on every play he finally ended the merry-go-round by choosing staubach morton was traded to the giants in 1974 for a number one draft pick that pick became randy white we felt real confident going into the game with craig over there we knew their offense we felt as though we knew how to beat craig he wasn't going to win this one he didn't have a chance [Music] it was doomsday in the dome another day at the office for the defense fold spindle and mutilate they overwhelmed morton and held the broncos to just 35 yards passing the worst thing that craig had going into that game was the fact that he played for the cowboys and the fact that coach knew coach landry knew him so well the one thing we knew that he couldn't do was run he had no legs to run he couldn't scramble so our whole philosophy on defense was to collapse that pocket around him we designed so many blitzes on the field i got to where i was changing blitzes on the field drawing it up on the ground we had a bliss with me going up the middle and i met the fullback that was designated to block me and i i got through him and got an arm up on craig's chest and pulled his shirt and the ball just flooded right into randy's hands doomsday was pretty much unstoppable in that game your offensive line couldn't stop him craig couldn't get rid of the ball and when he had time to throw the football our defensive backs our safeties were covering up their receivers [Music] morgan will throw has time this time the tennessee lets it go it's intercepted again picked off by aaron kyle suffocating defense allowed landry to make an aggressive play call in the first quarter with it fourth and one from the three the usually conservative coach disdained three points for six ball on the three-yard line staubach has it hands it off the door set drives touchdowns well actually we kind of knew we had this game won at halftime we were pretty much counting our money at halftime we were we were in control uh i mean we would really had to fall way off the cliff for us to lose this game he had plays in there to take advantage of what these guys were given to hit them for big plays to get the ball in the end zone the first dynamic play squeezed the juice out of the orange crush defense roger goes deep across the middle way down field and mud shots and caught touchdown a sensational diving catch by butch johnson the cowboys second year wide receiver we didn't just come up with those plays on the side we had worked those plays for two weeks in preparation to do those things in that game on that sunday you give to coach landry two weeks to prepare and uh you could probably end that war in iraq if you give them two weeks to prepare to do it you know i don't know why vern but i just have the feeling that tom landry might have a gadget that he might want to use in a situation like this [Music] bob had little hands and uh we used we were teasing him something horrible i thought they were just doing it as a joke uh at the end of practice because bob couldn't complete i don't think he completed one of the passes he threw in practice god please ball you know don't be a duck you know a quacking duck and he went to the right in practice every time and the ball was set on the hash so he had to go to his left and he turned around and set his feet perfectly and threw an absolute perfect pass [Music] over the gold folks for the orange crush after this [Music] [Applause] [Music] the cowboys had buried cinderella they stole her handbag crushed her corsage and shattered her glass slipper [Music] craig morton had always wanted to quarterback the cowboys to a super bowl victory on this day sadly he did from the beginning of 1977 to the finish the end result was inevitable a world championship victory in super bowl 12. and then when the final whistle blows you know it was a feeling of elation we finally did it you know we're we're world champions we reached our goal we accomplished everything we wanted to do along the way in doing that and it was a tremendous feeling of elation [Music] [Applause] it was a funny feeling because i was in that stadium a year previous at the university of pittsburgh playing for a national championship i thought that national championship was off the chain you just multiply that by 10 winning the world championship it's just it's just unexplainable it does a whole lot for your team man when you get there and you win this damn thing it's just unbelievable winning super bowl 12 is is my world championship i was with 45 guys that for better or worse i loved every one of them i can still say that you know january of 1978 i was part of the dallas cowboys football team that was world champion it was a feeling of a job well done i mean take a deep breath just saying to yourself hey yeah this is good it's the way it's supposed to be and all is right with the world i'll put this football team the 1977 football team up against any football team in the history of the nfl [Music] so [Music] for additional video content photo galleries and more from america's game visit nfl.com america's game [Music] my dad nicknamed all of us i had four older brothers we all had nicknames and uh hulk came about because of my as a kid they call me hawkeye my biggest features i guess as as a kid wasn't wearing my eyes uh even to this day my mom's like well quit stretching your eyes why are you stretching your eyes but uh as i got older um i guess i got a little more big-headed and kind of the eyes weren't so prevalent and they dropped the eye and just started calling me hawk and that's been with me ever since cowboys head coach tom landry could always count on captain comeback roger staubach number 12. here come the cowboys first down and goal from the minnesota 4-yard line 10-10 game play action roger pulls it up looks for a man he runs he dives he drives touchdown cowboys win roger staubach rolled out to his left pulled up wiggle him 10 yards officially four and the cowboys have defeated the minnesota vikings 16 to 10 in sudden death before a sellout crowd in bloomington two years earlier in the very same stadium captain comeback launched the hail mary pass well the cowboys need a miracle roger takes the snap humps it once he's going long down the near sideline for drew pearson pearson makes the catch of the five touchdown staubach hit pearson on a 50-yard touchdown what do you believe it i think the biggest thing about roger was the fact that he never quit even when the cowboys trailed by 15 points with 10 minutes left in the 1972 nfc playoffs [Music] with 52 seconds to go stalbox touchdown pass to ron sellers completed a 17-point rally in 10 minutes under post-season pressure the legend of captain comeback was born i believe that roger was going to win every game that we played in no matter how much time was left in the ball game i always believed that roger could win the game the greatest thing about roger styleback was he was a tremendous competitor you could not do anything with roger i don't care what you were doing whether you were just taking a 40-yard sprint or you were playing one-on-one basketball he's not going to let you beat him i don't care what the stakes are where it's just for fun that's what made him great when i went out against other teams they were the enemy i mean they i didn't like them and i i didn't particularly after the game go over and want to shake everybody's hand either i mean i i wasn't a poor sport but the heck that's you know those guys are the guys that you need to play again you need to beat them again and you can't you can't get too close to your enemy roger strawback would be what every parent wanted their son to be he is the epitome of of a gentleman he's epitome of a guy who who commits himself to a cause i've got more respect for him as an athlete than anybody i've ever played with or coached i just don't know of all the years i've played i just don't know of any player that i played with that disliked roger staubach there's certain guys you look at that you've played against and i'm proud to tell my kids i played against roger staubuck [Music] thomas hollywood henderson a number one draft pick in 1975 from langston was one of the best linebackers of his era as far as pure athletes thomas henderson was to me as good athletes as i've ever seen almost real different but the best linebacker i ever seen in my life henderson's career lasted only 75 games as off-the-field issues led to on-the-field breakdowns that threatened not only his football career but his life as well here's the life the life is alcohol drugs and sex let's go tee it up it was a lifestyle that led to prison look where you are boy man how in the hell did you get here from there how do you go from super bowl to cell block after completing a rehab program henderson cleaned up his act he still goes to prison but not as an inmate as a beacon of hope my name is thomas henderson and i'm a drug addict and alcoholic cocaine is what got me to my body cocaine kicked my butt i thought i was hips looking cool and tall tan and talented i was hollywood my money was long i'm strong i'm a big guy strong guy with me once thomas really cleaned up he has uh he's really been he's just been a fun guy and a great example to people and thomas when he cleaned up he's cleaned up i've got a new life because i'm sober and you'll have a new life if you'll stay sober thank you very much can you live down a sordid path of course you can can you become a productive citizen even after going to prison sure you can can you like yourself yes you can see i i am not my mistakes i am not my disease i am who i become in my recovery i'm a grown man now i'm a father i'm a friend i'm a taxpayer i don't live the way i used to live ed two tall jones stood six feet nine inches tall and had one of the longest careers of any cowboy player in history in 14 seasons jones never missed a game or a chance to take down a quarterback when he wanted to big ed could grab anybody and sling him like a dish rag and get the quarterback every time i set foot on the field i gave it my best and that's all you can ask after four seasons two tall retired to pursue a career in boxing even though the cowboys were poised to make a title run you think about all these people that sit on their couches at home and say hey i could do that you know or i'd get in the ring with mike tyson for 30 million dollars you know now would you really at the time the dallas cowboys were very very committed to going back to a super bowl and when tutal left to box we were all surprised upset because he was a part of the team that we wanted to see help us get to where we wanted to be and that was to the super bowl didn't matter i was doing what i wanted to do something i'd always wanted to do i'm a very competitive person i love to win but i knew though one day i would box i have an 85 86 inch reach which will be the longest in the ring i have a good left jab and the left jab is what control the fight i don't care what style fighter you're fighting if jabs controllers like football ball control is what controls football games well i have that natural jab although too tall jabbed his way to a 6-0 record for reasons known only to himself jones gave up boxing returned to the cowboys in 1980 and never missed a beat in 1982 jones was the nfl defensive mvp he was an all-pro twice played in 16 playoff games and three super bowls [Music] head two tall jones number 72 and two mean harvey martin number 79 gave the cowboys as fine a pair of defensive ends as the nfl has ever seen harvey was really told at one point in training camp that he was never going to make this cowboy football team because he was too nice and harvey took that to heart he came back to the room and we talked about it and i watched his transformation go from being too nice to too mean and he made the adjustment and he got mean overnight [Music] martin holds the cowboy records for saks in one season and career sex he was a four-time pro bowl selection and along with randy white a co-mvp of super bowl 12. we call randy white manster around here and that's you know what a master i'm just half man half monster he's the strongest man on team and he's one he's a super competitor i mean the guy has only one speed and his top speed my attitude was defeat the guy in front of me and get the guy with the ball whether it was a running back or the quarterback [Music] i was one of those guys at dallas that really felt like he should be our middle linebacker because i had played against dick butkus and randy white to me was the closest thing to dick butkus that i'd ever seen and he could outrun dick buckus he had that mean streak in him that that dick buck has had you know i was against movement with tackle but it became a perfect position for him the thing that makes randy white so great is that he never treats anybody different i don't care whether you're playing the best football player as an offensive line or the worst one randy white to me would have to be the finest defensive lineman along with deacon jones that i've ever seen play football the most dedicated hundred percent player that i've ever seen and he's as good a defensive player as i've ever been around he's got the motor he never stops he never thinks he's out of a play and he inspires everybody else by his play i think he's got a great heart great pride with the determination of a pit bull white won most of the battles in the pit but there was one long forgotten lineman that white just could not defeat i can't remember the guy's name but every time he'd play this guy he could not whip him i mean he was just bothering the death you know randy he just would get randy's number and randy just could not deal with him and so randy started doing some other stuff to him like poking him and stuff doing things like against the rules to try to beat him and uh after about the third time he played him the guy came over to randy says you know what your nickname is wrong he said you're not uh the master you're the manhole part man part in addition to giving manster his nickname charlie waters called the defenses in the huddle and occasionally delivered messages to white from head coach tom landry coach lander comes over and says hey charlie i want you to tell randy to quit jumping off sides he had jumped all sides two times prior uh in the game and uh so i tried back on the field like okay coach got you know so i try back on the field and i get in the huddle and i go okay we're gonna run this defense here we're gonna double this guy over here and you know we break the huddle and i turned around i said oh yeah randy coach landry tells me to tell you to keep up the good work i was no way was i going to reprimand the master for uh jumping offsides uh because he scared me to death early in his career charlie waters showed a marked proclivity for blocking punts i can make something happen on that punt team punt block team and i try my best to make it happen i really get fired up when it gets third down on defense because i know if we get to stop i'm on third down then i get a chance to get after another punt and the way i look at i want to find out what that punter's all about i want to test him i want to find out how good he is on every punt i don't i know what he can do just sitting back and punting without any pressure but i want to see what he can do with pressure on him and if we don't block the punt there's a good chance he's going to shank one every once in a while to punt a 30-yard one i'll get to a point at about four and a half yards i'll think i have a shot at it and i'll make my judgment then if i do then i'll go for it and sometimes i'll get it and this is what the punter thinks about you can't think about the pain factor you just can't let that compute if you do then you're never going to block a punt you've got to be pretty gutsy as far as not really worrying about getting injured of course the the offensive team is very much aware of our looks different looks that we've done the week before and weeks before that a couple weeks ago we gave the look we've been given in weeks past and then after they made their calls and figured out who they were going to block we shifted and they had no idea and of course time is a factor at that point and the biggest thing is we got 10 guys right up there on the line of scrimmage and if they don't block all ten on the numbers game's not right we got one guys going to be free and it ends up being pretty strategy oriented situation [Music] after giving up his body for years waters was finally rewarded with the fruits of a teammate's labors here's spike jones here comes the rush they block it jay sally charlie waters can pick it up and run he's got it at the 15-10 he cuts for the goal line touchdown cowboys you

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Id: w3gXuqRxmwY

Length: 59min 23sec (3563 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 10 2020